APPRECIATION
Michael Jackson: An appreciation of a musical genius
The King of Pop is dead.
In the brief, quiet space prior to the inevitable rush of tributes, well-intended rewritings of history and concert/wakes that are certainly coming our way, we are afforded a brief moment to consider what Michael Jackson’s death might actually mean—to us, to the world, to popular culture.
Jackson was the most popular pop personage of his era, and so it’s only fitting that the first person that comes to mind when considering his passing— the only reasonable pop corollary— is Elvis Presley. Like Jackson, he was a child prodigy, a man born to do what he did and, as much as it might pain us to admit, a highly talented individual given too much too soon and left lonely, isolated, and confused as to just what to do with all he’d been given.
Jackson was surrounded by yes-men from a tender age, folks who knew just how talented he was, but perhaps were more concerned with the potential meal-ticket than they were with a young kid who badly needed protection from the piranha-like forces of the music industry.
What will remain once the dust has cleared and Jackson has moved on toward whatever might come next? Certainly, some of the controversy surrounding his chosen lifestyle over the past 20 years or so. That’s grist for the mill, no doubt, and maybe deservedly so.
But what about the music? Was it all for naught, an ephemeral “next big thing” that will fail to mean anything past its immediate milieu? Without a doubt, Jackson’s importance will fall victim to hyperbole but is elevated with vigor to the stature of sainthood, simply by kicking the bucket.
Pop music, when viewed within the grand scheme of things, quickly feels, looks, smells quite meaningless. If Michael Jackson’s great legacy is reduced to his paving the way for the megastardom of Madonna, Justin, Britney, et al, then maybe we should just let him go without trying to frame his impact. There will be another one within a year, right?
Jackson, however, is too important to the history of pop music to write off with such a cavalier air.
Yes, the short, sharp pop tune was his trade, and no, he’s hardly Stravinsky or Miles Davis. He might not even be Sly Stone, in terms of obvious musical significance.
He meant so much to so many, though.
Witness the way he was greeted in every country he played as an ambassador, not just of America itself, but of African America.
That alone is a huge thing, a barometer of how far this particular country has come in terms of the opportunities afforded African Americans.
Jackson’s genius offered us a bridge between Berry Gordy’s Motown empire — a brand of genius with pop songs that could appeal across color lines but still retain a strong connection to race, a soulfulness, and a cultural identity — and what would come next. Sadly, what came next was disco, but even within that vapid framework, Jackson, both with his brothers and without, made meaningful art.
“Don’t stop till you get enough” might now act ably as a requiem for ’70s excess. But in the sublime manner with which it made soul relevant for yet another generation, the song for which this lyric acts as a chorus becomes transcendent.
Echoing Smokey Robinson, the Four Tops, Jackie Wilson, and even Sly Stone as he did, Jackson fused classic R&B to pop, reaped massive success as a trade-off, and went on to become the funkiest American we all could tout as our own.
The singing — exemplary and soulful and incredibly hip right to the end. The dancing, the spectacular presentation, the whole cult of personality — these will endure, no doubt, and they should.
But the records — all of the work with the Jackson Five, the Jacksons, and the solo efforts “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” — these are the true documents of the man’s genius.
Let Michael Jackson’s music speak for itself. And with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
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