So Michael Jackson is dead. He brings the world together in a way that no recent global crises has been able to. David Pope's Saturday cartoon said it all: brutal oppression of dissent in Iran? Global warming? Hey – Wacko Jacko is dead, that's the REAL story here.
But let's face it, he is – was – an interesting guy. You couldn’t make up a more lurid, bizarre story. Imagine the pitch to a movie producer:
Talented black child star survives abusive father, grows up to become hugely successful white star, releases best selling album of all time, becomes 'king of pop', marries daughter of 'king of rock', undergoes plastic surgery in attempt to look like Diana Ross, ends up looking like Manga rendering of skinny drag queen, divorces daughter of king of rock for frumpy nurse, has two babies with frumpy nurse, divorces frumpy nurse, has another baby with anonymous surrogate mother, dangles said baby over hotel balcony for world's media, takes kids and retreats to fantasy property he calls Neverland to relive lost childhood, weathers two child molestation charges, dies of heart attack on eve of most anticipated comeback tour ever.
'Sorry, that’s just TOO weird. A story needs to bear SOME resemblance to reality'.
But it was real.
So, apparently, is the grief over his death. I've seen the news bulletins. I don't get it, at least not about Michael Jackson. I'm generation X, so Jackson was supposedly my Elvis, and while I thought he was a great entertainer, musically he seemed like a lightweight to me.
Sure, the guy was talented, and a fantastic entertainer. He may have been the best dancer ever to come out of pop music. James Brown, Prince and Madonna all look positively arthritic compared with Jackson at his peak. All that crotch grabbing has now become a staple of pop dance moves, but nobody else has done it with such finesse.
When he did those lightning-fast, freeze frame movements in sync with a phalanx of dancers, he had a breakthrough blueprint for countless film clips since. It was Bollywood on steroids. Jackson guy could defy gravity in a way that was thrilling to watch. And some of those moves were tricky, man – I tried to master the moonwalk, oh, two or three times, and people just laughed. I laughed.
But Thriller? It might have sold 50 gazillion copies, but I think the best thing about it is Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo on Beat it. Which, by the way, is a corker - it could be his best.
There's this idea going around that by selling however many times more copies than other albums, Thriller is better by the same factor. I'm not so sure. Is Thriller really 10 times better than Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, or 8,000,000 times better than The Drones' Gala Mill?
My favourite Jackson moment was not from Thriller, but from Off The Wall. I was a bit of a dancing fool in my teens, and it’s hard to think of a more inspirational song for booty shaking than Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough. Take a funk groove, add a thrilling string arrangement and some punchy horns, put a gorgeous young black (then) man in front, with moves to die for and a vocal performance of barely contained exuberance, and you've got dance floor GOLD, baby. Best disco song ever.
But after the gushing praise of the last few days, I think some perspective is needed. As usual, the media (The Canberra Times excepted, of course) does an about-face and goes into hyperbole on these occasions. Suddenly, Jacko goes from Wacko to 'musical genius'.
I've got one word to say to that claim: Prince.
Jackson had Thriller, a superbly produced album (that’s Quincy Jones, folks) of pretty good pop songs, of which Jackson wrote four. In comparison, Prince has a fat oeuvre, which, for all its duds, is embarrassingly brilliant by comparison. Stack up Thriller against any of Prince's best albums – Sign 'o' the Times, Purple Rain, 1999, Parade, The Love Symbol Album – and tell me, if Jackson is a musical genius, what does that make Prince?
Lyrically, Prince is sometimes (but not always) silliness writ large, but musically he moves through psychedelia, funk, rock, pop, R&B, jazz, and uncategorisable music with an assurance and flair that leaves Jackson in the dust. Prince was far more innovative - witness the arrangement of his smash hit Kiss, a funky piece of seduction built on a minimalist melding of guitar, keyboard, drum machine, and vocals – no bass!
And that's just the pop songs. Some of Prince's best songs have been overlooked, such as the heartbreaking Sometimes is Snows in April. His willingness – his need - to experiment with sounds and traditional song structures recalls another true musical genius, Hendrix. They both could have come from Mars, and that's why, perhaps, they had a difficult relationship with the mainstream.
As well as being much funkier than Jackson, Prince was darker, too. Jackson's Thriller is no spookier than a ride on the ghost train at the Canberra Show, but Prince's edgy Sign 'O' the Times is still both a chilling evocation of a moment in time and a compelling exploration of a more general existential angst.
Jackson could put out an album called Bad, but Prince was BELIEVABLY bad - in a good way. Parents of teens would approve of Beat it, but not Sexy MF.
Prince was also unbelievably prolific. While Jackson was playing at being Peter Pan in Neverland, Prince was knocking out, what, two albums a year? Have a look at the song list on the Prince best of sometime – there's no contest on who was more industrious.
Jackson was easily digestible, and there's nothing wrong with that. His music sounds good – it is good. But the scale of a musician's celebrity is not always directly proportional to their musical talent. If musical achievement is measured in imagination, innovation, and sheer musical power, Jackson was Salieri to Prince's Mozart.
And what kind of coverage will Prince get when he bites the big one? You can bet it won't be on the scale of what we've seen in the last few days.
But then, when Mozart died he was wrapped in a sheet and tossed into a pauper's grave.