June 27, 2009
Michael Jackson Meant Nothing to Me
This is the post that will get my ass kicked outta this place.
I am utterly utterly baffled by all of the boo-hooing over Michael Jackson. I don’t revel in the news of his death, nor do I smirk and say, “Well, he got his comeuppance.”
I just don’t care.
I dug those Jackson Five singles. I really did.
Then there’s “Ben”. What’s not to like about a love song addressed to a rat?
And “Off the Wall” still sounded like a human song.
But I lost the plot with Thriller. Is this evidence of a generation gap?
That’s what I’m thinking. People who were little kids in the early eighties latched onto Jackson as he was right then and right there.
It’s really weird. I think back to the demi-decade of 1980-1985 and get to thinking of narcissistic, neurotic pop stars, figures who flirted with and embraced self-parody, performers who’ve recorded little of interest in twenty-five years — and I get to contemplating who they might be and which of their dated hits I still listen to.
I still listen to Prince, both as he was then and as he is more or less now, and I still get off on the man. I guess I never really listened to Michael Jackson. Nor got off on him.
(P.S. The five-minute ‘LP version’ of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” remains the best and the nastiest.)
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39 Responses to “Michael Jackson Meant Nothing to Me”
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Yesterday NPR was airing another story about people crying in the streets over the loss of the King of Pop and I blurted out to Alicia, “I just don’t get it.”
Sure, I felt like the world lost something when Hunter S. Thompson died (my mom still tells people how I received several phone calls that day making sure I knew) but I didn’t cry. I didn’t light candles. I merely felt sad for his family. It’s the same way I feel when I hear about a kid who lost his life to a senseless act of violence or a story about a solider that won’t be coming home. It’s a loss of life and it’s sad, but I’m not going to miss Michael Jackson, personally. Nor will I miss Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, David Halberstam (and that was a tragic, untimely death)…
I can think of dozens of deaths that would shatter my heart but the deaths of celebrities are not among them.
Thank you, Michael Smith of California. Ordinarily I am not insecure in my feelings and beliefs, but I was beginning to feel like a right weirdo.
There’s always a chance we’re both weirdos.
I remember listening to Bad on tape. I liked Michael Jackson, but his death didn’t really affect me. It’s not going to change my life.
Sheila, you know I can’t weep many tears over someone who sang, “You and I must make a pack.”
I think his death is sad and big, but I never bought any of his albums. Now, when Prince dies, I’ll have to go to bed for a while.
ditto on Prince. I think my sadness about his (Michael’s) passing has nothing to do with his music or fame: just the sad reality that he never had a chance to outgrow his pain and find a life for himself beyond the abuse.
Michael, Range, Cindy: Why didn’t someone from the BBC interview you yesterday? I really got a bellyful of hearing people from Turkey to Eritrea to Antarctica moaning and slobbering over Jackson’s death. I’d have appreciated hearing more of y’all saying what you’re saying.
It was sad. True. But — hey. Better him than me.
Michael, I think that the odds are in our favor. We are the weird.
Cindy, you and me have got to go pierce Prince’s fortress before he shuffles off this mortal coil.
I don’t think it’s a generational gap; I think it’s a Jackson gap. I never got him, either.
I felt bad for the guy, because he seemed so completely fucked up, and I respected him, because he seemed to work really hard on his performances. But if I’d managed to somehow never hear another Michael Jackson song again in my entire life, I wouldn’t have missed them.
I particularly loathe “Billie Jean.” And those little squeaky noises he was always making? Ick.
Speaking of Prince, though, did you see the video that’s going around of James Brown, MJ, and Prince, from, as Woot put it, “a jaw-dropping after-hours jam in LA in 1983″?
Prince, man. Fucking Prince.
Sheila, I have a feeling the reason I wasn’t interviewed is because I was at work, going about my business and avoiding conversations about Michael Jackson.
Oh, India. Oh, girl.
Where was I in 1983?
Oh. Now I remember.
Not in LA. Got-dam.
Born under a bad sign and had a relapse.
At first I actually had the thought, Good riddance. I couldn’t understand how people could overlook his child molestation charges, nor how anyone could see his death as a loss when it seemed to me that the Michael Jackson they know and love has been gone for a long time.
Then I confessed all this to a coworker who reminded me that he was thrust into the spotlight at age six and treated like a puppet for the next twenty years. So now I’m sad for him, but not for his death.
Kelsey, none of the personal stuff about Jackson affected me in the slightest. And he was, after all, acquitted. Acquitted of charges that damn you the instant you are accused, no matter the truth.
I’m really not much interested in lifestyles of the rich and famous.
But I do care about art. And Michael Jackson’s music bored me, by and large, when it did not annoy me. (Like India, I despise Billie Jean. Not taking the moral ground. Just saying it is a dumb and irritating song.)
I believe I understand your response, and I am more in synch with it than I am letting on.
I just get annoyed when legal charges that were never more than charges hover over a person for all eternity. I’m not cross with you.
I think, maybe, I’m really much more biased against his body dysmorphic disorder. Because you just made me realize that I, too, “get annoyed when legal charges that were never more than charges hover over a person for all eternity.” I guess you could say that it was my imagination — picturing the pale reflection of who he used to be trying to coax little children — that upset me.
I hate to admit it, because it really shouldn’t change anything, but if pre-plastic surgery Michael had been on trial I doubt I would have believed the charges.
Damn, Kelsey. I’m going to sit quietly and ponder that.
I know. It’s bad, isn’t it.
this is a good conversation.
Sheila, re: getting into Prince’s Jehovah’s Witness fortress before any of us kicks: We have a pack.
Oh my my. What is it with this Jehovah’s Witness thing?
Van Morrison. David Thomas. Prince Rogers Nelson.
I do admire those people when they say, “I don’t want your bourgeois flag-waving.”
Our Phil, when he is in Kritsa (Crete), socializes with neighbors who are Witnesses and did time in prison courtesy of the Greek government in the not-so-very wayback days.
I hate to admit it, because it really shouldn’t change anything, but if pre-plastic surgery Michael had been on trial I doubt I would have believed the charges.
I’ll admit that Michael Jackson has creeped me out for a long time a lot of it has to do with the way he looked (made himself look). I always have to remind myself he was aquitted and that bothers me.
The Michael Jackson I admired died with the first nose job. I really liked that cute little boy with the pretty voice who sang I’ll Be There back in the 60’s. The other Michael Jackson, the one who showed up later, I didn’t know what to make of him.
Alls I know is that couple with all the adopted children aren’t leading the news any more. Who the hell were they, anyway?
I didn’t think those kids were adopted. Are we talking about different things? Where the hell am I?
Maybe the world doesn’t make sense without Michael Jackson.
Adopted or not, who are those people and why were they all over the news?
I’m just gonna come out as the Clusterflocker that loved, adored and grew up with Michael Jackson as the King of Pop truly believing in him. I am in the age group Sheila mentioned that was kind of clusterfucked by the arrival of MTV and adolescence at the same time. To us, Michael Jackson was spoon fed, but we ached for more. One part media machine, one part genuine sad talent, I could never get enough.
Later when he got weird, it was like going to see a freak show at a carnival. It was wrong, but we couldn’t look away. Then the allegations and the baby dangling. During those times, I had to divorce early Michael from late Michael, just so that I could listen to Off The Wall without mentally castigating myself for supporting such an odd creature.
Now, I am sad. Not like crying sad. But kind of bummed that he won’t come back and have a late career revival. I was holding out hope that the smoke would clear and we would see little Michael in his later years singing Ben and kicking his ankles around.
I was never really into Michael Jackson’s music. I don’t like the fact that he potentially diddled some kids.
It seems like he was crazy, maybe partly because of his upbringing.
To me, he wasn’t the “king of pop”, someone worthy of adoration, but rather a sick weirdo that occasionally showed up to become white, or get a new nose, or dangle his kid off a balcony.
Maybe it’s insensitive for me to be saying these mean things but the only other feeling I have for him besides dislike is an intense pity; and I find pity more disgraceful than dislike, to living and dead. He must have had some real demons.
This outpouring of grief is akin to that shown in the UK after Princess Diana died. None of us really knew her, yet the public went crazy. I was still living in the UK at the time and I was looking at everyone around me thinking “what is it that I don’t get?”.
Best comment of that week though goes to my greatly missed Grandmother, who on watching the TV coverage of the funeral remarked about Westminster Abbey “They’ve done the floors nice haven’t they?”. I miss my Grandmother so much.
Chris, your grandmother sounds tip-top.
All the way through Thriller, I really, really like the Michael Jackson. So that’s like 15 or something years of pretty remarkable work and done between the ages of 10 and 25. Being that age and making that music in that way (that’s a ton of adolescent and teen magic… plus if you include Bad and Dangerous which have some solid spots) then I can see how a LOT of people would go apeshit when the guy dies… even independent of his really weird public/private life. I mean, a lot of people went nuts when Kurt Cobain died and, relatively speaking, he wasn’t very well known.
I never really thought it was fair to compare Prince and Michael and JB. I guess they’re all super-crazy, super-talented black dudes with processed hair? What they do is pretty different.
“Lots of people died yesterday, not just celebrities. I don’t understand what the big deal is”
True…Your car mechanic’s great uncle was a fine person, but he didn’t sing the songs that defined our youth.
People cried when Elvis died, but MJ was actually profoundly more talented than Elvis. Elvis had the moves and he captured the zeitgeist, but MJ wrote and co-produced the songs, and he was just an inveterate motherfucker of a performer. For those who don’t get why people are upset at this, or why it is truly an actual big deal in people’s lives, Miss Paula Carino puts it very well here. I have my own personal sense of this moment, but I think she pretty well captures the heart of the matter, and a good take on things to those who don’t get it.
I have a lot to say about MJ’s passing. The thoughts are still gathering.
Thanks, Lucy.
I was holding out hope that the smoke would clear and we would see little Michael in his later years singing Ben and kicking his ankles around.
Oh God that is so it, Mary. That is so fucking it.
Everyone dies. Not everyone dies in a way or at a time that makes sense.
A friend, in conversation tonight said something like. “But he was known as no other has been. He was known in Nigeria for Christ’s sake.”
None of us will live to see if he stands “the test of time.” Elvis is still with us. But we have only 32 years to measure his contribution by. A hundred years, or further, hence, will either be remembered? Time will tell.
But a person’s value is not about whether they’ll be remembered or not. Maybe everyone will be a doofus in a hundred years time, or maybe everyone will be shot up on demerol. I listen to MJ’s golden period and that stuff is fucking groovy like the motherfuck. Its fucking bone marrow is made of grooviness.
Rick, for me, he IS the test of time. No other artist in my lifetime achieved such dominating success for so long. I won’t be around in 100 years to see how history judges him. And honestly, I don’t care how subsequent generations judge him- he was my pop hero, and not everyone has to love him.
Another thing I’ve been wondering: did Elvis fans have to justify their mourning the way Michael Jackson fans seem to? I think Elvis had a fantastic fall from grace, but it seems like the pernicious mean-spirited tabloids were really at their worst with Michael. Maybe this has something to do with why my mourning is sprinkled with weird apology.
Also, as an unashamed and professional-amateur rug-cutter, I still know Michael Jackson as every DJ’s A-game. It’s played when the precise critical mass has hit the floor, and everyone is given permission to just go crazy. Whether you own the record, or are indifferent, if you like to dance, you know that moment. The moment when dance floor catharsis is experienced en masse. It’s a beautiful moment, everyone in the room seems to sing with energy. Right now, that’s going on non-stop all over my city, and I kind of love it. I can literally dance in the streets.
Commencing to feel like the resident MJ-hater, and that’s not it at all.
Trying to figure out what it is I am trying to tell y’all.
Watch this space.
I was more bummed to hear Ed McMahon died. But that too was a “Oh Ed McMahon that sucks”. And off to continue the rest of my life.
Some of the grief “news” is the desire to be “seen” making a gesture of grief because they believe it is expected. It’s like the old ladies that you would hear about that just spend thier days going to funerals crying even if they don’t know the person.
Grief of a death allows us an “approved” way to cry and beat our chests in public. The thing they are could really be grieving is the loss of thier youths. The loss of dreams or even the fear that when they die no one will grieve.
I do find sadness in Hunter S. Thompson’s death. I was sad that he would do something that hurt his family and friends so incredibly deeply is sad and the loss to the world of more of his view on life.
You should not have to applogize or feel bad for not really having his death be a blip on your emotions. And we should not judge those that are rageing in grief if it is what they need to do they aren’t hurting anyone so let them cry, lord knows with everything going on in this world right now they very likely are crying out some other things they have needed to cry out.
PS. Wonder how many calls E got lastnight since the Chelsey Lately was taped earlier in the week and they were cracking on the news that had come out earlier in the week about Lou Ferigno was going to be training MJ for his tour. Sorry But it was funny and those that were freaked out by it being aired lastnight need to think about how hard they would have been laughing had MJ not died.
No I don’t think anyone thinks you are a MJ hater at all. If anything, you have provided the currently only place on Clusterflock to talk about him.
I don’t think any of us needs to feel defensive about our views of Michael Jackson. Some of us loved him, some of us didn’t. I loved to watch him dance and loved the pureness of his voice, but I didn’t love his music. I think it’s sad that he died so young; I think it’s sad that the public objectifies celebrities; I think it’s sad that he was obviously fucked up and in a lot of pain. But I’d much prefer to see some news coverage of Iran rather than the endless coverage of the fact that Michael Jackson is still dead and people are still upset about it.
Well of course people are still upset; he’s only dead a couple of days. But the coverage is more about the salaciousness of the story and his iconography than anything to do with the quality of his music. We live in that kind of culture. That’s how it is. But to be honest, the story has really slipped off the British and Irish front pages now, it’s much lower in priority until the next big thing, probably the funeral, or autopsy reports.
The Iran story is interesting, because it is not a popular revolution, but it is highly publicised because they are ‘on our side’, and they are the educated and the progressive aspects of Iranian culture. But it doesn’t seem to have taken off. It’s still very much in the news, there just isn’t that much to say at this point. It sounds like the first step toward something, toward a vocalisation of difference rather than any kind of overthrow. And for Iran or any country, living with that kind of dissonance in society, and dealing with it, is an ongoing process. The way that news arcs go is that there is an urge for an ‘end’ or resolution to the story, which is just not going to happen here, so it’s likely to peter out, naturally, and submerge back into the noise of world news, to be listened for by those who care.