Michael Jackson, transformer

He still worked for large crowds on stage, but -- for cosmetic and psychological reasons we may never understand -- close ups came to seem like a very bad idea.

On his wikipedia there's a mention that he might've suffered from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (among other things), a body image mental illness that is particularly nasty, and much more likely to end in suicide than any other mental illness. If that's the case, his continuing to perform at all is very impressive.

And while I think you and the critic you quote have your points, I think there's something much more pathetic about pop music that tries to 'grow up' and be deep. It usually ends up feeling sophomoric, because 1. It's still pop music, and 2. The performer is usually not very deep or grown up, whatever he believes.

There's something reassuring in Jackson's mechanical perfection as a performer. He seemed not to take the music (as such) seriously except as work, as some task he had to perform as well as he possibly could. He didn't invest in it except as something he had to labor on and perfect - there was nothing of him in it except the perfection of the act itself. So no sloppy sophomoric emotion, no embarrassment of a pop singer singing a pop song he thinks is itself an emotionally deep, mature piece of Art. Jackson recognized that the entire art lay in the performance itself, in the perfection of the thing, and that it was (and ought to be) superficial. I think he understood pop music better than most other artists (and better than ALL pop music aficionados, people who dearly wish they'd grown up to be literary critics, but instead have to expend their energy taking disposable crap much more seriously than they should).

So ultimately I approve of him as a pop artist and find him to have been very intelligent about it. As a man I feel tremendously sorry for him.

JE: I do, too. Your point about pop music is quite germane (sorry), too. But look at his former labelmates Stevie Wonder (also a child star) and Marvin Gaye. They didn't have to "try" to grow up and develop their music; they expressed their maturity through their music (and had to fight Berry Gordy to do it). Jackson had his own pop pretensions (whether "Ebony and Ivory" or "Man in the Mirror" or "Dirty Diana"), and the most excruciating ones involved him giving a patently phony performance, trying unconvincingly to "be" someone he was obviously, painfully not.

This is the second article I've read that I think actually touch on people's feelings about MJ and his death. Very accurate and very touching.

I haven't read all the other comments but about that Motown performance. . . I'll never understand why it's considered one of the greatest live performances because: He LIP-SYNCED the song!! Okay, it was an energetic DANCE performance but isn't that the one thing that makes Britney Spears a joke at her performances? Didn't Ashlee Simpson get burned and embarrassed for doing that on SNL? I'll don't get why, 25+ years later, he STILL gets a pass for NOT SINGING that song. I mean, the song actually FADES OUT and he's still moving his lips to it!! Ugh.

Jackson will prove (and is, indeed, already proving) to be one of those enigmatic personalities we endlessly prod and poke and dissect and reconstruct to fit our own vision. A hero to some, a monster to others, a pathetic cautionary example to others still, and so many other roles he will play. He joins a list that includes persons as widely varying as Thomas Jefferson, Adolf Hitler, Howard Hughes, and Andy Kaufmann, who cause us to ask both "How?" and "Why?". We will never "figure him out"; no one ever knows anyone completely. We will all proffer our opinions, with varying degrees of authority (or pretend authority: Ebert's eulogy is hysterical), and ultimately we will be left with what we know, what we think we know, and what could never be known, no matter how close you were to the man. A symbol is born.

JE: And that's what we do with symbols and public figures: we project ideas and emotions onto them. But it's because there's something in them that elicits these responses in the first place. I doubt anybody knew Michael Jackson as an individual; but millions responded to the public images he put out there.

Thanks again JE for having actual thoughtful and relevant things to say about MJ instead of all the boring fluff that's clogging news outlets everywhere and drowning out real stories like Iran.

Waiting for the inevitable unauthorized MJ biopic in persona-kaleidoscopic style of I'M NOT THERE. But it seems like there were even more stages of Michael than Dylan and all freakishly different, so maybe the best thing to do would be to make it almost as an anthology film, like the one of FREAKONOMICS currently in production, where each segment has a completely different director.

pbjmahwah: Lip syncing is a long accepted tradition, especially when it comes to pop music and live performances that are physically demanding. Jackson deserves a pass because he did it well, unlike obvious flops like Ashlee Simpson's performance on SNL and mediocre dancers like Britney Spears. Don't forget that Jackson's dancing is as much an integral part of his performance as the music.

Which reminds me of the trippy theatre sequence during David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr." - perception, performance and the perception of performance.

I suspect that people will become more comfortable with the musical legacy of Michael Jackson after his death. The disintegration of his public persona seemed to make it awkward to admit that you enjoyed Jackson's music. Who can be a fan of a purportedly self-mutilating, child-molesting man-child? Anyone who was public about their adoration of the music came off as a "hard-core" fan - someone who could look past the disturbing images and stories (or, someone who is pro-destructive plastic surgery and/or child molestation). Unlike Elvis, I suspect that people will gradually (maybe quickly) regress to memories of the young, attractive Michael Jackson and ignore the scarier, older person that was supposed to be Michael Jackson. I can only imagine the contrast between those postage stamps.

As an artist, I think his work should be celebrated (Jackson 5 and at least his first few solo albums). As a person, it all seems a bit tragic in retrospect.

Jim, your post here and Josh Marshall's over at TPM really got me thinking: Maybe Todd Haynes should do a sort of follow-up to I'm Not There, but based on Michael Jackson's life. I'm serious. I think it would be fascinating for an experimental-ish filmmaker like Haynes to take on Jackson's life. I'm also reminded of a lecture I had in freshman philosophy back in college. My professor read aloud a column about Jackson's tribulations, and the columnist said Michael was robbed of his childhood, or something similar to that. It was an almost throwaway line, but my professor latched on to it. To him, he said, Michael Jackson never left childhood.

Here's the Marshall link, and an excerpt, by the way:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/i_suppose_everyone_was_surprised.php?ref=fpblg

"I think it's because so much of Michael Jackson's life seemed like make believe. Sometimes farcical. But always like play acting, somehow. So much theatrics. So many costumes. And on various levels the desire -- often frighteningly realized -- to deny or defy his physical self, his age and much more."

In a cultural studies class I made a video project about creativity. Is there such a thing as genius? Is it all hard work? Then why ever praise anybody for their brilliance? It's not like they're special or anything. So praise them for hard work, like you would an athlete, cause, like sports, it's all a matter of luck beyond the blood sweat and tears.

Was MJ a product that could have been manufactured from anybody? Was his work ethic simply a result of his emptiness resulting from his upbringing? Is anybody ever anything but a product of their environment that made them? (Rewatch "Being There".)

I had clips of various artists in the video: Heath Ledger, Martin Scorsese, Michael Jordan... and Michael Jackson. Jackson said that his creative process is simply hard work and the rest is all 'from outer space' and 'God'. Now that Jim mentions it, he does remind me a little of another person who isn't all there... Dubya.

***

By contrast, Ebert's authoritative eulogy defends MJ. He was abused as a child, never experienced being a kid, wanted to have that life, felt inadequate, sought to make us happy and his music made us dance, smile so... yay!

But, if you feel the music is fake and superficial people love it but it's shiny garbage, then I guess MJ's murky legacy can clearly be figured out as a tragedy.

The glass is half... what again?

JE: MJ's popularity, sales figures, public image and scandals... they tend to have been more widely discussed than his music. We can speculate about how his personality was stamped on his work (though perhaps someone would argue that it wasn't), but I wonder how the music will hold up next to the myth. Elvis is bigger than ever more than 30 years after his sudden death at the age of only 42! "Fat Elvis's" musical output had been an object of ridicule for years at the time, while Michael Jackson hadn't released an album of new material since 2001's "Invincible." What (if anything) will time tell?

I even still get a kick out of "Billie Jean," though I was always a little embarrassed by the lyrics.

Jim: just wanted to write to say, excellent piece.

Do you happen to remember Romeo Void's brilliant 1984 "response" song to Billie Jean, titled A Girl in Trouble (is a Temporary Thing)? I agree, Billie Jean was a great song saddled with what I'd describe as-- even for the 1980s-- strangely dated/naive lyrics. But whatever shallow "argument" or "insight" Jackson thought his song made, it seemed to me to have been made slightly more relevant to the real lives of actual pregnant, worried teenage girls (although in a backhanded fashion) with the Romeo Void song.

JE: I love that Romeo Void song -- and, of course, "Never Say Never."

JE writes: "But that was just it: He wanted to be Somebody, but not himself, because he didn't seem to know who "Michael Jackson" was."

I feel like many celebrities fall into this trap, and Michael fell into it the worst. Think about Robin Williams, who can be amazing in films but in talk show appearances and stand up specials grates with his incessant impersonations and frantic mugging. Dana Carvey and Martin Short are the same way. So are many of the celebrity figures working today. They don't know who they are because the media has packaged their images before they can even decide what those images are. And it probably takes a huge emotional toll on these people.

I'm a member of the Rotten Tomatoes forums, and yesterday someone posed the question "Is the world a better place without Michael Jackson?" We got some generic jokes, and then this gem. "I don't know about that, but I do know that Michael Jackson is in a better place without the world." Here was a man who never had a childhood, who spent a decade and a half as an international superstar, who spent the last decade of his life being spit on and accused of pedophilia and descending into weirdness. His death, as the Chicago Tribune said today, was tragic, but it was also oddly inevitable. I only hope that in death he found the peace he clearly never found in life.

I think you might be equating "maturity" with lyrical content. I think this is a common assumption of the word-minded critic. I think this was best summed up by one Isaac Davis in Manhattan: "Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind. Everything really valuable has to enter you through a different opening, if you'll forgive the disgusting imagery." And there's plenty of imagery about Michael Jackson to disgust. But the maturity you're seeking is in the music, the emotion is in the beat, the sophistication is in its sonic architecture and its insistence on making you shake your ass. Frankly, 95 percent of song lyrics are puerile. But music wasn't meant to be parsed for its sentence structure. Nik Cohn said it best (and I'm, um, paraphrasing here, from his Beat and The Unconscious Mind): "Rock and roll died when rock lyrics starting being mistaken for the second coming of Yeats." As E said in 'Milk Cow Boogie': "That don't move me! Let's get real gone." I think the best of Michael's music, like the best of his ex-father-in-law's, is real, real gone.

JE: That's not really what I meant ("I Want You Back" is pretty sophisticated, lyrically, for a pop song, though MJ didn't write it), but I think I understand what you're saying. To me, post-"Off the Wall" Michael Jackson is all about what can be understood with the mind. The music (as Chris Morris writes), the dance moves, are rely almost entirely on calculation and precisely executed effects. No room for improv, spontaneity, flow. Snappy and ead-on-the-beat. I do think MJ became pretty much a producer's artist -- the way Jerry Bruckheimer movies are producer's movies. Look at his dancing after "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" -- it's tight, sharp, mechanical (OK, there are robot moves). But despite the "New Jack Swing" label applied to "Bad" and "Dangerous"... there's no swing. It doesn't have the looseness, the air, the soul of R&B or hip-hop or jazz -- or soul. Sure, he was hybridizing genres and this was his style, but I find it stifling, militaristic, rather than joyful or liberating. Jackson's technical skills were awesome, but his music and dance usually felt crimped and airless -- like drill routines rather than the expressive movements of his influences, Astaire and even Fosse. Again, I'm not saying he wasn't expressing himself through his work; just that his range of expression seemed clenched and restricted to me.

I remember hearing Michael Jackson songs as a kid, but I was too young to comprehend his stardom. To that end, I had always wondered why people called him the "king of pop" (record sales aside). Now I know.

On one of the myriad news programs about his life the other night, one of the reporters said something about him being the first to bring rock music and pop music together. I almost fell out of my couch. Apparently no one at that network had ever heard a Big Star record. Or a Beatles record.

To tell the truth I can't say I wish he developed his artistry into his adulthood because I feel he never was allowed an adulthood. I think his life ran it's course and was over many years ago. The most suitable way to some up Michael Jackson as a person is to play the clip of him reverting to his performer persona on the top of that suv during his court trial. He was a non-person who lived in a such a guarded world that he would have been incapable of making any relevant art in his later years. I'll always remember him as sort of a Lindsay Lohan sideshow on steroids.

I'm a bit apalled at those who decry Ebert's eulogy of a pop icon as "disturbed" or too sentimental or whatever. I think he wrote a beautiful piece about a profoundly sad human being...I have dealt with individuals who struggle with mental illness on a daily basis and it deeply saddens me to see people write MJ off as nothing more than "Wacko Jacko".Honestly I expected better from you Jim, you usually have such a wonderful ear for pop...why use someone like Chris Morris for your article?

Personally, I find the sad, twisted life he led up to his untimely demise to be more tragic than said demise. He was a sad, sad man who very clearly hated himself (why else would he continue altering his appearance so dramatically through the years? Every time you thought to yourself "Man, he can't get any weirder than this... well, he'd prove you wrong). And the press really should thank him for the circus he created with everything he did--- even his death. Of course, these vultures are probably a large contributing factor to his downward spiral to begin with.

A horrible life. A pointless death. Another day in the 'childhood star' neighborhood.

In a cultural studies class I made a video project about creativity. Is there such a thing as genius? Is it all hard work? Then why ever praise anybody for their brilliance? It's not like they're special or anything. So praise them for hard work, like you would an athlete, cause, like sports, it's all a matter of luck beyond the blood sweat and tears. Was MJ a product that could have been manufactured from anybody?

There was a NY Times op-ed about this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2&em

As I recall (too lazy to reread it just now), even Mozart, the go-to 'genius' example, despite his precociousness, wasn't writing groundbreaking stuff as a kid, but was aping other people. It was only when he had laid the groundwork for original 'genius' by getting a ton of work in early that he became "Mozart". It's an interesting view. I think there's a degree of truth in it.

Also, we forget that prior to the Renaissance, artists (other than poets and playwrights, for the most part) were not considered special at all. Nor was art, really. They were craftsmen, the lot of them. A sculptor was on par with a plumber. Artists we now look back and consider to have been great geniuses got started by essentially serving long apprenticeships, the way a sheet metal worker or a carpenter would today. Of course I have no idea how it was with musicians at the time, but I doubt musicianship was much more highly thought of then than were the visual and plastic arts. They were things a person was trained in, then went and did. The early, intensive training, like with little Mozart, made possible the later 'genius' - but did not guarantee it - the only guarantee seemed to be that if one had not had the early, intensive training, his odds of ever being a 'genius' were very bad.

I will say that in my (limited, biased) experience, literature is somewhat different, although to a certain degree the same principle applies. But one can fail to write 4000 words a day every day from 6 years old on, yet still become, sooner or later, a brilliant writer or poet - the reason being, I think, that the art of letters involves reading almost as much as writing, whereas listening to music or seeing paintings or sculptures hardly prepares one for doing the very specialized things required to play (or compose) a song, or make a beautiful statue or painting.

So don't despair, those of you hoped to write a novel. Unless you haven't been reading your share all this time, either - then, yea, you're probably screwed.

Excellent piece as always Jim but why muddle it up by quoting Chris Morris at length? This in particular blows my mind: "there isn't an instant of spontaneity in his entire performance. Every leg kick, spin, and outré terpsichorean innovation was calculated to astonish." Chris, its called choreography and is actually a standard practice among dancers, see for example, Astaire, Fred. And to call it "soulless perfection" caps it off. Imagine the notion that perfection is without soul.
Next time a major league pitcher tosses a perfect game I doubt anyone will complain that he did without soul.

Cold, mechanical, unspontaneous. Words that describe Michael Jackson and often Stanley Kubrick. Yet, the opening shot in Barry Lyndon is your pick for greatest opening shot in the history of cinema. What makes Kubrick an great artist in your eyes in contrast to Michael Jackson?

I think I am like many people, in that I struggle to reconcile my awe of Michael Jackson's performance skills with my moral compass regarding his personal life. The sad fact is that Michael Jackson's impressive musical legacy will forever be stained by the allegations of inappropriate relations with children that haunted the second half of his career.

Michael Jackson once famously said that he believed that it was acceptable for a grown man to sleep in the same bed with young children. He maintained that he never did anything sexual, and it was purely platonic. Most people probably don't buy this story. I personally think that he was telling the truth, but not because I want to believe he's innocent. I think the idea that he would feel this way is actually scarier to comprehend when you think about how damaged Michael Jackson was as an individual. The man was so emotionally warped that he took solace in the personalities of young children.

To put it more simply, we know what pedophilia is and we comprehend it. Less comprehensible is a grown man who simply needs to be around young children to be happy.

Chris Morris is more interested in reeling off observant sentences than really grasping the essence of anything. His take on Jackson's Motown 25 appearance is a revisionist projection of self. Jackson's Motown routine is a seminal piece of dance history. If you're like me and feel that dance is a charged expression of aliveness through movement, then Jackson's contribution that night was seismic. Morris points out a certain lack of spontaneity. Well geez Chris, weren't the physical innovations enough? And besides, those moves did emerge spontaneously at one time, long before we saw them that night. I'm sure he was alone somewhere, perhaps off practicing by himself, in some quiet sacred space, a space where many artists make staggering breakthroughs . . . and then share them with the rest of us.

Michael Jackson's death got me to thinking about the biopic that will undoubtedly be made about him in the coming years. Perhaps -- and this could be a stretch -- James Toback would be interested in the undertaking?

As someone who is pretty ambivalent to Jackson's music, I mostly agree with JE and Morris about the Motown 25 routine. It was calculated to impress, very tightly choreographed, delivered to robotic "perfection" from the neck down (though, in close-up, muddled by the out-of-synch lip work). It's a great depiction of Jackson as the hard-working perfectionist, the impresario running massive spectacles of his own ego and obscuring any trace of visceral or natural expression behind a wall of pop.

This is not in itself anything bad; I think a lot of great art has been mechanical, measured, and unapologetically pop in its nature. But the sheer unknowability of Jackson - and the horrible possibilities suggested by our occasional, hyper-analyzed glimpses at the man behind the curtain - add a dimension of the grotesque to the way we view his work. The mystery surrounding his life makes us scrutinize even a short dance routine for traces of humanity, personality, sexuality - anything that might bridge the gap between his unbelievable, manufactured persona and the deeply troubled person beneath it. And that bridge simply isn't there.

Perhaps Jackson had the grave misfortune of coming of age at precisely the moment when the cult of personality and branding overtook the music and the spectacle as the bedrock of pop stardom. The job of pop stars became essentially living out a movie-musical version of themselves before the eyes of the world, with bold flourishes of melodrama, intermittent showstopping performances, and occasional bursts of actual singing to keep the act up. Jackson was the same age as Prince and Madonna, who survived huge career highs and lows because their iconic personae - however false - were extremely confessional. Their music banged on the keys marked Sex, Pain, Love, Joy, and Power, and their public lives fit neatly into the same narrative.

Jackson, on the other hand, made what we now know is a tragic move for anyone with such unbearable fame - he demanded unprecedented amounts of public attention for his work and his spectacle but insisted that we avert our gaze from the man behind the curtain. He begged for privacy while commissioning gigantic statues in his image and making some of the most flamouyant and expensive public appearances in history. As he lost control of his persona, the dissonance between the man and the art grew, and along with it our discomfort.

And I feel the same discomfort now, watching the Moonwalk, hearing all those beeps and clicks in the voice that was the wallpaper of a decade of excess and denial. It's the horrible sensation of looking back at the moment when the dummy killed the ventriloquist and began taking over the world.

Sidenote: It's kind of interesting to see the comparison between Michael Jackson - who probably had good reason not to sing about his real life below-the-belt - and Marvin Gaye, whose most famous song was a sexually-charged valentine to a teenaged girl.

After watching my fill of Michael Jackson videos that flooded music television this weekend, I must say that you hit the nail on the head. As entertaining and catchy as Michael's music and moves could be, he always seemed to be part of the presentation instead of the presenter.

The first comment on here by Paul, I have to agree with him about having the Body Dysmorphic Disorder. His dad used to say that he had a funny nose and would humiliate him about it. So, you can see why the nose job and why, after complications arose, he would wear that mask all the time. For someone with so much talent, this disorder must have still made him have self-esteem issues--the growth of which, because of a closed off childhood, was limited to an overbearing, beauty-conceited tyrant of a father. This might explain why his performances gradually decreased in joy and spontaneity etc. likewise: his thoughts in his mind went through a filter that said that he was nothing with that nose...and then again--probably worse--with the grotesque nose. So, I think he gave up. It's very sad. He must have battled it to the end. And this idea to put on more concerts must have been a final act of self-destruction; a final spotlight, which always flashbacked that feeling of humiliation. His dad "wins", who should have done some listening. I sincerely hope his dad works on his listening skills because what goes around comes around.

JE: By all accounts (including his son Michael's), that father is a piece of work. Even now, he's choosing to make public appearances and give TV interviews (BET awards) to have accompanying readers make legal announcements and to say that his family has lost a big star who's even bigger now, and if only Michael could have been around to see it. (He didn't lose a son, he lost a "star.") I know MJ was obsessed with commercial success, and later ran up enormous debts, and it's easy to intuit where at least some of that might have come from. Watch this interview with Joe Jackson, if you can. I had to turn it off: http://budurl.com/mv7p .

As a big fan of Michael Jackson's music, I found both your and Morris's articles observant and thought-provoking. I have a few very minor quibbles. I think both of you might undervalue Jackson's music a bit partially because, to state the obvious, Jackson was a black man whose music came out of black styles like funk which have traditionally appealed to mainly black audiences. Jackson obviously had huge crossover appeal, but black people were his most hard-core audience, and they were the ones who bought his later flop records. Also, straight white men (which I possibly wrongly assume both writers to be) tend to be "rockists", ie people who believe rock music to be inherently better than pop, dance, and disco, and Michael was mainly and certainly at his best a pop/dance/disco artist. To assume pop and dance appeals only to the "lowest common denominator" raises issues with the knowledge that the main consumers of dance and pop music are the primarily gay men who go dancing at nightclubs. To use another example, for reasons we may never know, gay men and women are able to respond profoundly to the music of Madonna (a major Jackson competitor, whose early music borrowed on some of the same influences as his) in a way straight men generally can't. Speaking as someone who believes Elvis was great, possibly the greatest, but would more often than not listen to something with a beat, I think Michael was a superb dance artist whose best Jackson Five singles and first two solo albums have a joy, fun, and youthfulness rare and special in music. I'm not sure I believe in the "test of time", but Jackson's music seems as likely to live forever as anyone's because people obviously love him and God knows it's not for his persona! The way later Jackson material seemed contrived and mechanical might have to do something with the corruption brought by fame (and maybe just growing up): brilliant though they were, the later adult and psychedelic Beatles albums don't have the same fun and spontaneity of the pre-Revolver records. Madonna, as we know, became appallingly corrupted after her exuberant and joyous self-titled debut.

To the comment about pop music that tries to be deep: as Jim hinted at in his response, I think Jackson was actually one of the worst offenders of this in the pop music spectrum. After the first two albums, self-importance started to sneak in in Bad (which Robert Christgau wrote "damn near wrecks perfectly good dancing and singing with subtext"), was more apparent in Dangerous, and pretty much sunk his later flop albums.

To the comment about the radio show saying Jackson was the first to meld pop and rock: yes that was an outrageous statement, and I agree it probably started with the Beatles! What got me mad was after Jackson died, in the firs hour of footage I heard two people interviewed say Jackson would be remembered as "bigger than the Beatles and Elvis"! People have no sense of history, no sense of perspective! They weren't around to witness the rises of Elvis and the Beatles. We have barely any memory today of musical artists before Elvis's time. If Jackson is indeed bigger than Elvis, it's because: A) He is more recent, and we only remember the recent past; and B) The media is more ubiquitous and prevalent today than it was in Elvis's time. For this reason, Britney Spears may have been more ubiquitous in the last few years than Michael Jackson and Madonna were in their heydays!

Thanks again for the excellent article!

JE: Actually, I think Michael Jackson was more of a "rockist" than I am. Motown's signature sound was more pop-oriented than, say, most of what came out of Stax/Volt, Hi or Atlantic in the 1960s to begin with. The "pop" part of his self-chosen "King of Pop" title was apt. He incorporated elements of pop, rock, R&B, soul, disco, techno and other world influences into his music. I just found the results, particularly from "Thriller" on, were often too slick and mannered for my tastes.

I'm going to have to disagree with some folks here

@Wes Lawson's statement about Robin Williams, Martin Short, et al...one of my favorite things that make this world less grating to live in is folks like the above-mentioned people who follow the Marx Brothers' footsteps of living a comedic, 24/7 lifestyle. This world is so stodgy and cold, and it makes me happy seeing people who enjoy making people laugh and be anarchic. Williams' last "Inside the Actor's Studio" is perhaps the funniest thing I have ever seen.

Also, I don't think MJ's lyrics were all that fluffy. I loved his earnestness. At the same time, I hate it when people say that Rock music "died" because people started writing deep lyrics...if that's so, The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Rage Against the Machine, Springsteen, Mago de Oz (from Spain) among many others, are horrible, horrible people.

Lastly...of course Michael's dancing was mechanical and un-sponatenous... if you want to do something right, you have to plan it ahead and practice it to perfection...otherwise, the chances of doing something spontaneous that works out to perfection are really slim.

On the positive side, Mr. Emerson, you answered to my recent comment about jokes and reaffirmed your potential Mexicanity, and I wanted to say that I'm sure that you have many qualities that could make you an asset to us all.

While you may see his dancing on the Motown's 25th Ann. show as un-spontaneous and over rehearsed, not joyful, but I believe that is why he lived his life so whimsically. All of us "adults" would mock him jealously. But he loved having all those childhood pleasures in his own backyard. His wealth afforded him great spontaneity. He could travel anywhere in the world at a moment's notice, and would often share his lifestyle with many fortunate individuals that he would meet. He was beyond generous, he gave people cars as gifts for giving him a life somewhere. He had many charities that he gave huge amounts of money. He treated all people with the same respect, regardless of their place in society. And he loved children. I have been reading voraciously all the articles that have been written about him, and his accusers in the child molestation cases. There is an interesting article that was written in GQ some years ago, asking the question "Was Michael Jackson Framed?". After reading that article, I came away feeling horrible for MJ. This kid's dad was a schemer, and conniver, and he set MJ up, and extorted $22 million. Of course MJ had set himself up because he did have these sleepovers, but he was not a sexual pervert. The newest accusers were found to be scammers also. I can understand liking kids, I like kids too. They are so fun and honest, and there is no wondering what their real agenda is, as with the many people who pretended to befriend MJ (like this Jordan Chandler's father at first.) I think as time goes on, more and more will come to the surface about this sweet, deeply hurt, but pure and honest soul. God Bless You Michael Jackson, you really tried to make a difference.

I think it's quite likely that Jackson was no more complicated than Elvis. Both men were, in their ways, superb actors who somewhere along the line got lost in their roles, until they finally became incapable of being anything other than cariacatures of their celebrity alter-egos. Some of the oddities, like the hyperbaric chamber, were Jackson's idea, so clearly, for some time he was actively creating an image. At some point, he stopped creating and simply became the freakish detached individual we saw forming by the end of the 1980s.

I suppose that's a tragedy of sorts, though I think the tragedy is that some people are not everything in one package. They can be profoundly talented and successful, and yet not be emotionally equipped to deal with inevitable life that they will have to lead.

I think of other huge stars; people like John Lennon and Frank Sinatra, who went through all the pretentious nonsense of stardom, and yet managed to remain themselves, or at least found their way back to themselves.

I was never particularly a fan of Michael Jackson's music, being more of an FM classic rock kind of guy, but one does have to look at a performance like Billie Jean on Motown 25 and say "There was one tremendously talented young man." You see the same thing in the Don't Stop Til You Get Enough video, which, in its way, rather reminds me of the Beatles in Hard Days Night, in that in either case, you see performers sublimely confident, knowing they're at the top of their game, and basking in that moment. You can't help but be uplifted by that.

For Jackson that period between 1979-1983 was his own "Elvis comeback special", and sadly, in so many ways, what happened afterwards was an emulation. Elvis achieved his insane physical transformations through prescription drugs and binge eating, while Jackson took the more direct approach of the plastic surgeon's knife. In either case, by the time they died, they were like some Hall of Mirrors image of what they had been at their physical and creative height.

I don’t disagree with anything you are saying here, Jim. He piqued with “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and the “Off The Wall” album. His high point, however, was so high that when the decline began (starting with “Thriller”) he was still awesome, although not as awesome as what had come before. The reason for my post is to say that this is typical of ANY music act or performer. Music is not like movies in that sense. Sustained brilliance has, in my opinion, only been pulled off by one music act, and that is/was The Beatles. It is very difficult to stay at the top. Some acts try to reinvent themselves. Consider albums like Radiohead’s “Kid A” or U2’s “Pop.” Some are moderately successful (never as successful as when they were truly great) and some are not (“Pop” and Smashing Pumpkins’ “Adore” to name a few) Other acts continue to churn out different versions of the same product, which is what Michael Jackson did. When that is the approach, the only goal in the creative process is to perfect the work and style you’ve already been successful with in an attempt (an always failed one) to reach greater heights.

This is/was not unique to Michael Jackson’s career. He was the child prodigy, put out the masterpiece album (“Off the Wall”,) and reached the highest heights attaining mass popularity while putting out a pretty darn good album (“Thriller”) in the process. All of this was over a 15 year period. Then, AND ONLY THEN... the inevitable decline.

Hi Jim,

This is the first time I've been to your blog (I came by way of Roger Ebert's site) but as I skimmed through I found your piece on Michael Jackson. I've been reading various pieces online and I think it has points that I can agree/disagree with - something I expect with good pieces that dissect pop culture.

Anyway, I wanted to bring your attention to Breath of Life: A Conversation about Black Music. This week there's a Michael Jackson mixtape up with many of well known MJ pieces performed by him as well as other artists. I think the accompanying article might interest you as well:

Michael Jackson mixtape.

Thanks for your work.

I find this a fascinating psycho babble into nothingness. This normally happens from people without an ounce of talent in anything but worthless criticism.

Michael Jackson was a phenomenal talent. His personal life is really none of our business. It's this worthless criticism(abuse)and constant haranguing by unworthy friends which drives many stars to an early demise.

Critique his music and dancing. Stay away from what is his personal life as that is truly not any of our business.

JE: All we know about his personal life is what he chose to share/exploit (in the stories and photos he himself leaked to tabloids, the interviews he gave, the autobiography he published, etc.), what came out in various legal proceedings, and what those who got close to him said about him. He was a showman who loved to generate publicity (his greatest talent may have been for generating publicity stunts -- like proclaiming himself "King of Pop"), but you're right -- his music and dance can be considered separately.

>>This in particular blows my mind: "there isn't an instant of spontaneity in his entire performance. Every leg kick, spin, and outré terpsichorean innovation was calculated to astonish." Chris, its called choreography and is actually a standard practice among dancers, see for example, Astaire, Fred. And to call it "soulless perfection" caps it off. Imagine the notion that perfection is without soul.
Next time a major league pitcher tosses a perfect game I doubt anyone will complain that he did without soul.

I think Richard Hourala is my favorite poster in this thread. Go, Richard, go!

JE: Watch Jackson (post-"Thriller"). Then watch Astaire. You may see different forms of "perfection." One is tight and regimented. The other is graceful and swinging. They are different styles, but I think Chris is right about Jackson's perfectionism. It's airless.

>>JE: Watch Jackson (post-"Thriller"). Then watch Astaire. You may see different forms of "perfection." One is tight and regimented. The other is graceful and swinging. They are different styles, but I think Chris is right about Jackson's perfectionism. It's airless.

Astaire, by the very nature of what kind of dancer he was, relied more on improvisation than Jackson - which is something I would've liked to see more of from Jackson, as he seemed to have given up tap-dancing in his early twenties. He could've kept up with the best of them, if he'd gone that route.

Still, it does essentially come down to a difference in approach - to call it 'soulless' is a bit much, I think. And, it's in his choreography that Jackson really shines.

JE: I appreciate some of it, but I do find it mechanical -- I see plenty of "choreography," but that's only one element of dance. Just not a fan of his style -- though I love his looseness in the video for "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough."

Chris has been had on him.I think he was a great but not a good songwriter.He had the ability to connect to people thru his performances.His dancing was not spontaneous cos he was a perfectionist and had been raised to always please his audience hence he never wanted to dissapoint them thus resulting in well choreographed moves.I am more into rock but my 3 year old saw his videos on tv and she has been his fan since then almost to the point of obsession and really gets on my nerves.he had that magnetism on people.
like so many people I have been fascinated by michael j'S life but even became more interested after his sudden death.I have been doing a lot of research on him and have over 2000 articles on him.

michael had serious mental issues throughout his lifetime.As a physician I feel he had multiple mental diagnosis. most of his problem originated from his childhood, his father was a tough emotionless greedy man who saw him as a money making machine.he never bonded with him,showed him love nor offered him praise even when he had a good performance hence he always felt he had not done enough.His father tried to be a musician but wasnt succesful and hated michael cos of his talents.He also saw him as weak and efferminate.his behaviour after the death of his son was so repulsive that I FELT like puking anytime I saw him,
He was extremely shy and sensitive.Children with such character traits should be raised in a loving and stable family,should be praised for positive things and need constant reassurance because of their low self-esteem.They should also be encouraged to have friends to help them develop their communication and interpersonal relationships, unfortunately he had the opposite upbringing hence the emotional retardation,self loathing and well documented eccentricities.

I blame his parents for not seeking help for him when he was young cos they knew he was odd and different from the other kids.he needed intensive psychiatric help.I cant really fault him cos he never had insight into his life,cos we dont have such problems we cant really empathize with him.I work with a lot of people like that but they have no fame, money nor pressure from the outside world and tabloids scrutinizing their life and they still live a very difficult life.

His most obvious mental disorder was the body dysmorphic disorder. He also had bipolar disorder hence the downs and highs and schizophrenia
His life was a great mess and a tragedy.I dont think he enjoyed a single day in his life.I hope he would be a great lesson to parents who push their children to stardorm.

Chris has been had on him.I think he was a great but not a good songwriter.He had the ability to connect to people thru his performances.His dancing was not spontaneous cos he was a perfectionist and had been raised to always please his audience hence he never wanted to dissapoint them thus resulting in well choreographed moves.I am more into rock but my 3 year old saw his videos on tv and she has been his fan since then almost to the point of obsession and really gets on my nerves.he had that magnetism on people.
like so many people I have been fascinated by michael j'S life but even became more interested after his sudden death.I have been doing a lot of research on him and have over 2000 articles on him.

michael had serious mental issues throughout his lifetime.As a physician I feel he had multiple mental diagnosis. most of his problem originated from his childhood, his father was a tough emotionless greedy man who saw him as a money making machine.he never bonded with him,showed him love nor offered him praise even when he had a good performance hence he always felt he had not done enough.His father tried to be a musician but wasnt succesful and hated michael cos of his talents.He also saw him as weak and efferminate.his behaviour after the death of his son was so repulsive that I FELT like puking anytime I saw him,
He was extremely shy and sensitive.Children with such character traits should be raised in a loving and stable family,should be praised for positive things and need constant reassurance because of their low self-esteem.They should also be encouraged to have friends to help them develop their communication and interpersonal relationships, unfortunately he had the opposite upbringing hence the emotional retardation,self loathing and well documented eccentricities.

I blame his parents for not seeking help for him when he was young cos they knew he was odd and different from the other kids.he needed intensive psychiatric help.I cant really fault him cos he never had insight into his life,cos we dont have such problems we cant really empathize with him.I work with a lot of people like that but they have no fame, money nor pressure from the outside world and tabloids scrutinizing their life and they still live a very difficult life.

His most obvious mental disorder was the body dysmorphic disorder. He also had bipolar disorder hence the downs and highs and schizophrenia
His life was a great mess and a tragedy.I dont think he enjoyed a single day in his life.I hope he would be a great lesson to parents who push their children to stardorm.

What a bunch of tabloid junkies commenting on this blog! If you want to know what Michael Jackson was really like, you can of course observer his amazing body of work. Then watch his own videos, including interviews, then listen to what his friends (duh, people who actually knew him) say about him. mjtruthnow . com