On the death of Michael Jackson

Since this is something which is on a lot of peoples’ minds at the moment, I thought I’d get down what my own thoughts are regarding the death of Michael Jackson.

‘Indifferent’ would be the most apt description. I mean, I wasn’t a fan – or, at least, I hadn’t been a fan for many, many years; technically, Thriller was the first album (cassette) that I distinctly remember getting. And I did listen to it a lot. But I have no idea where that tape might have ended up, and it wasn’t one I eventually re-acquired on cd.

An aside: there is only one cassette I ever re-acquired on cd: Def Leppard, Hysteria.

My then-taste in awful NWOBHM aside, what it means is that my interest in Michael Jackson lasted only as long as my interest in Thriller. By the time Bad came out my musical tastes had shifted (though I can’t recall to what; that would have been before my interest in Queen began) – or perhaps, since I’d turned 14, I’d become perceptive enough to realise that the discrepancy between Michael and the image he was trying to portray was more than I could deal with.

Bad? Seriously? There were girls in my Year 9 class who could have kicked his skinny no-longer-black ass. Though it’s probably fair to point out that they could have kicked mine as well...

Dangerous – probably more apt than Bad, but not for the reasons he’d have preferred – appeared in 1991, and by then I’d definitely moved on. Plus, he’d really gone beyond eccentric into full-on creepy-weird, and that had a serious impact – people might have bought the album, but not too many people advertised the fact.

A few years after it came out I discovered I had one friend who owned it, and I listened to a few songs; nothing really jumped out at me. Black or White had that great clip but song itself didn’t interest me that much; the only real interest I had in it was trying to establish whether or not it re-used a riff from the Jackson/McCartney collaboration Say, Say, Say – and I still think it does. But I’d have to listen to both again in order to be able to explain it, and don’t have either at hand.

So, not what you’d call a fan. In fact, I recall an argument that I had with a flatmate over a televised Jackson concert, which was the typical lavish affair with dozens of dancers and him changing costumes and so forth; this kind of self-indulgent rubbish offended my then-grunge-obsessed sensibilities and I said so. Missing his artistic output, then, was never going to be an issue for me whether he was alive or dead.

And his non-stop bizarre behaviour didn’t help thing either. I would have been perfectly content to never hear another word about him; obscurity would have done him the world of good. But he just couldn't seem to stay out of the news.

Weirdness, and my own preferences aside, I do understand that people did (and still do) like his music, and that, because of that, his loss is a significant one. As someone who’s lost several of his musical heroes, I can appreciate how much of a blow that is.

I mentioned Queen earlier; I was quite a serious fan at the time Freddie Mercury died (November 1991) and his sudden death was extremely upsetting; it didn’t help that I was already upset when I heard it announced on the radio – it was the day I moved away from the town I’d lived my entire life in. A had a bit of an emotional breakdown somewhere near Mackay, Queensland - much to the surprise of my then sister-in-law, who is in the car with me.

Losing Elliott Smith nearly twelve years later was even worse. While I’d liked Queen a lot, my connection to Smith’s music was on a whole other level. I spent the whole day in shock – I was on my way to work when I heard - exchanging text messages with my flatmate who was also a fan. The overwhelming feeling that day was one of frustration: because I’d never get to see him live, or hear any new songs, or maybe even talk to him after a gig, or – the worst one of all – that he never really got the chance to be appreciated on the level his astonishing, astronomical talent deserved.

Not quite what I imagine the MJ fans are feeling right now, but near enough that I can empathise with them about how they’re feeling – and, as anyone who knows me will tell you, that isn’t something I get accused of very often.

Anyway, enough about me.

I’m not all that surprised by the media response; it’s what they do, after all. They’d had Jackson in their sights almost his entire life – though I also appreciate that they wouldn’t bother if no-one bought the magazines to read about it. I can take some solace in the fact that I haven’t contributed even a single dollar to their coffers, other than whatever miniscule advertising revenue the small handful of websites I visited to get information garnered from my presence.

One of the odd things I read, though, is that record stores (I don’t care that they mightn’t sell actual records; I like how it sounds) are selling out of Jackson’s material as fans go on buying frenzies. Why is this odd? Well, I’d have thought that, if they were big enough fans to be upset by his death, they would already own the damn albums.

Now, I guess we wait and see if any more facts emerge – well, just the one: what was it that actually killed him?

Apart from that there’s not a lot, other than reminiscing – something the commercial radio stations and music television channels/programs will be indulging in, probably to the point where people will never want to hear another of his songs again.

Goodbye, Michael. You brought happiness to a lot of people – me included, even if only for a short time.