Michael Jackson passed away a decade ago today

No particular comment on Jackson himself other than he was obviously a great talent. I didn't get caught up in the mania surrounding his ascendency to superstar status, but liked selected songs from that era, and also always loved the early Jackson 5 stuff.

So just a personal memory from ten years ago…my son and I had attended a Pittsburgh Pirates game, and we were walking back over the bridge that links the stadium to the city proper. It was quite crowded, and I started hearing wails of "Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson!" I wouldn't say they were anguished wails; they seemed more like slightly ironic ones.

I had no idea what they meant until I went online later that night and saw the news.

 

I cry when I think about all great music we've missed in the ten years he's been away.

 

Not much, he retired from making new music years before he died. Maybe some cover album with Motown classics.

 

Let me get this straight. You're lecturing an 8-year old on the morality of lyrics?

Kids don't care about this stuff, nor should they. It's the same as any "Think of the children!" type of issues drummed up by parents. Let them listen to music and enjoy themselves. Just wait until she starts listening to rap or hip-hop with lyrics that aren't symbolic in any way and just flat-out use foul language and explicit descriptions of sexual acts. You'll pine for the days of her listening to MJ's later work.

Same with me and any artist. Nothing else matters but the music.

 

You bring up a good point. Jackson's image was geared specifically to young children. Initially, it was because he himself was a child when he became famous.
Page and Wyman --and Ted Nugent--were not marketed at kids. Nor did they pose with children.
Or hang out with them at parties and theme parks.

 

He never stopped creating new stuff. I am quite sure he would have released new music if he had lived.

 

Thank you very much

 

Right. If Michael was alive and in good health, I think we might've seen a Vegas residency or two and perhaps a covers album. I'd liken it to how George Michael's last album was 12 years before he died except for a live symphony album. Michael was hardly Prince (who released four full length albums in the last 2 years of his life) in terms of staying prolific until the end, he was taking a long time between albums long before he died.

 

Not really. All posthumous releases are built of older stuff. He was artistically , emotionally and financially bankrupt. The O2 concerts were meant to solve the latter.

 

Don't believe he official retired. His albums always took a real long time to materialize. He was supposedly working on a new album (likely in the preliminary stages) in 2007, 2 years before he died.

 

I think he needed people around him te be creative, to stimulate him. Near the end of his life, most people who could help him left. He was almost a reclusive at the time.

 

This is why it bugs me when people still refer to Michael as some sort of "genius." He was talented. He could dance. He could perform. But he didn't play an instrument. And as a songwriter--there were some great ones, but a lot of garbage. His lyrics were insipid. His album credits mentioned multiple writers for each songs. Multiple producers and engineers too.

Prince? Sure. Coltrane? No doubt. But Jackson wasn't a genius.

Even highly regarded "non" -geniuses had it over Jackson. The only thing Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan or Springsteen couldn't do as good as MJ was dance. By every other metric and measure, it was no contest.

 

No way he could've fulfilled that contract. I can only guess the years of litigation which would've followed. By most accounts, his body was failing him as he dealt with physical limitations and issues from all those years of dancing.

Between July and the end of September, he was scheduled to do *30* shows! On average, a single day to rest between shows. It's extremely physically demanding work regardless of how he was lip-synching in his later life. I don't believe his touring schedule was ever this insane in his 20s. Can't imagine a *50* year-old being able to do half of that. Just nuts but I guess he was desperate which is why he accepted in the first place.

 

The decline in the J5's popularity during the early seventies must have come as a perplexing blow to the young Michael. Someone in their twenties, who has already seen the cycle, might have been prepared for it, but Michael must have taken if as a personal rejection.

I would imagine that laid the seeds of his desire to compete with himself in later life - wanting every album to be 'bigger' than the last one.

It's a very sad story, whichever way you look at it.....

 

If I recall, wasn't he initially contracted to doing 20 shows, and demand had the promoters suddenly bump it up to 50? I wonder if they had stuck to the 20 as planned if things would've turned out differently.

 

A reasonably fit 50 year old could do that. Many have.

But your larger point is well-taken--Michael couldn't have.

 

The cynic in me wants to say Michael died in August 1993 and we will never really have credible evidence what happened behind the walls of Neverland so I shall not speak ill of the dead and focus on what The King of Pop left us, a solid catalog of genre breaking pop music.

 

The thing is, I never understood why Michael was so insistent on "topping" Thriller, which was the absolute peak for any artists' mountain. The success of Thriller would ensure that Michael would be famous and beloved for the rest of his life.

In comparison, Springsteen and Prince never quite reached MJ's peaks, but I think both were ultimately more interesting artists because they worked hard to achieve their moment at the top of the mountain and enjoyed it while it was going on, and immediately followed it with something they knew was going to soften the obvious blow when the next album wouldn't sell as well, to where they did it on their own terms and willingly knew they were going to lose millions who were on the bandwagon of the previous album. Listen to Tunnel Of Love or Around The World In A Day in contrast to the preceding blockbuster, and then listen to Bad. Everyone on planet earth knew Michael wasn't going to top Thriller... except Michael. Yet he was actually famously disappointed with the "disappointing" sales of Bad... an album that sold over 30 million copies worldwide mind you, but he had in his mind he needed to top Thriller. I think MJ's discography could've been more interesting if he'd let Thriller be what it was and not try to compare everything else next to it, because Thriller was lightning in a bottle and a once-in-a-lifetime type of success

 

All up to the individual. "Genius" is an overused word to begin with. Music is also highly subjective. Coltrane leaves me cold as do a lot of other artists referred to as legends. There's no right or wrong. In the end, I like what I like.

Your description is disingenuous as I could easily find in your collection a bunch of artists who would have multiple writers, producers, engineers, and feature insipid lyrics. It's a double-standard, really.

Having said that, the multiple partners make sense when you consider how long each album took. He'd collaborate with one person for a while, record something, then stop that relationship and work with someone else. It's not surprising to me considering his way of working in his later life. In contrast to the 4-5 years between albums in his later period, within the 2.5 years where OTW and Thriller were released, he worked with a much smaller pool of people. One producer, one engineer, a couple of songwriters, etc.

I personally don't listen to music for deep-meaning lyrics. If it sounds good, it sounds good. Again, if you experience music differently and/or look for something else within it, I can see why that'd bother you but it's all subjective. Don't believe anyone thought they were going to get deep lyrics from MJ.

 

Really, exactly how many albums do you think that Michael Jackson would have released in the past 10 years if he had lived?
I will take a wild guess and say none.
For the last years of his life he was a chronic alcoholic and addicted to drugs, he could barely function let alone get himself together to record new music.
We could have had a lot more music during his younger creative and peak years, but unfortunately Michael had other interests that took most of his time.

 

Right?! If you had asked me I probably would have said 5 or maybe 6 years. Unbelievable.

 

I know the amount changed but don't recall why. And no, things wouldn't have turned out differently. The insane amount of heaviest drugs he was taking to even do as simple functions as sleep wouldn't have changed had the amount of shows been kept at a lower number.

Being bred to constantly be ambitious will make one lose perspective. When OTW lost the Best Album at an awards ceremony, apparently MJ was pretty upset and vowed to top it. He did with Thriller. No idea if he expressively wanted to top that but in his mind, it might've been possible. Again, easy for us to judge from the outside looking in.

 

10 years since MTV broke with regular programming and played music videos.

 

I must be the only one who is not surprised it has been 10 years since his death, it does feel quite a while ago to me. And I'm not a youngster where time seems to pass slower, or whatever that is.

Anyway, like many others, I am conflicted about MJ, I did like some of his music but....well, you know where that sentence is going.

 

MJ was a constant presence throughout my teenage years, from Thriller onwards. The singles, the videos (Thriller’s long form video is still a watershed moment for the form) and yes, the media coverage especially here in the tabloid newspapers in the UK.

By the time Bad came out, I was a filly fledged metal head. And MJ’s music was still deemed to be ok to listen to on account of Edward Van Halen, Steve Stevens and Jennifer batten’s involvement. Bad remains a fine, fine album.

Then he went quiet for a while, coming back with Dangerous. Which was huge. I remember even petrol filling stations having the CD for sale on their counters. Helped that I loved the album from first listen, with added credibility with the rock crowd one again on account of Slash. Yes the media coverage remained silly but the less savoury rumours started creeping in.

By the time of HISTory he was a figure that was openly ridiculed in the UK press, and the Jarvis Cocker incident at the Brit awards left many (me included to a degree) that MJ was believing his own messianic press. Still, the album had such outright gems as Stranger in Moscow so I was still on board.

Invincible left me with the impression, and it still remains, that MJ was chasing trends rather than setting them. Much of the album was generic chart dance stuff that left me cold, yet still had Butterflies and similar tracks that still betrayed some of the old magic. I’m glad I bought it, even if it is not worthy of comparison to his halcyon days.

The Ultimate Collection was my last purchase before he died, mainly for the Dangerous tour video (I don’t care if he lip syncs half of it, it remains a document of an impressive stage show) but also for such gems I’d heard friends play over the years like Ease On Down the Road, State of Shock and We Are Here To Save The World.

I remember the news of the day he died, wall to wall coverage as details began to trickle out from the hospital. Saddening, a little shocking.

Since then more details have come to light of his private life, leaving me feeling conflicted in the same way I do about listening to Page/Zeppelin after reading various biographies. As others have mentioned in the thread, I’ve been able to separate the art from the artist to a large degree. On the other hand the This Is It film, constructed from concept video and rehearsal footage suggests that the shows, if they’d gone ahead, would have been quite something to see, something comparable to the staging of Roger Water’s The Wall shows.

The ‘unfinished’ tracks from Escape was one last trip to the well, one last flash of the old 1979-1993 brilliance. And I’m still glad that I finally got to see Captain EO (twice!) when visiting Epcot, Florida in 2013 before the show was finally retired for good. Yes the film was completely over the top, something that could only have been produced by Jackson/Lucas/Copolla at their early 80s height and is by any objective measure, certifiably nuts. But I loved it anyway, sitting in a mostly empty theatre with other children of the 80s, finally getting to see the film that was such a big deal at the time that it’s opening made the news internationally.

Going to go and spin Dangerous in memory.