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sinkwriterIt's been a full week since Michael Jackson died, and it's taken me this long to find the words to express my thoughts about it. It's complicated.
Like so many, I feel conflicted about the man. One way or another, I'm sure most people have feelings (and probably even jokes) about his bizarre and troubled life as well as the questions surrounding his close -- or too close -- relationships with children. I have thoughts and theories, but I can't say with absolute certainty what I believe. I have no way of knowing what he did or didn't do.
What I can say for sure is that I think he needed major therapy, for many things but especially for the damage caused by his own stunted childhood and how it affected the way he looked at himself in the mirror. I wish someone had helped him before he altered his physical appearance so radically. As someone who has struggled with negative body image issues, I look at the dramatic differences in Michael Jackson photos from over the years, and I feel great sorrow for him. I wish he'd had someone in his life who could have helped him with that.
Mostly, I wish that kids today -- wow, does that make me sound old! -- knew him as the talented man I adored when I was a kid. I imagine so many just know him for his eccentricities and weird behaviors and odd plastic surgeries. That is so sad to me.
And so many of the artists in R&B today are simply emulating his style and his moves. (Even Justin Timberlake, who would probably be the first to admit Michael influenced him). Of course, Jackson himself got a lot of his stuff from James Brown, but he was only five years old at the time and already had so much natural talent, so there's just no comparison.
He was a phenomenal dancer, gliding across the floor like liquid, bending and contorting like smooth putty. His videos were innovative for their time, so amazing and fascinating to watch (during a period when MTV actually was about music and performance instead of excessive reality TV crap), and his music was undeniably outstanding... when he was a kid with the Jackson 5, when he was starting out as a solo artist, and by the time he hit his stride with Off The Wall and Thriller. I know it's been a while since he's been in the scene, but I can't imagine the music world without him.
I still remember sitting on the floor at my grandma's house, glued to the television set, watching the Motown 25th Anniversary special with my older sister, seeing him moonwalk for the first time and hearing the crowd gasp and cheer with delight. We played that "Billie Jean" performance over and over again, just to watch him move.
My sister was such a huge fan -- she had posters of him on our bedroom closet doors (the kind where his eyes were focused outward but everywhere you went, it seemed like he was looking at you, LOL), and she would tape countless TV specials about him and we would watch them over and over again.
I was too young to know him from the J5, but watching clips of his performances of "Who's Lovin' You?" astounded me. He was only five or six years old, yet he had such depth of expression, singing that bluesy song.
I also remember when the "We Are The World" single came out, and the local news interviewed my sister as she purchased it, on either an audio cassette tape or a 45, no less!
I watched all his music videos, each outstanding in its own right, but who could forget "Thriller"? I believe it was the first of its kind to be short-film length; as a story and as a music-and-dance vid, it was such a remarkable creative project.
And it scared the crap out of me.
(Hey, I was only, like, eleven or twelve, okay? And I was a very sensitive child. Okay, maybe the right phrase would be "big chicken baby." Shaddup. You want a piece of me?)
Anyway, I remember jumping in absolute terror when his head jerked up, his eyes all demon yellow, and his voice suddenly changed from his usual soft tenor to that angry, distorted bass as he yelled "Go away!" And my sister milked that... boy oh boy, did she love to scare me with that video. She used to play the song all the time, which was fine; I liked the song. It was the transformation section of the video that scared me. And at the end of the final scene, Michael looks at the screen and smiles this wicked smile and his eyes turn yellow again, and it just made me shudder. So Lisa would come up to me at unexpected moments and she would widen her eyes like Michael did, and get in my face and laugh like Vincent Price, until I either kicked her or yelled "Mo-ooommm, tell Lisa to leave me alone!" (Heee.) I'm a grown woman, I know there are no monsters in my closet -- at least, unless you believe the show Supernatural, heh -- but I nevertheless have to steel myself if I sit down to watch that video, because so many fearful childhood feelings rise up, like I'm still 11 freaking years old.
But the biggest thing for me was when Michael and his brothers had their Victory tour. On a total lark, my dad entered a contest for concert tickets (at Burger King, I think), and he actually won. But because the tickets turned out to be for the Detroit performance, and since he wasn't familiar with that area, he refused to take us. Plus, there was the matter of there being only two tickets. My brother was too little to go, my mom didn't really care to go, but my sister and I both desperately wanted to go. If my dad used one of the tickets, that meant he would have to choose between his two daughters, and there was no way. No way were we going to get this close to seeing Michael Jackson perform live and end up stuck at home. I remember we begged and pleaded for him to come up with a solution so we could both go. I remember saying, "Why did you enter this contest if you didn't know how you would handle it if you won? Were you really going to make one of us stay home?" And he simply laughed, "I honestly didn't think I was going to win." Ultimately, I think he sold those tickets, and he relented to our pleading by purchasing new ones for the Chicago venue, and the three of us went. The seats were in one of the nosebleed sections, but it didn't matter. The girl who sat next to us -- I recall Jermaine was her favorite Jackson -- convinced us to venture down for a better view. Her dad and our dad kept an eye on us from a distance, while the three of us ran down a few levels and stood against the railings. All I remember from that night was staying up very late, dancing manically, and watching both the stage and the big screen monitors in enormous awe. It was incredibly entertaining and exciting. He was a tireless, inspiring performer. (And even more thrilling -- that night, he ended up staying at the hotel for which my uncle was reservations manager, so my uncle got my sister Michael's autograph. Yeah, just my sister, not one for me, not that I'm bitter or anything. *GRIN*)
I confess, I haven't listened to his music regularly in years, but I feel sad about the news of his death. I believe the first words out of my mouth were, "No freaking way!" The more I thought about it, the more I felt like a large portion of my childhood had just died. It just feels so strange.
Therefore, tonight, I thought I'd honor Michael Jackson the musician.
Do any of you have favorite MJ tunes?
Here are some of mine:
* The Thriller album. Of course. It's essential. I love all the songs and played the entire album until the tape wore out, but what you may not know is that the one song I loved the most? Was the one song from that album that never became a big hit. It's the last track of the whole album, entitled "The Lady In My Life." Oh, I loved that song. Some boy was going to be my boyfriend and he was going to play that song for me, baby. (I'm still waiting for that, by the way. Heh.)
* "Who's Lovin' You?" by the Jackson 5. That little boy was amazing, I'm telling you.
* "I'll Be There" and "Got To Be There" by the Jackson 5. So pretty.
* "Working Day And Night" and "Get On The Floor" from the Off The Wall album. With their catchy choruses and stellar beat, both songs just make me want to get up and dance, and the surprisingly throaty "whyyyyyy don't you just dance across the floor?" from "Get On The Floor" tickles me to no end.
* "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" from the Jacksons LIVE album reminds me of my sister. And just this past weekend, in honor of our childhood, she played it and we danced and sang and laughed and laughed. Her five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter looked at us like we were insane, but it was so fun and eventually I got my niece to dance with me. Priceless.
* "State Of Shock." Come on, it's hilarious! Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, and all the Jackson brothers? Bizarre pairing, but really fun song. It cracks me up.
* Speaking of odd pairings, there's Slash and Michael on "Give In To Me" from his Dangerous album. Who would ever think to put those two people together? They're absolutely nothing alike! Yet I love the hard edge of that song, I like when Michael gets into it, and Slash's guitar playing is fantastic.
* Also from Dangerous, I love "Will You Be There" and "Keep The Faith." There's just something about gospel chorus backups... I will always be a sucker for a song with that element. The first song is so pretty and stirring; the second, so heartening (and has a kick-ass a capella section near the end). Good stuff.
* "Scream" by Michael and Janet Jackson. It's an unusual song and an even stranger video, but I loved seeing them finally do something together. Of all the Jacksons, I think Janet is the one that most parallels Michael in talent, and it was fun to see them dance and jam together. It worked well for me.
And finally...
This past weekend I attended Summerfest in Milwaukee with my sister (a fun yearly tradition we've had going for a while now), and while I was there, Lisa played a couple MJ songs I did not happen to know. They were from an album I didn't own because I'd slowly drifted from his music by the time it came out. But listening to these two songs, I found myself really impressed with the lyrics and the melody for each. (And they both have cool choir backups -- see, you just can't go wrong with that!) If you don't know these songs, I think you should give them a listen: "Stranger In Moscow" and "Earth Song," both from HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1.
As Michael would say, "Go with it. Jam!"
Thanks for strolling down memory lane with me tonight.
:D
Like so many, I feel conflicted about the man. One way or another, I'm sure most people have feelings (and probably even jokes) about his bizarre and troubled life as well as the questions surrounding his close -- or too close -- relationships with children. I have thoughts and theories, but I can't say with absolute certainty what I believe. I have no way of knowing what he did or didn't do.
What I can say for sure is that I think he needed major therapy, for many things but especially for the damage caused by his own stunted childhood and how it affected the way he looked at himself in the mirror. I wish someone had helped him before he altered his physical appearance so radically. As someone who has struggled with negative body image issues, I look at the dramatic differences in Michael Jackson photos from over the years, and I feel great sorrow for him. I wish he'd had someone in his life who could have helped him with that.
Mostly, I wish that kids today -- wow, does that make me sound old! -- knew him as the talented man I adored when I was a kid. I imagine so many just know him for his eccentricities and weird behaviors and odd plastic surgeries. That is so sad to me.
And so many of the artists in R&B today are simply emulating his style and his moves. (Even Justin Timberlake, who would probably be the first to admit Michael influenced him). Of course, Jackson himself got a lot of his stuff from James Brown, but he was only five years old at the time and already had so much natural talent, so there's just no comparison.
He was a phenomenal dancer, gliding across the floor like liquid, bending and contorting like smooth putty. His videos were innovative for their time, so amazing and fascinating to watch (during a period when MTV actually was about music and performance instead of excessive reality TV crap), and his music was undeniably outstanding... when he was a kid with the Jackson 5, when he was starting out as a solo artist, and by the time he hit his stride with Off The Wall and Thriller. I know it's been a while since he's been in the scene, but I can't imagine the music world without him.
I still remember sitting on the floor at my grandma's house, glued to the television set, watching the Motown 25th Anniversary special with my older sister, seeing him moonwalk for the first time and hearing the crowd gasp and cheer with delight. We played that "Billie Jean" performance over and over again, just to watch him move.
My sister was such a huge fan -- she had posters of him on our bedroom closet doors (the kind where his eyes were focused outward but everywhere you went, it seemed like he was looking at you, LOL), and she would tape countless TV specials about him and we would watch them over and over again.
I was too young to know him from the J5, but watching clips of his performances of "Who's Lovin' You?" astounded me. He was only five or six years old, yet he had such depth of expression, singing that bluesy song.
I also remember when the "We Are The World" single came out, and the local news interviewed my sister as she purchased it, on either an audio cassette tape or a 45, no less!
I watched all his music videos, each outstanding in its own right, but who could forget "Thriller"? I believe it was the first of its kind to be short-film length; as a story and as a music-and-dance vid, it was such a remarkable creative project.
And it scared the crap out of me.
(Hey, I was only, like, eleven or twelve, okay? And I was a very sensitive child. Okay, maybe the right phrase would be "big chicken baby." Shaddup. You want a piece of me?)
Anyway, I remember jumping in absolute terror when his head jerked up, his eyes all demon yellow, and his voice suddenly changed from his usual soft tenor to that angry, distorted bass as he yelled "Go away!" And my sister milked that... boy oh boy, did she love to scare me with that video. She used to play the song all the time, which was fine; I liked the song. It was the transformation section of the video that scared me. And at the end of the final scene, Michael looks at the screen and smiles this wicked smile and his eyes turn yellow again, and it just made me shudder. So Lisa would come up to me at unexpected moments and she would widen her eyes like Michael did, and get in my face and laugh like Vincent Price, until I either kicked her or yelled "Mo-ooommm, tell Lisa to leave me alone!" (Heee.) I'm a grown woman, I know there are no monsters in my closet -- at least, unless you believe the show Supernatural, heh -- but I nevertheless have to steel myself if I sit down to watch that video, because so many fearful childhood feelings rise up, like I'm still 11 freaking years old.
But the biggest thing for me was when Michael and his brothers had their Victory tour. On a total lark, my dad entered a contest for concert tickets (at Burger King, I think), and he actually won. But because the tickets turned out to be for the Detroit performance, and since he wasn't familiar with that area, he refused to take us. Plus, there was the matter of there being only two tickets. My brother was too little to go, my mom didn't really care to go, but my sister and I both desperately wanted to go. If my dad used one of the tickets, that meant he would have to choose between his two daughters, and there was no way. No way were we going to get this close to seeing Michael Jackson perform live and end up stuck at home. I remember we begged and pleaded for him to come up with a solution so we could both go. I remember saying, "Why did you enter this contest if you didn't know how you would handle it if you won? Were you really going to make one of us stay home?" And he simply laughed, "I honestly didn't think I was going to win." Ultimately, I think he sold those tickets, and he relented to our pleading by purchasing new ones for the Chicago venue, and the three of us went. The seats were in one of the nosebleed sections, but it didn't matter. The girl who sat next to us -- I recall Jermaine was her favorite Jackson -- convinced us to venture down for a better view. Her dad and our dad kept an eye on us from a distance, while the three of us ran down a few levels and stood against the railings. All I remember from that night was staying up very late, dancing manically, and watching both the stage and the big screen monitors in enormous awe. It was incredibly entertaining and exciting. He was a tireless, inspiring performer. (And even more thrilling -- that night, he ended up staying at the hotel for which my uncle was reservations manager, so my uncle got my sister Michael's autograph. Yeah, just my sister, not one for me, not that I'm bitter or anything. *GRIN*)
I confess, I haven't listened to his music regularly in years, but I feel sad about the news of his death. I believe the first words out of my mouth were, "No freaking way!" The more I thought about it, the more I felt like a large portion of my childhood had just died. It just feels so strange.
Therefore, tonight, I thought I'd honor Michael Jackson the musician.
Do any of you have favorite MJ tunes?
Here are some of mine:
* The Thriller album. Of course. It's essential. I love all the songs and played the entire album until the tape wore out, but what you may not know is that the one song I loved the most? Was the one song from that album that never became a big hit. It's the last track of the whole album, entitled "The Lady In My Life." Oh, I loved that song. Some boy was going to be my boyfriend and he was going to play that song for me, baby. (I'm still waiting for that, by the way. Heh.)
* "Who's Lovin' You?" by the Jackson 5. That little boy was amazing, I'm telling you.
* "I'll Be There" and "Got To Be There" by the Jackson 5. So pretty.
* "Working Day And Night" and "Get On The Floor" from the Off The Wall album. With their catchy choruses and stellar beat, both songs just make me want to get up and dance, and the surprisingly throaty "whyyyyyy don't you just dance across the floor?" from "Get On The Floor" tickles me to no end.
* "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" from the Jacksons LIVE album reminds me of my sister. And just this past weekend, in honor of our childhood, she played it and we danced and sang and laughed and laughed. Her five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter looked at us like we were insane, but it was so fun and eventually I got my niece to dance with me. Priceless.
* "State Of Shock." Come on, it's hilarious! Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, and all the Jackson brothers? Bizarre pairing, but really fun song. It cracks me up.
* Speaking of odd pairings, there's Slash and Michael on "Give In To Me" from his Dangerous album. Who would ever think to put those two people together? They're absolutely nothing alike! Yet I love the hard edge of that song, I like when Michael gets into it, and Slash's guitar playing is fantastic.
* Also from Dangerous, I love "Will You Be There" and "Keep The Faith." There's just something about gospel chorus backups... I will always be a sucker for a song with that element. The first song is so pretty and stirring; the second, so heartening (and has a kick-ass a capella section near the end). Good stuff.
* "Scream" by Michael and Janet Jackson. It's an unusual song and an even stranger video, but I loved seeing them finally do something together. Of all the Jacksons, I think Janet is the one that most parallels Michael in talent, and it was fun to see them dance and jam together. It worked well for me.
And finally...
This past weekend I attended Summerfest in Milwaukee with my sister (a fun yearly tradition we've had going for a while now), and while I was there, Lisa played a couple MJ songs I did not happen to know. They were from an album I didn't own because I'd slowly drifted from his music by the time it came out. But listening to these two songs, I found myself really impressed with the lyrics and the melody for each. (And they both have cool choir backups -- see, you just can't go wrong with that!) If you don't know these songs, I think you should give them a listen: "Stranger In Moscow" and "Earth Song," both from HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1.
As Michael would say, "Go with it. Jam!"
Thanks for strolling down memory lane with me tonight.
:D
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 03:25 am (UTC)Also, I love hearing (well, reading) your stories about MJ. Love him or hate him, he was definitely one of those people who have a profound impact on the musical world and on a LOT of people. How cool that you were able to see him live in concert when you were younger! And LOL at your dad and the contest. It's so sweet that he sold those tickets and then bought you guys your own so both you and your sister could go. Such a great fatherly thing to do ;)
As to my favourite songs of his...I have a lot. "Billy Jean" and "Thriller" would be two of my favourites. I also really loved "You Rock My World" and about a billion others!! Oh. And I TOTALLY love "Scream" too, even though it is an odd sort of song. There's something very appealing about it at the same time :).
Okay, going to stop talking now. I didn't respond to everything you wrote about, but know that I actually read every word :D. Thanks for sharing Sherry! *hugs* :)
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Date: 2009-07-06 09:20 pm (UTC)Thanks, Mel! *hugs*
But you can't deny the brilliance of his music. Or at least I don't think you can
LOL. My brother-in-law would beg to differ from our opinion -- he's definitely not a fan of the music; he's more of a Foo Fighters, Tom Petty, U2, and classic rock kind of guy -- but I think even he would acknowledge the contributions MJ made to the music world. That's unquestionable. Huge impact.
I wish I remembered more of the concert, but I was pretty young, and I think the whole night was a big swirl of excitement. But I do remember being really impressed and in awe. And I remember having a lot of fun. Yeah, my dad was very good to do that for us. Honestly, I think we wore him down with our whining and begging. I recall one moment when he said, "I'm thinking about it, but you two keep bugging me about it and nobody's going to the concert!" Heeeee. *is sheepish* We reeeeally wanted to go. *GRIN*
P.S. I'll let you know what I think of the first two Merlin eps ASAP, but first I have to write up a recap for an X-Files episode for a comm I joined this past year. It's harder than I thought it would be. Those recappers over on Television Without Pity make it look easy! LOL. Plus, you know I can't be brief. My recap's not going to be a page long. I'm hitting each scene with descriptions. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-07-16 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 12:52 am (UTC)Honestly, there's just so much to be said about Michael Jackson, isn't there? Not to mention the broad range of opinions out there about the man, his music, his behavior, his life, his persona, or his legacy. I personally find that people, once their minds are made up, are not very prone to having them changed, regardless of what they may or may not hear or see. I will admit to having long been a believer in MJ's innocence, but the reasons for that are fairly simple (albeit divisive):
(1) Learning the facts about the cases he faced helped clear the way for me to decide that for myself, though sadly many people are not aware of what these facts are.
(2) Having seen so much film of the man, observing how he interacted with others (and not just children), it seems almost impossible to believe he could have intentionally harmed anyone. MJ was nothing if not a regressed 10 year old, and as Madonna pointed out in her lovely speech in his honor at the VMAs, when you aren't allowed something (in his case, a childhood), you become obsessed by recapturing it. Watching MJ is often like watching a child in a man's body, which can be both incredibly endearing (what a sweet laugh and smile he had! and all that energy), but also worrying, in that he never seemed comfortable in his own skin. It seemed clear to me that Michael loved the company of children because they could offer what almost no adult in his life could; freedom from judgment, honesty, a lack of threat to his well-being, money or good name, or even just an escape to a simpler world from the larger one he never fully understood. It's a tricky issue, no matter how you look at it, that much is certain.
(3) I've always felt, and feel more than ever now, that race is a large, often ignored, part of the issue, when it comes to how the media demonized and convicted him. Long-term effects of vitiligo notwithstanding, Michael was a black man who took the world by storm in a way that no white musician ever duplicated, and if there's one thing that's still bankable in the world today, it's that racism is still alive and well; it just tends to manifest itself in far more insidious and subtle ways than it once did (which makes it all the more dangerous).
Of course, none of that is to say that the man never made a bad decision (he made plenty), had error-proof judgment (hardly!), or always learned from his mistakes (another part of being a regressed child is reacting to the world as one would, and that tends to mean needing to learn a hard lesson more than a few times). After all, he was human! I do think he definitely needed help, if only someone to talk some of these things out with, though I imagine that it became nearly impossible for him to find people he felt he could really trust with anything personal. I also am saddened by the issues he had with his image, and that he felt he had to change anything about himself, because I did feel he was a beautiful man (almost other-worldly, as Madonna put it, even when he was young). The media certainly didn't create his strange image entirely out of thin air, he did plenty on his own to perpetuate it. But, another thing I'll always (unhappily) bank on in this world is how quick we are to judge, demonize, fear or even hate the things we don't immediately understand. If there were ever a larger singular representation of that expressed in a popular figure than Michael Jackson, I'm not sure who that would have been.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 12:54 am (UTC)I can't say that I expected his death to hit me as forcibly as it has, because I didn't. But, there it is. Fortunately, seeing people returning to (or being introduced to) love of his music and dance, and the great contributions he made to so many people, and having other fans to talk with since, has been a very positive experience. What with the "This Is It" footage soon to be released, it's also bittersweet, but that can't really be helped. And damn, here is where I apologize for such a ludicrously long comment. I did warn you though, I still seem to have so much I want to say! Hopefully this means it's out of my system and I can shut up now, lol.
Oh! Lastly, you haven't heard "You Rock My World"? I did a routine to that song, and I love it. It's from "Invincible", which is arguably his weakest album, but it's still a great song (and video), I think. If you'd like, I could upload either one (or both) for you, no problem. :)