Don't stop 'til you get enough
I was 12 in 1983, the year Thriller was released. I lived in the suburbs of Buffalo, and when you're 12, there's nothing much to do but watch TV. I was the core demographic of the MTV generation.
Of course, when you're 12, you're not thinking, "wow, this album is going to be one of the best ever." We took for granted that every few weeks, a new Michael Jackson song would become a monster, number one hit that we'd all memorize the lyrics to and know every shot of the video. Billie Jean. PYT. Human Nature. I can still sing every note of Eddie Van Halen's solo on "Beat It". Between classes at school, we dissected the 12 minute "Thriller" video like it was the law of the land.
Still, I was never a real Michael Jackson "fan". In fact, a lot of the time, I couldn't stand him as I tried to rebel against the 80s pop culture I was immersed in. But you couldn't escape Michael Jackson. He was everything and everywhere then. And you had to admit the music stuck in your head and your hips.
That all changed as Michael got weirder and weirder. He was easier to put out of sight and out of mind. Out of all the stuff, I've seen written today about MJ, my favorite New York Yankees' blogger (and just a flat-out great writer), Alex Belth of Bronx Banter, put it best:
Michael Jackson was the biggest pop idol of my youth; he did not live life like he wanted to grow old. It’s almost as if he committed a long, public suicide for years. It was painful and absurd. He was seminal, an icon, a wonderful entertainer who was so deeply disturbed that he became a freak show.The man was complicated, disturbed, probably self-hating. But the music is eternal and straight-up funky. MJ was the next logical step after James Brown. His music and dance moved the entire world. And, with today's sliced and diced media demographics, it's hard to imagine anyone doing that again.
This is how I'll remember Michael Jackson.
posted by David Sommerstein @ 9:31 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
I remember listening to "Off the Wall" in a neighbors basement when I was 15. We listened to it over and over again because it was music we had never heard before. When "Thriller" came out we were dancing to it at college and listening to it on our oversized stereo. Finally when "Bad" came out the DJ at WRPI (one of college stations around Albany NY) played it through twice the morning he got a copy of it. I remember being in the electronics lab at work that snowy December morning with the radio cranked up.
It is interesting how the music that is out now does not have the same effect. I could not tell you what I was doing or where I was the first time I heard songs or an album by Nirvana, REM, Coldplay or Ozomatli (well the first time I heard Ozo probably was on the Beat Authority!)
I forgot to add that it has been a tough week with losing Ed McMahn, Farrah Faucet and Michale Jackson. I could have dealt with losing those three but add to that the fact that Kodak had the final production run of Kodachrome.
Kodachrome had some of the most iconic images taken in the 20th century including the famous "Afghan Girl" taken by Steve McCurry and printed on the cover of National Geographic magazine.
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