I have sort of pushed off talking about Michael Jackson’s death, because, well, because I have been spending the last couple of day soaking it all in (and recovering from the notswineflu). There are those clearly in the “ZOMG! I am devasted” camp and there are those who are clearly in the “meh, he’s dead. so what?” camp.
It kind of hadn’t hit me until last night when the husband and I listened to every track on the Thriller album. We watched – for hours – old videos on youtube. We learned the trick to the 45-degree-angle move. We watched Michael and Paul McCartney. We read articles. We realized what an impact this one man has had on music.
and on ME.
Free To Be You and Me came out before I was born, BUT, it was such a huge part of my childhood. We had the movie on VHS, the record for our record player, and we knew how to play all the songs on the piano, without having to look at the sheet music.
and I may have been Isabella’s age when Thriller came out, but that didn’t stop me from learning every single move to the thriller dance (that I can still do now, ps) and it didn’t stop me from realizing that this Michael Jackson, King of Pop, was changing music forever.
and I may have only almost Josh’s age when The Moonwalk debuted but I still tried like hell to move as smooth as he could (please note: I never could) and I still tried to get my mom to buy me a single white glove.
and I may have only been just older than Emily, but good god did I want to be BAD.
I grew up being fascinated by Michael Jackson. Such an incredibly talented person trapped inside such a bizarre shell of a man. As I grew older and learned more and more of his eccentricities and learned to be more disturbed than jealous of the relationship with Macaulay Culkin, one thing always remained….THE GENIUS OF HIS MUSIC.and regardless of what you think of his personal life, regardless of what you feel about his interest in young boys (I mean, we all heard that joke on Friday…that he died of food poisoning…he ate a 12-year-old wiener. bah.dum.dum), regardless of what you think about his marriages and children and hello, who the heck calls a child “blanket” and then dangles him outside hotel rooms?!??!, regardless of this..his music will live on.
As the King of Pop has said, “music has
been my outlet, my gift to all of the lovers in this world. Through it,
my music, I know I will live forever.”
and it will.
He did affect many people lives and it’s sad that the way he became was because of all of us. The poor guy never had a childhood and was in the limelight pretty much for his entire life, whether it was good or bad. He was pretty eccentric, but definitely still the king of pop.
You are so right, Ali. He had a huge impact on music and pop culture. And yes, I know the moves to Thriller still…it ain’t pretty, though 😉