While I'm sure that some of my readers will already be sick of the media oversaturation of coverage on the death of the self-proclaimed "King of Pop", I thought I'd write some of my own personal observations as someone who was in high school when the "Thiller" album was first released. The intervening years have dulled the memory of that album for some who are my age and most of those who are too much younger than me never really understood the impact of the album. Instead they only remember the circus freak that Michael Jackson had become. To judge him on the basis of only that would be like judging Elvis only by his later years when he battled drug addiction and a music scene that had largely passed him by rather than by the revolutionary music he created.
Last night I was doing what I occasionally do and going through and giving a listen to the top ten songs on iTunes. For an older guy like me it can be an exercise in frustration, especially when I've moved from pop music into jazz, roots and folk music. Yet, as I sit here now and think back, every single song on the listen owes a huge artistic debt to Michael Jackson and his groundbreaking album, "Thiller", that was released in 1982. Prior to Thiller, African-American music was dying a sad, slow death. It had been consigned to the ghetto of disco where Donna Summer ruled and the niche of funk. Motown was no longer relevant in the American popular music scene as punk and heavy metal bands began to dominate what was the vast wasteland of "Easy-listening" pop. Jackson's first attempt to break that stranglehold, "Off the Wall", was a brilliant album but too rooted in Motown's past to make much of a difference. It sold well but failed to really make a critical mark. When he won no Grammy awards for the album, Jackson apparently went back into the studio to show the critics they had missed the boat. The new album was good but Jackson felt it was missing something. He and producer Quincy Adams knew that it would be another Off the Wall without something. Over the last weekend of recording, Jackson tapped into his anger and the sense of frustration he felt coming from black America in the early 80's and wrote three more songs; "Wanna be Startin' Somehting", "Beat It" and "Billie Jean".
I can honestly say I'll never forget the first time I heard Billie Jean. As a white kid growing up out west I had never, ever heard anything like it. I didn't understand the lyrics at first but I didn't care. It was the beat. Nothing had a beat like that. Nothing. The best word to describe it was propulsive; it propelled the song and the listener along involuntarily. As I think about it now I am still stunned by the power it had. "Beat It" caught a bit of the rage of the streets and "Wanna be..." gave a sense of a young male in a community that wasn't respected but "Billie Jean" was something else. The album saved African-American pop music in this country I think. It gave voice to a new generation of musicians who could now express the rhythm of a different experience. This rhythm hasn't always been well accepted or even well thought out but when I listen to those songs on iTunes, I know where that rhythm got its huge boost.
Too much will be said about Michael Jackson over the next couple of weeks. Some will focus on the circus life and the issues Jackson seemed to have with children and his own lack of a childhood. Some will focus on the cosmetic surgery and the indulgences and excesses of his life. My advice is for you to ignore all of that. To find the soul of the man, go back to his music. Listen to Thiller and hear where the dominant music of today began to come of age. Listen to "Billie Jean" and see if your foot doesn't start to move and you don't feel just a bit like dancing (maybe my Baptist readers should avoid this...). Listen and understand what all the fuss is about and why some feel so strongly about Michael Jackson's death. Most of all, listen and feel his music.
Thanks for Reading.
