Will the real Michael Jackson career please stand up?
Will the real Michael Jackson career please stand up?
Nov 16I’m neither a hater, nor a lover of Michael Jackson. Actually, I regret I said, “lover of Michael Jackson”, but it’s too late to go back. You know what I mean. I mean, I’ve never slept with Michael Jackson. Or gone all screamy girly over his music.
I will admit, Thriller was my first album purchase. Other albums would follow, mostly Wierd Al or Alan Parsons-based, but I also picked up Off the Wall. Those two were the the funk to my young ears, the proud succesors to everything git-down git-down I’d listened to on 70s AM radio. Then I bought The Jackson’s Victory album, and listened the shit out of that one. Then I stopped listening. Things got more pop and less funky from that point on and I wasn’t interested.
So, it’s with a certain bewildered sadness that I watch the seeminly insane decline of Michael (that’s Mr. Jackson, if you’re nasty.) No doubt about it, dude’s imploding. Anybody that doesn’t think fame is cancerous should have a look at this man – it’s pretty much eaten him alive, and it’s going back for a second helping of Latoya.
At the same time, I’m starting to notice a big hater push in the media – and it took the internet to help me see it. So, the word at New Music Express is that Michael’s big come-back performance at the World Music Awards (sort of like the World Series of baseball, wherein most of the world doesn’t actually get to play) was a non-starter, as he performed We Are the World instead of Thriller (a change for the thematic better, one might say, as well as topical), he couldn’t hit the high notes (this is in fact true) and he was booed off the stage…
…or not. You Tube tells a front row story, from the fan perspective. They’re screaming for him, “Michael, you rule!” is heard at one point, and after he leaves to the sounds of non-stop cheering, someone recites the mantra of “He’s coming back. He’ll come back out again.” So, the music press thinks he bombed. The masses love him. It sounds like the booing NME heard was coming from the press pit.
Don’t hate a playah! Let the man wither in peace, you bastards.
