Thank You Michael Jackson

Thank you for the unparalleled showmanship.

Thank you for bringing an artistry to pop.

You will be missed, imitated, and never replaced.

I remember some Halloween, waiting for MTV to play Thriller in its entirety. What were we all waiting for? A song? A music video? A timeless piece of entertainment. We were waiting for an artist to string us along with a story and a style that we could not take our eyes off of. He referenced things we knew and felt and found a way to make them new.

His work stood on the grand stage of the 1980’s (and still today) on par with the hottest things going on in movie theaters or elsewhere. He found a new and compelling way to tell stories. I never tire of watching his greatest hits DVD. They are mini treasures from a time capsule that we can never return to in full, yet feel compelled to believe will rise again in some new way. We long for the feeling, the excitement, the anticipation, the belief that IT IS ALL HAPPENING NOW.

That was Michael Jackson’s gift.

He made now really, really, really damn fascinating.

Looking at his music videos, I’m just kind of blown away at the conviction of his performance. In what could have been horribly cheesy and failed attempts to wrap a story around a song, his dancing, his expression and his spirit, made them matter.

You see other artists try to imitate this formula. But it seems like an act. Like they want to do the Michael Jackson thing. They don’t have the same magic crazy that made Michael Jackson the solid gold standard.

He didn’t treat pop as pop. It was his art. And he was a genius. A genius and a king of pop.

I remember that Super Bowl Show he did. When he was at field level and then magically appeared at the top of the stadium. That was the stuff of legend. It was the rare Super Bowl halftime show that really seemed to matter. You had to pay attention. You knew whatever he touched was going to be iconic and memorable. It was watching an instant legend, but live.

I remember playing basketball, eight hours a day in the summer of 1991, listening to Black or White on repeat. We literally wore the tape out. But that song and spirit was the soundtrack of our marathon games. And looking back, the sound of an era. 

No one is ever going to rise to those exact, meteoric heights again. People will try.

What made him shunned by the world in the later years is what made him a genius I think. He lived in his own world. Both in a literal world of his own making, Neverland, as well as in an artistic wonderland that know one else understood, but millions loved.

He was an artist who did his own thing. Walked to his own drummer, and hummed bassline. Who lit up the sidewalk with his moonwalking steps. Who served as narrator to a generation (or two, or three) He managed to do his own thing, and also create something that was widely loved. Rare. Once in a lifetime.

Today, I remember the time.

Thank you Michael.