#270 my two cents

Mia and Lizzie have talked about Michael Jackson, and now that he has been laid to rest and I've had a chance to think about his passing, I'll throw in my two cents.

When I heard about Jackson's death and the immediate hullabaloo that followed, I thought of Elvis. When Elvis died in 1977, I don't think he'd made any new music for awhile, and he'd become something of a caricature of himself. He was fat Elvis in the white jumpsuit doing shows in Vegas, right? But when Elvis died, the fans came back out of their Elvis closet. The remembered sexy young Elvis with the black hair and the swivel-y hips and his immense contribution to music. Not that his songs were that immense, but his impact on the way music was made back in the day was tremendous. For awhile, he was the biggest thing there was, right? It was a little before my time, but that's what I imagine he was. I mean, everyone knows Elvis!

I feel like that about Michael Jackson. This morning I was listening to "Mike and Mike" on ESPN radio. For some reason, they were having '80's Day. During one part of the show, Mike played four songs and asked which was the quintessential 80's song. The choices were "Take on Me" by Aha, "Jump" by Van Halen, "Land Down Under" by Men at Work, and "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. I remember all of those songs, and the videos, very well because I AM a child of the 80's. MTV was born in the 80's and it changed the way we heard music because now you could have an image to go with the songs. I remember that the earliest videos were kind of boring sound stage shots. Then Aha had their cool cartoon-like video and that was neat. But the videos I remember the most were from Michael Jackson. I waited for hours for "Thriller" to come on! "Billie Jean" was a cool video. Michael Jackson raised the bar on videos. I think his music was quite influential to a generation of R & B and pop artists. His dancing was insane, and definitely inspired other performers. His contribution to music was tremendous.

MJ did have problems in his personal life. He was kind of a freak with all the surgeries and the child molestation and the marriages and the way he shielded his children. I'm not down with all that. I didn't really pay much attention to what Michael had going on in the last few years. He wasn't making music, so I didn't really care to pay attention to anything else that popped up about him in the news. I'd had MJ overload during the molestation years.

However, the death of someone as iconic as Michael Jackson is bound to create a frenzy, and I do think all the coverage and the big public memorial was over-the-top. Maybe he wasn't a great human being. I don't know how he was with his family and close friends. I do know that his music was pretty cool for the era that he dominated and his music will always symbolize the 80s for me.

May he rest in peace, and may his children be happy. God knows we haven't heard the end of this tale yet.