Michael Jackson's posthumous release "Michael" will be upon us next month. Personally, I am very much looking forward to hearing a new MJ album, the first since 2001's Invincible. Usually I'm not a music hipster-type, but I was into Michael Jackson way before he died, especially in that 2003-2005ish time when he was the running joke at my middle school. After his death, a number of people my age (I was born in 1990) re-discovered his music, and probably caught onto the very timeless quality of it. What makes makes Michael so good? There are so many factors, but I can pick out two immediately.
First, he never sang about going to the club. One narrow exception, he did have "Blood on the Dance Floor," but that song was about a mysterious "Manhunter"-type woman, not the overall experience (I think.) He did not have a "Let's go to the club, listen to music, hit on boys/girls, drink cough syrup, snort cocaine...etc. Instead, Michael Jackson's body of work contains a surprising wide number of themes. Take Thriller, the best selling album worldwide. The three songs that everybody remembers from it are Thriller, Billie Jean, and Beat It, which are still played frequently and loved by everybody that has a soul. Thriller is a horror song; Billie Jean is about accusations of fatherhood; Beat It is about gangs. Name one popular song, much less a dance song, about any of these themes (maybe the remix of Rob Zombie's "Dragula" for the former)? Look at his other hits, Bad (gangs), Black and White (racial harmony), Rock my World (love song), Remember the Time (May-December relationship), You Wanna be Startin' Something (fame), Scream (MJ's Childhood), Stranger in Moscow (the KGB), You Are Not Alone (loneliness support), Man in the Mirror (helping the poor), Don't Stop Til you Get Enough (sex), Really don't Care About Us (poverty), and Ben (a rat). Yes, Michael Jackson is the only person that can sing about a rat, and make it heartfelt.
This is my second point, MJ was able to sing about occult stuff in Thriller, despite being raised a Jehovah's Witness, being in a gang in Bad, despite wearing eyeliner on the album cover, and sexual interest in a woman in The Way You Make Me Feel, despite, well, looking really uncomfortable when Oprah asked if he was a virgin. Michael Jackson could sing about anything without it seeming "out of character." He was an actor as strong as a singer as strong as a dancer, and a fine one at all three of those things (no comment on his actual acting job in The Wiz.)
Long live MJ, let's hope the new album delights, and there are many more to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment