The death of the King of Pop has provided fodder for a lot of social commentary. Comedian Bill Mahar (see below at 1:45) says the public has always been fascinated by the artist because “Michael Jackson is America.” Maher says that Jackson, like the United States, was “fragile, over-indulgent, childish, in debt, on drugs, and over the hill.”
The ever-excellent Spengler writes that:
The public’s grief was unfeigned and profound, for Jackson embodied the desire of a generation, that is, never to grow up…
The eternal adolescence that Michael Jackson so ably represented in fantasy turned into the foundation for the great investing wave of the 1990s. The best minds America could train worked hundred-hour-weeks in pizza-box-strewn lofts to launch the next site for web-based greeting cards or virtual-reality sex. Stock analysts valued new issues in proportion to their “burn rate”, assuming that the more money they lost, the more they were worth. The sort of things the world really needed — hardier seeds, safer nuclear energy, more efficient electrical batteries — never turned up on the radar screen…
The Peter Pan syndrome continued to afflict the American economy. Rather than save, as aging people should, they borrowed more to acquire bigger houses. The housing bubble prolonged America’s collective adolescence for a few more years, for it allowed Americans to spend money on toys rather than saving for the retirement that came rushing at the baby boomers like an oncoming express train.
Since I was born in 1980, I missed most of the enthusiasm over Michael Jackson when he had been recording his best music. My first memory was watching the live, first airing of the 1991 video for “Black or White” — until my mother shut off the television when Jackson began destroying cars with a crowbar for no apparent reason. (I think that ending of the video was eventually cut.)
As a result, I was not as distraught as some of my friends over Jackson’s death. I don’t remember any of his music after “Black or White” — all I remember hearing at the time were his increasingly bizarre antics, the allegations of child abuse, and the body-modification surgeries. But even I had learned to appreciate his musical genius even though it was well after the fact.
Although Mahar and Spengler’s arguments have some merit, I think the main reason for the emotional responses to Jackson’s death resulted mainly from the fact that even the American public — long known to celebrate vapid, pop music — knew that a legend had passed without ever having the chance to redeem himself spiritually, musically, and psychologically. The early passing of the King of Pop was a tragedy on many levels. Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” may grace a compilation record of the greatest pop hits of the 1990s someday, but Jackson will be remembered in thirty years like the Beatles are today.
People who barely pay attentioned to the meanings in many of Jackson’s most-popular songs could be forgiven because they were usually clouded by amazing dance movies, falsetto singing, and upbeat tempos. But to truly understand the genius behind a hit like “Billie Jean,” listen to the emotional cover by Chris Cornell below. It is rare that a cover surpasses the original.
