Talk About The King Of Pop
Its hard to straddle the line between being a tight-lipped harridan of pop morality an a gormless pointing idiot desperately trying to cram every half-arsed paedophilia / oxygen tank / ‘blowing’ Bubbles gag into 140 characters. But ultimately, I think the World is much less interesting a place for not having Michael Jackson in it.
For what its worth, I’ll miss the man. Sure, the last great single he did was fourteen years ago (the charmingly bonkers Scream) and the creative spark seemed to have long fizzled out but the sheer body of not just good but phenomenal pop work he’s left behind would always provide him with enough currency for me to think “OK so the last album was shit but lets see what he comes up with next” in the same way we forgive Woody Allen, Sonic Team or two thirds of Monty Python.
Jackson played a huge part in my childhood years although it was Bad rather than the more obvious Thriller that I would play again and again on a loop from the cassette my Dad bought from Morrisons - the box even still had the warn price sticker, which would get more roughed up with every week I dragged the album around with me.
What the hell is a “Liberian”? Why was this Diana so dirty? Such answers eluded the 8 year old Ben Baker but I loved the music so much that when asked if I wanted my first cinema experience to be semi-animated classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” or “Moonwalker”, I chose the latter - a confusing mish mash of promo, propaganda and pantomime acting. But I loved it. Every last minute. In these fully merchandised High School Musical days, it seems odd that seeing the film even seemed like a choice.
The excitement that met the debut broadcast of the “Black Or White” video on Top Of The Pops is still impossible to shift from my brain - and it wasn’t just me giddy either, my whole family were glued to the screen wondering what the King of Pop was going to pull out of the bag next (although Im not sure any of us predicted a half-rapped, funk workout with more sections than a commercial passenger train), especially since he’d long become the tabloid oddball with more and more stories each week on his latest zany antics.
I fell out of love with Jacko not long after that as his single releases became drearier and more over the top with “You Are Not Alone” being the ultimate breaking point for me, coming as it did in the midst of a summer positively sodden with swaggering Britpop superstars-in-waiting. And then came “Earth Song”…By the time of the Jarvis bum waggling incident at the Brits, I was a fully paid up pasty indie kid and merrily booed the actions of ‘Jesus’ Jackson and his entourage. Who did this guy think he was?
Jackson became less of a popstar and more of a creepy uncle in the World’s eyes - a myriad of unusual behaviour followed, not least of all releasing the bloody awful “Invincible” LP in 2001. But now he’s gone, I’m reminded of an Eddie Izzard routine from the superb Glorious in which he considered the death of Princess Diana to be akin to a programme you really like suddenly ending in the middle of the night when you weren’t looking. The sense of “Oh. I was watching that” will sit with many today, I don’t doubt.
But that’s just one boy’s view. His death doesn’t mean a fraction of the amount Steven Wells‘ passing earlier in the week did, nor the genuinely irreplaceable Geoffrey Perkins last year. The man wasn’t a saint - he wasn’t even consistent - but there’ll never be another one. Remember that next time someone texts you some tedium about him being asked to be moved to the children’s ward or coming back as a Thriller zombie or any of that tedious hur hurring shit.
Rest In Peace, MJ.
