| | February 3, 1959 was The Day The Music Died. June 25, 2009 was The Day The Freak Show Closed Its Tent.
If I hear "icon" one more time, I'm going to puke. I finally looked it up, and as I don't think many people double-click on a celebrity, I assume they mean "an object of uncritical devotion" when referring to Michael Jackson. I think this is actually a valid usage, since even as he was on trial for child molestation, there were idiots crying for him outside the courthouse.
For the record, I'm am one of the approximately sixteen people left in the world who doesn't own a copy of "Thriller." (If you look at the sales numbers, there must be people that own the CD and don't own a CD player or have access to electricity.) I hated the song and I hated the video.
There are so many issues with MJ that I have a hard time trying to get my head around all of them. Does your professional body of work excuse your personal behavior? Is popular the same as good? Is just singing a song as important as writing the lyrics and music, arranging it, and actually playing the instruments?
Jackson was one of Generation X's "tortured artists", although many of them would probably rather claim Kurt Cobain, who was much cooler (Actually, I hated Nirvana, as well.) I really don't consider Jackson of my time (he was a year and a half older than I) because I was listening to actual music by the time he started recording,and his target was teenagers (as most pop music seems to be.)
If you produce two good albums in a three year period (one the best-selling album of all time as we're constantly reminded this week), followed by a lesser one five years later, does that excuse you from multiple charges of child indecency? Personally, I don't think so. (Apparently, it does give you enough money to make some of the charges go away.) Child molestation is not justified by making a bunch of half-drunk white kids dance.
(I have to base my ratings on the reviews, since I don't think I've ever heard more than the singles from "Off The Wall", "Thriller" and "Bad." MTV over-played the videos so much, I hated most of the songs before I really had any time to form an opinion. I did think Weird Al's versions were funny, but once or twice.)
What makes you a recording artist? How much do you have to do? Jackson wrote or co-wrote three of ten songs on "Off the Wall", four of nine on "Thriller" and nine of eleven on "Bad." Which one had the lowest sales? The one where he wrote the majority of the songs. It could be a coincidence, since it's very difficult to top a massive album, but I find it interesting.
So, for all those people who thought he wrote great albums, notsomuch.
For all the people that thought he was a great musician, look at the album credits. He is usually credited with vocals and some sort of percussion. Not much instrumental contribution. (This would prove useful later, since it's hard to play an instrument while running around a stage, groping yourself.)
Basically, he was a singer. He was a very popular singer, to be sure, but if you think someone can run around a stage and still sing breathlessly, you're delusional. So, he sang on albums. Other people played the music, Quincy Jones produced it. Most of the time, other people wrote the lyrics and music.
So, for all the people that think MJ was the equivalent of the Beatles, think more "Frank Sinatra." They had the same roles on the records. Now, go tell a bunch of people that someone who sold a boatload of records in the 1980s is as important as Sinatra. You might want to do this from a distance.
It's revealing to look at the credits on his albums (visit www.allmusic.com, for example.) It took an army to produce those albums. Contrast this with, say, the Beatles, who would have their producer play keyboards or add a string quartet or Eric Clapton from time to time, but otherwise it was just them. They wrote it, they arranged it, they played it, they produced it.
Sales do not equal talent.
What were his contributions to culture? So many people seem to be praising him for his contributions now that he's gone.
- He showed black people could make videos that MTV could safely play. I am not alone in thinking that MTV helped destroy music (ironic, since it's sister VH1 is constantly trying to save it), so this is a dubious accomplishment, at best.
- He showed white people would listen to black singers. (Wait. B. B. King? Nat King Cole? Everyone else on Motown?)
- He made it permissible to grrab one's crotch in public without being an athelete that just took on in the 'nads. Did we really need this to advance our culture?
- He made the video and the stage show more important than the song. (See "destroying music" above.)
- He sold a hundred million copies of a single album (more or less, depending on source.) This is a business accomplishment. (If sales are a cultural accomplishment, thank you, Peter Frampton, for making double-live albums possible.)
I don't think "popular" is the same as "good." A lot of people drink to excess, so that's popular, but it's not good. People smoke, and that's not good. People will watch wrestling, but not Masterpiece Theatre. Romance novels outsell most literature. This does not give value to any of these, except in the eye of the producers and publishers.
I can't miss Michael Jackson because he hasn't done anything that actually reached me, other than saturating the airwaves during his various surgeries and trials and again at his death. His music just didn't appeal to me. Apparently, it did to millions, and that's fine, but "Thriller" was a long time ago.
If you have a "tortured artist" whose last really successful album was in 1982, why do so many people still care today? A quarter of a century is a long time between hits. In the meantime, his personal life and travails are what have kept him in the spotlight. I'm not sure I would want to be listed in history as "famous freak/occasional performer/sometime recording artist."
My sympathies to his family, since the loss of one dimishes many. (My sympathies also to the families of all those who died anonymously in the past few days.) My condolences to his accountants who have to figure out if the portion of the rights to the Beatles catalog he still controlled can cover his debt load when liquified. My congratulations to the psychologist who gets to treat his kids, because that should be a lucrative account.
Can we talk about real news now?
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| | Posted 6/27/2009 11:03 AM - 91 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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