Remember The Time

I didn't plan on letting ten days go by before saying something about Michael Jackson on this blog, but there are a couple of reasons it ended up that way. Mostly it was the deluge of news reports and fan tributes that absolutely flooded cyberspace, so what I could have said would have already been said by many others, plus it would have been delivered with more heartfelt sincerity and profundity, by people who felt a deeper connection with the artist and his music. You see, as much as I love music in general, and pop music in particular, I was never a huge MJ fan, probably mostly because the biggest peak in his career happened years before I really began to appreciate music. (Back in the early '80s I was much more a fan of "Star Wars" and Legos than I was of vinyl records and cassettes.)

But one doesn't have to be a fan of Michael Jackson to recognize what a powerful influence he had on the world of music, especially in two key ways. First of all, he broke the color barrier on radio and the then-fledgling MTV. Black artists may have ruled disco, but were seldom taken seriously by the mainstream until he came along -- and just like that, the color of the artist didn't seem to matter anymore. Secondly, Michael Jackson was the first artist whose look was as much a part of his gestalt as his sound, and pop music has, for better or worse, focused on the artist's image as much as his or her music ever since. It may have been the fact that his rise to fame coincided with the music video revolution, and it may have had something to do with the magnitude of a star that MJ was -- and being the keen self-marketer that he was, it's a safe bet that MJ was aware of it all and used it to his advantage.

And let's not forget his music, of course. There's a very short list of artists who have had such a phenomenal impact on music that it has made the artist and their sound instantly identifiable, and essentially influenced all who have followed. All you have to do is look at how many subsequent artists cite him as an influence. As much as the '50s were ruled by Elvis Presley, and the '60s belonged to The Beatles, Michael Jackson personified the '80s. Think about it: when you hear the name Michael Jackson, a distinct style of music flashes before your ears, and when you hear one of his songs, you just know that it's Michael Jackson. And, just like The Beatles and Elvis, you simply can't turn the radio dial very far until you hear a song that has something in it, big or small, that Michael Jackson did first.

It might sound like hyperbole, but it's the truth ... none of us can even vaguely imagine what pop music would be like today if MJ had never come along. And, sadly, times have changed such that there will never be an artist again of such all-encompassing superstardom. The music business, and pop culture in general, are vastly different beasts now than they were then; thanks to the Internet and globalization (and perhaps to our resulting shorter attention spans), there are ten times as many artists of twice as many genres coming at us from ten different directions.

I've never been a big fan of The Beatles, but my music library simply would not be complete, nor would I be able to call myself a fan of popular music, without some of their recordings (their two double-disc greatest hits albums, in this case). The same goes for Michael Jackson ... I think I had his "Thriller" album on cassette many years ago, and though I don't own it or any of his other studio albums now, I consider "The Essential Michael Jackson" a ... well, essential ... part of my collection. Maybe I didn't love you, MJ, but I'll miss you all the same.