Why We’ll Miss Michael
Last Sunday morning on Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked Presidential advisor David Axelrod whether or not Obama planned to make any public statement about Michael Jackson's death. Axelrod explained that the President had reached out to the Jackson family privately. What current pop star's death will merit discussion about an Oval Office response? Probably not Lady Gaga's.
There is much that will be missed about Michael Jackson, but the Axelrod/Gregory exchange made me think about something specific underlying our collective grief: MJ was the last pop star we will all share. He was the last one to garner so much genre-, race, and class-transcending popularity that it feels appropriate for his death to register as a tragedy of Presidential importance. We have lost a common bond.
Changes in the music industry will ensure that bond stays broken. Due to increased genre fragmentation, the proliferation of illegal downloading, and the ongoing extinction of brick-and-mortar record stores, music simply doesn't sell like it did during Jackson's '80s heyday. For instance, last year's biggest selling album was Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, which moved 2.88 million copies in the U.S. Josh Groban's Noel was 2007's top seller. It sold 3.7 million. By comparison, 1982's Thriller sold 28 million copies. Five years later Bad sold eight million. 1991's Dangerous, at seven million, was considered a mild sales disappointment.
But it wasn't business that made Jackson a cross-cultural icon--it was, of course, his music. At their best (think of "Billie Jean" or "Bad"), the songs were as catchy as the flu and funkier than a Bonnaroo port-a-potty. Their playful melodies made them approachable enough for the parents while their innovative production and stealthily paranoid sentiments made them radical enough for the kids. If you didn't like Michael Jackson, the problem wasn't with him.
Now, though, with the music world splintered into different radio formats, and blogs and websites making it easier for people to burrow into the hermetic hole of stuff they already enjoy, it's hard to imagine anyone again approaching Jacksonian levels of appeal. The conditions just aren't there.
I think that's unfortunate. Having a pop star we can all watch and talk about and listen to makes music feel more vital. Michael Jackson was living proof that music meant something--to me, to you, to everyone. That proof is gone now. And now we are all living a little further apart from one another.
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michael was while he was living and after his untimely death.remember facts rule and we have only one judge and hopefully some of you are not to busy spreadind rumors when it's your time to be judged.bless the jackson family.
happy, it was not a big deal with me. All his songs are great, there were always hits,. He was admired all over the world.
I will always remember you Michael Jackson. I will be always your fan!!!!
Love You With All Of My Heart
We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Out memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.
Oh, music is the meat of all who love,
Music uplifts the soul to realms above.
The ashes glow, the latent fires increase:
We listen and are fed with joy and peace.
-R. A. Nicholson
Dear Michael,May your soul be blessed and rejoiced with Love from the Almighty.RIP. Love You.