Here’s the ABC news story, there’s hundreds more on every news site.
Whatever his flaws and eccentricities as a person, he was responsible for some of the catchiest pop music ever performed.
ELSEWHERE: Tim Dunlop.
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*sniff*
So long, you poor brilliant shambling incredible nutcase.
It’s incredible the stir caused among my son’s friends (12YO). Son received no less than 3 phone calls from his mates this morning about it. I had no idea he was still such a compelling figure.
17YO, however, wasn’t very perturbed.
It is reported that no children died with him.
I hardly ever listened to his music, but I recognise he was a genius. And in some respects he paid a terrible price for it. May he find peace at last.
I won’t comment on his personal life. This is not the right time.
I’ll raise a glass of jesus juice in MJ’s memory tonight.
I will always have a soft spot for this song.
In 1980, my family and I left Saudi Arabia after a year’s stay. Even back then, it was an extremely fundamentalist and restrictive country. And as we waited in transit in Bahrain airport, I heard “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” over the loudspeakers. A lot of disco was played, but only DS’TYGE stuck in my eight-year-old mind. The riff promised freedom and fun and good times ahead…
I wonder if the lid will finally be lifted on his childhood? I’ve been waiting a long time to see those skeletons.
I’ll never be able to dissociate Thriller and Off The Wall from the the boys who used to live downstairs from our flat in North London in ’83/’84. Half Russian, half Sierra Leonian, cute as buttons and poppin’ and lockin’ and moonwalkin’ and cortch-grabbin’ like nobody’s business.
Quite the eye-opener for a suburban Perth lad of nine.
I’m blaming it on the boogie!
I can feel it, I can feel it, I can feel it…everyone could.
The most reliable dance floor filler of all time and by a country mile, I raise my best dancing shoes to ya Michael.
For me, this says much about how I’d prefer to remember his impact, which was extraordinarily positive in many ways.
Plus: Rosario Dawson. Sorry, couldn’t help it.
I’m expecting a new Eulogy Song.
Oh pulease, you poor naive fools: he faked his own death (just saw him walking up Smith St Collingwood). You read it here first.
Apparently this is just a lead up to the release of “Thriller 2″.
I like it.
Thriller 2 – this time the zombies are for real.
Poor guy. What a huge loss.
Granted Thriller was a landmark, but I’ll always prefer to remember him as the cheeky kid in the tux who made “Off the Wall,” which I much prefer to the increasing imperiousness (and alarmingness) of his later personae.
Oh, and also as the cartoon character with the pet mice, Ray and Charles. (I think maybe there was a snake, too.) We’ll pass over the theme from “Ben” in silence.
Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!
I’m with you, Zenger me lad.
I had a share house divorce where custody of OTW and Animals by Pink Floyd was in dispute, both having been owned by a former housemate who’d gone nuts, then overseas. I ended up with Animals, then promptly found OTW in mint condition at the op-shop right around the corner. FTW!!!
One of the biggest funs I’ve ever had playing music was Rock With You in a ten-piece one-off funk/soul band for a fundraiser. Gotta give it up for Quincy too of course.
share you some great wallpapers http://www.uwall.net/
Q 4 FDB
and why would they grab it?
Poor guy, so emotionally fraught.
me too jpz/fdb, I remember leaving a M-Squared warehouse party, too many noise loops and buttoned up boys and walking up to the X, with another gal, where we found a bar open to the street with a small dance floor with 3 filipino prostitutes grinding away for any stray punters. They were playing the still new-ish OTW and other Jacksons’ hits, we danced until dawn.
ah, memories.
#18, we’re talking about OFF The Wall. Do try to keep up.
A cortch is where one snigs one’s lips, isn’t it?
Apparently a sufficiency of fame makes any amount of kiddie fiddling OK.
Huggy
A cortch is a crotch post-plastic surgery.
If he’s to be cremated they’ll need a special permit for his chin.
here goes…
Huggy, he already had a very long career before any child abuse claims & the really whacko jacko years. When he started the only kiddie he was fiddling was himself. Thriller FFS, is still the biggest selling album of all time, rightly or wrongly.
So where do we sign up to have our MJ memories removed Huggy?… I never heard those songs being played on the radio year after year – I never danced along – it never happened.
Do we have to say, ‘abusing children is wrong’, like anyone here would think it is right. Don’t be so bloody insulting.
Apparently a sufficiency of self-righteousness makes any amount of malign commentary OK.
“Refrain from speaking ill of the dead” is still quite a good general rule. Journalists/newspapers/legal depts seem to take the opposite direction: open slather.
MJ was my daughters’ favorite singer for a few years. Their parents remembered him as the cheeky kid in “The J Five”. RIP.
Yeah, he was lovely little kid singing ‘Rockin’ Robin’. I think he was a child star casualty.
he certainly touched a lot of people
My favourite song of his was ‘Wanna be starting something’ (defibrillator remix).
You can read more about the condition behind Michael Jackson’s death here:
http://bit.ly/E8ie7
Wow! Shock. Just got it right here at LP.
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Pretty bitter to say but it’s probably just as well. The sinister aspects of his character would inevitably’ve produced further trouble. What good could’ve come from that to him in later life. Not to mention the others. I have my most sincere doubts that a man who names his sons Prince Michael and Prince Michael II was gonna be good for ‘em.
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Whenever I wondered about Jackson’s sexual misdeeds I always thought of the little boy he used to be. The fact that he grew up in the tough and brilliant grindmill at Motown; that he was probably never a child and at the same time never grew up. What does that do to you?
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But his name belongs alongside Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith and Dr Dre. He was Great! He also belongs alongside Rogers and Astaire, Gene Kelly, Baryshnikov, Fosse, Tharp and Graham. Here’s why?. Musta watched 300 times when I was a kid.
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17YO, however, wasn’t very perturbed.
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Well that’s good. Hope it’s typical. Thanks to the fetishization of (mostly crap) 80s tunes currently invading my psyche I’ll be really glad if the world gives Thriller a rest for a good decade. I love it but my brain is sore.
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And from Jan 2010 anyone playing Bryan Adams is to be summarily executed tout de suite.
i shoulda stopped when i got enuff
“Huggy, he already had a very long career before any child abuse claims”
Yep so did:
. Martin Bryant
. Josef Fritzl
. Wolfgang Priklopil
Maybe if they had been pop stars it would have been OK ?
Huggy
FDB – Apparently a sufficiency of self-righteousness makes any amount of malign commentary
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No sorry I reckon Huggy’s right to make that point. Jacko was a genius but that doesn’t in any way excuse him from the standards of good conduct. The courts never found a fire but there was an awful lot of smoke.
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I do wonder whether Jacko’s alleged paedophilia will open society’s mind to an objective inquiry into it. What is it? What causes it? There’s assertions that it is a sexual orientation. If so no matter. For obvious reasons it cannot be legitimate. But if it is so it somewhat complicates things ethically speaking.
You forgot Hitler, Huggy.
Seriously dude, get your hand off it.
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Hey a court of law is good enough for me. You need to chillax, Huggy, he went to court – which is more than happens to most child abusers – and was acquitted.
I remember begging begging my sister to moonwalk for me to many of the songs on our record (!) of Thriller. It seemed so magical and cool. I also remember when Channel Nine showed “Bad” on tv, at like eight thirty on a Wednesday night. They had been promoting it for weeks and we were so excited.
I’m not a fan of the “we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead” rule when the dead so richly deserve it. To pick an example of somebody whose death provoked a fair bit of blogospheric reaction, Bjelke-Petersen was an undemocratic blight on Australian politics when he was alive, and his death didn’t change that one iota. The mainstream media’s sugarcoating of his record in the immediate aftermath was wrong.
As for Jacko, Adrien has probably summed up the situation correctly, no confirmed fire but lots of smoke. If Jackson did commit grave offences against children, no amount of creative genius excuses him for it, any more than being a shit-hot producer excuses Phil Spector for murder. But, in both cases, it doesn’t change the fact that they made huge contributions to music.
Bjelke had tons of ill written when he was still alive.
I was referring to the “pile on when he can’t sue” which I find unsettling. I’d prefer to see a juicy libel trial while a miscreant is alive and forced to face his accusers.
The day of the death? Give it a rest for a few days, Robert.
Of course I find child abuse horrific. That’s a different point.
Consider the Telegraph’s famous “Stalin Dead Hooray” headline. That’s what happens if you’re a monster who can’t moonwalk.
If Uncle Joe had been able to kick it like Michael, maybe Russia after the October Revolution wouldn’t have run such a horrible course of starvation and mass murder.
In short, what JPZ at #16 said.
Huggy, he went to court – which is more than happens to most child abusers – and was acquitted.
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Yep. Him and OJ Simpson.
Jamon forever Michael. I loved this. Cause they had both become so good at what they did by then, you wondred if they were preternatural.
Martin Bryant, Josef Fritzl, Wolfgang Priklopil those well known Music Hall of Famers, Grammy award winning artists, all sold 50 zillion albums each.
Huggy, because you don’t seem to be able to hold two thoughts at once; for a generation and half, his music was globally front and centre, then for a generation, it was child abuse claims including abuse of his own unfortunate off-spring.
I have no problem whatsoever discussing MJ’s child abuse issues or anything else that shows him to be anything other than what he was in totality, what I have a problem with, is you turning up and making out like we were condoning or mis-remembering etc. But continue on with your slimy slurs if makes you feel better about yourself.
An interesting comment has been made here which reveals a fundamentally mistaken (yet still entertainable) perception; and whilst I don’t wish to subject it to gratuitous attack, b/c it is a plausible (and perfectly good-faith) assumption, nevertheless as a countryman of the late great MJ, I feel an obligation to explore it further.
Adrien: “his name belongs alongside Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith and Dr Dre.”
Is that all? Isn’t that drawing a rather forced boundary?
First of all you forgot Curtis Mayfield, Johnny Mathis, Roy Orbison, James Brown, John Lennon, Tin Pan Alley, the Carter Family, and, oh yeah, Elvis Presley — and even Ray Bolger when you think about it. Second of all… well you should put Ella and Bessie in brackets most likely, and you can really only include Miles and Louis (in a complex taxonomical sense that I won’t expand upon) if you also include Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Phil Ochs, Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan (amongst many other ‘white’ musicians, maybe even George M. Cohan and the Gershwins); the instinctive urge to place MJ taxonomically amongst only other ‘black’ performers is a mistaken one.
No disrespect to the black American musical tradition, but it is not at all free-standing, and it never was and really couldn’t be utterly independent of the greater American musical tradition, although sometimes it tries to be, and sometimes it was unjustly forced to pretend it was. American musical ears (and voices), black or white, learn to swing at the same time that they learn to hear ‘even temperament’, or a pentatonic, or what-have-you. It’s a mix, or an amalgamation, and for quite some time to varying degrees the recognizable idiom has been in the national cultural bloodstream at large. Black Americans can take great pride in the depth and breadth of their contribution to American music, but it’s a major mistake to place them all in a grouping by themselves. Just listen to the orchestral themes to “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies.” What IS that exactly? Why, it isn’t black or white: it’s American.
MJ, you did good. Except for the worrisome stuff about children.
Japerz is correct.
Musically, Jackson fits into a groove that became discernible in the 1960s. Marvin Gaye, James Brown, the Beatles, Sly and the Family Stone and transmuted into something less interesting in the 1970s, Abba, KC and the Sunshine Band.
About that time the popular music industry became, in Joni Mitchell’s words, a cesspool.
Interesting stuff grows in cesspools, but I’m not sure I want it in my ears.
Katz — I think Joni Mitchell may have merely meant that Laurel Canyon was a cesspool.
JPZ – Excellent. A fussin’ ’bout de Afro-Carribean sty’ mon. America’s not the only place mon. Turn the choon do’n fas’.
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First of all you forgot Curtis Mayfield, Johnny Mathis, Roy Orbison, James Brown, John Lennon, Tin Pan Alley, the Carter Family, and, oh yeah, Elvis Presley — and even Ray Bolger when you think about it.
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Well I forgot Curtis Mayfield. ‘Black’ music is different to ‘white’ music for reasons that’d require more space than I have to list. I could’ve added a shitload of other names. Johhny Cash and Elvis Presley wouldn’t be there. Not for reasons of melanin concentration.
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it never was and really couldn’t be utterly independent of the greater American musical tradition
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It is the American tradition. Okay there were morphed Anglo-Celtic folk songs. The musical heritage of European Jews, southern Italians and the bog bloody Irish. And it all melts together. Yes. There is no clear boundary. There never is. I believe culture is more like a water system then a filing cabinet. But editors will be literal minded won’t they?
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Second of all… well you should put Ella and Bessie in brackets most likely,
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Why?
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and you can really only include Miles and Louis if you also include Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra
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Yes. A glaring ommission. My apologies.
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Phil Ochs, Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan
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Disagree.
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Gershwins
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Agree. Again glaring.
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the instinctive urge to place MJ taxonomically amongst only other ‘black’ performers is a mistaken one.
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Taxonomically yes. Politically no. I don’t subscribe to any strict rule of thumb viz various nefarious ‘isms’ but I do believe in being polite, at least most of the time. The contribution of the Afro tradition made American music. It’s the base ingredient. And Miles, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix reahced such virtuous excellence that they should be grouped with Mozart and Lovely Lovely Ludwig Van.
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They’re getting the credit now. And I look forward to the day when we casually group Johhny Cash and Sly Stone toegther. Or at least no longer divide them on the basis of ethnicity. But for no, for some reason, we should make a point of paying tribute to th’ black folks.
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IMHO
I suspect MJ was himself abused as a child, so it’s not really fair to paint his adult suspected abuse as pure evil, particularly against a backdrop of growing madness, infantilism and isolation. He’s a categorically different kind of alleged child abuser than Josef Fritzl. Which doesn’t make the alleged crimes any less serious but does justify assessing his early musical record and contribution to pop independently of his later fragmentation.
When I think of MJ I think of a child genius gone tragically wrong. I think it’s sad, and it would have been nice if he could have hidden himself away in Dubai and had a chance to regain a grip on reality, than dying at 50. Which is awfully young… cocaine-related, maybe?
Is that a case of wishful thinking Japerz?
When is it OK to start the jokes?
Now ?
OK – hey did he hear ? He didn’t have a heart attack he drowned in his pool …… no-one would throw him a boy.
Boom tish!
Michael didn’t die of a heart attack , he had food poisoning . That’s what happens when you eat 12 year old sausages.
He was never as good a dancer as Astaire or Kelly. *runs away*
Adrien — well, I’d say you’re wrong in so many places (some fact, some opinion, but then, informed opinion is nearly as good as fact) that it’d take me a day to work thru.
For now I’ll just look at this’un…
“…Miles, Charlie Parker, Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix… should be grouped with Mozart…”
The simplest truth is that nobody should be grouped with Mozart. Not even Beethoven. Maybe J.S. Bach — maybe. You need to listen to more Mozart, then you wouldn’t say things like this. I dig Miles OK, but really — compared to Mozart, Miles is just a pissy soloist with some good ideas for a new arrangement of “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.” Get some perspective. There are about as many good ideas just in K.516 as there are in all of “Birth of the Cool”, which had the input of ten-or-so people. Really, the blow-by-blow comparison of these two oeuvres is not one you want to make.
Look, I love Coltrane too (more than Miles), and I know a fair bit about Coltrane, and yet I’d call it soooort of a stretch to rate him beside maybe say Chopin or Schumann (both of whose works I can play, or at least used to sorta could, along with Basin Street Blues etc and some tight soloing, just by way of illustration). But the comparison of course is not fair because they do different things. Still, consider: easily 500 great pianists alive today can still play ‘Kriesleriana’; yet even Coltrane by his own admission, could not play again the previous week’s Coltrane. That doesn’t make Trane less than brilliant, but it does mean that comparisons to Mozart make me giggle.
This is all a distraction of course, and I don’t mean to slag a fine tradition via unusable comparisons to another fine tradition. My main point was simply that to critically confine a talent like MJ’s to a tradition that is partly artificially defined is to perpetuate an inaccurate view of reality.
btw, to say that the black tradition _is_ the American tradition is to miss a great deal about what the words ‘black,’ ‘American’ and ‘tradition’ mean.
The man moved and made noise in a way that will be remembered forever in my and your time.
Michael Jackson was brilliant. Being unusual though, he suffered because he was different. Anyway, all his trials and tribulations are over now and now his children should be looked after by someone who will not let them cover their faces and they can live normal lives.
thanks j_p_z. Yes Wolgang Amadeus is unique.
Somewhere in the 1980s I was walking in a dark city, lost, alone and in a welter of confusion. Up in a strange starry sky a bright, new, white-clad prince was dancing to a massive audience of millions of utterly enslaved adorers – all electric fire and neon-jewel-flashing dash – progenitor of legions of more faceless, twirling, glittery princes dancing behind him, imitating his moves and taking over the earth. But the old earth was sad – it was dying and I, not caring about the onrushing advance of the new age, felt hundreds of years old and the end was not that far away…
And now Michael Jackson is dead and I’m still here, full of life. Hard to believe.
Why does it have to be a matter of “excuse” or “not excuse”, or any other kind of either/or? Everyone has the faults of their virtues. Nice people are ineffectual, smart people make the rest of us feel inferior, fit people are health bores and the freakishly talented can hardly be expected not to be freakish in other ways. Even the ones who weren’t brought up by violent fundies in a fishbowl.
Also, what FDB said at #36.
“This is all a distraction of course, and I don’t mean to slag a fine tradition via unusable comparisons to another fine tradition. My main point was simply that to critically confine a talent like MJ’s to a tradition that is partly artificially defined is to perpetuate an inaccurate view of reality.”
Yep. Take Beat It – and note Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo. Your thoughts, Adrien, on what MJ was seeking to do here?
Mozart and J.S.Bach should be in a group of two.
I think MJs life, fame, success and weirdness is an American parable. Success and fame don’t always bring fulfilment and happiness.
He was brilliant, but he was also flawed. Fame and stardom certainly highlights the flaws and puts them on world headlines.
I had concerns about the apparent child abuse. As others have pointed out he is quite likely to have been abused himself too. He certainly suffered oppressive domination in his early years as part of the J5 troupe.
I will forever remember “its as easy as do re mi, one two three, baby you and me” from my youth.
Rest In Peace Michael.
Cardiac Arrest.. yeh, right. They got no hart an never stop. You’d tink dai could av let him off and av some peace in deff. Bastards!
In the dying days of the Soviet Union the KGB grew obsessional about stamping out illicit access to western popular culture. Michael Jackson became a particular object of fear and hatred for the Thought Police.
Doubtless, millions of young Soviet citizens lived their fantasies about a better life through their devotion to Michael Jackson.
The Soviet system decayed from the bottom up when Soviet citizens discovered that the Soviet system was hopelessly inadequate for satisfying their hopes.
Michael Jackson certainly helped Soviet citizens to imagine a better world than the one they lived in.
He had influence, no doubt.
I see Mac Donald’s have named a hamburger in his honour.
The Jacky Burger a fifty year old piece of meat between an 8 yr old buns.
Wow, this thread just keeps on getting classier.
In other news, Superman would beat Batman in a game of croquet, provided the Green Lantern were not on the judging panel.
Anyone who would like to put shit on Michael Jackson should search “Jackson 5 Carol Burnett show” on youtube. What a display of musical mastery and pure showmanship and entertainment. What genius.
When I look at him performing – which I’ve spent a lot of tonight doing – I see someone who maybe wasn’t at home anywhere else but on stage.
I don’t know if Michael Jackson harmed any children. Whether he did or not, there is no circumstance in which making jokes about kids getting sexually assaulted is funny.
Great vid Zoe. I, too, have been thinking about this more than I expected today.
Watching that, one thing that really does strike me, as alluded too by other commenters already, is how MJ was so adroit at effecting the simple joy and wonder in others that seemed to evade him. If he was able to live the persona he crafted on stage, rather than be held hostage by its expectations.
@ 59 Sally R
Word. Eddie’s choice to solo was revolutionary as was Quincy’s invite. Opened up a few doors then while never fully opened have never been fully closed.
A band will realise what it is all about one day.
I liked the Jackson Five and that terrific little kid, Michael. But during the eighties I was in parts of the world where it was easy not to be aware of MJ. Then in the 90s I was aware of him in the news for his weirdness more than anything. So just now I’ve been looking, for the first time, at his ‘hits’ on YouTube.
The one Zoe linked to was a perfect example – Reagan’s USA in all its kitsch, glamorous, pills and plastic surgery, hyped up excess. MJs voice has become mostly whoops and shrieks, the dancing is a joyless, exhibitionist sort of Marcel Marceau on speed. He was a magnetic ‘performer’ but it’s become a strange performance – it’s almost distressing, except that you can’t see the real person. During the train wrecks of Janis Joplin or Judy Garland or Elvis, you could still absolutely see the person there, which gave the performance an honesty I can’t see in these highly choreographed MJ pieces.
I think it’s right to call him a terrific, original performer. There are lots of people in the music business who are really good (Stevie Wonder comes to mind) but who don’t necessarily become as mega-famous as MJ. I think he was a great performer, but not a genius.
FDB: “Superman would beat Batman…”
Oops, sorry sherriff. Sorry Adrien. I was trying to make a pretty simple point, but wound up taking the most irritating route available. (Hmm, like *that’s* never happened before…)
Does anybody remember the Jackson 5 cartoon show? I can’t remember what they did for story lines in between songs. I hope they solved mysteries… The mice were the big draw. Also fuzzily recall there was a Beatles cartoon for a while (not Yellow Submarine) where they spent all their time running away from mobs of screaming fans. That’s what’s wrong with music today. Not enough solving mysteries, not enough pet mice, and not enough Richard Lester.
CNN We interrupt this broadcast of the coverage of the nuclear war raging between North Korea and the U.S.A.and go to our correspondent in California, where it has been reported, that the coroner’s autopsy carried out on the entertainer Michael Jackson revealed, he had an ingrowing toe nail.
JPZ – I’d say you’re wrong in so many places (some fact, some opinion, but then, informed opinion is nearly as good as fact) that it’d take me a day to work thru.
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Indeed. As I’ve said I don’t think anyone can be right. My little taxonomy of the ‘tower of song’ as it were was improvised. This week-end Michael Jackson has been omniscient so I’ve been forced to hear all his music. Thinking about it you could group him with the Beatles (beautiful melodies) with James Brown and Dr Dre (brilliant dance sychnopation) or with mindless robots like Britney Sear and Justin Timberlake. I also recalled Frank Zappa’s somewhat sour opinions on his capacities. And wondered to what extent Thriller was Quincy Jones’ work.
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Time will see him settle wherever he belongs.
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The simplest truth is that nobody should be grouped with Mozart.
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Very probably true.
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Not even Beethoven.
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Depends on what you deem important. Mozart lived a short life and produced a massive and sublime catalogue. His fortieth syphony is some of my favourite early morning music. But he never made me feel quite as Bachanite as Beethoven. And Beethoven was the master of the piano in a way that Wolfie could never be.
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Maybe J.S. Bach — maybe.
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Yeah. But see I don’t get into Bach. I know he’s class. In know Michelangelo’s class too. But I don’t really like it. Bach too ‘sit bolt upright in that straight back chair’ and Michilangelo’s too much a Gay S&M Biker Bear.
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You need to listen to more Mozart, then you wouldn’t say things like this.
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You need to undestand my water system metaphor. But you’re right. More Mozart’s never a bad thing. But sorry. Right now it’s the Rooskies 1880-1930. Oh those Rooskies! And that Albanian chappie whatisname.
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I dig Miles OK, but really — compared to Mozart, Miles is just a pissy soloist with some good ideas for a new arrangement of “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.” Get some perspective.
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Get a Second. I shall meet you at dawn tonmorrow. Swords not pistols. I wanna do you slowly mate. Slowly…
P Cat – Why does it have to be a matter of “excuse” or “not excuse”, or any other kind of either/or? Everyone has the faults of their virtues. Nice people are ineffectual, smart people make the rest of us feel inferior, fit people are health bores and the freakishly talented can hardly be expected not to be freakish in other ways. Even the ones who weren’t brought up by violent fundies in a fishbowl.
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Yeah. But if you do something that greatly harms another that’s wrong. And it is just that one should deal with consequences to one’s posterity. I agree that we’re all flawed. And I have a revulsion of that self-satisfied smugness seen on the assuser’s face so often. But still.
Sally R – Take Beat It – and note Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo. Your thoughts, Adrien, on what MJ was seeking to do here?
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I love that solo. Never liked Van Halen all that much altho’ I did my intermediate using his textbook. But that solo’s just great. So tight. I reckon the idea was pinched of Bowie who made a habit of putting unlikely guitar sounds together. So why not put the 80s guitar hero in a work of classic funk? Michael played the rhythm bits. (Any Mark Knopfler challengers?)
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Does anybody remember the Jackson 5 cartoon show? I can’t remember what they did for story lines in between songs. I hope they solved mysteries… The mice were the big draw. Also fuzzily recall there was a Beatles cartoon
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Yeah loved The Beatles cartoon. What they did between songs was have Ringo play the lovable dope. Ringo kept doing stupid things. Only rember the Jackson 5′s music. And the Afros.
Yes, how a song is produced is, more often than not, more important for the song than its melody and lyrics, and you always have to wonder about the role the creativity and skill of a song’s producer plays in a song’s appeal. Just on Thriller, though, I was reading the Wikipedia article on Billy Jean earlier and came across this interesting bit:
Michael Jackson is also formally credited with writing the song, as well as several of the other songs on Thriller. (He’s also formally credited as a co-producer on several of these other songs and on the Thriller album as a whole.)
The producer disliked the demo and did not care for the song’s bass line
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He what? That’s one of the best bass-lines in history!
Adrien — well one way I’ll grant you that Miles has got Mozart beat: Miles would make a much better Spiderman villain. OTOH, part of Wolfgang’s name rhymes with “Dr. Zaius,” and that’s a pretty strong advantage too. Line judge! Make a call here!
Fun factoid: according to wikipedia, the opening beats of Thriller were played on an Australian-made synthesizer.
In conjunction with the Kookaburra sampling thread, I always wondered if MJ ever paid the guy who wrote “Soul Makossa,” which is quoted at the end of “Wanna Be Starting Something.” I have this vision of the guy sitting quietly at home in Cameroon, reading the newspaper, when suddenly a Mack truck pulls up and the driver starts shoveling bags of money onto his front porch.
“[...]the idea was pinched of Bowie who made a habit of putting unlikely guitar sounds together. So why not put the 80s guitar hero in a work of classic funk? Michael played the rhythm bits.”
I’d disagree with you a bit there, Adrien. Many funky and danceable elements, yes – but the instant that clunky, almost awkward (notably so for MJ), drum machine part starts up, Beat It announces itself as essentially a white rocker. So, that said, I don’t find the choice of style of guitar solo to be so unlikely – quite the opposite – and it’s an example of why I’m inclined to side to with j_p_z on this. MJ really was far more about recognising and celebrating an American musical tradition – one which had, in fact, been constructed on frequent appropriation and reappropriation back-and-forth between the various black and white music cultures of the 20th century.
As you and Shaun point out, an inspired choice to actually get the white guitar hero, Van Halen, to come in and play the white solo. At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that Jimi had a couple of white guys for his rhythm section
(hmm, didn’t say quite what I wanted to with that Jimi reference – though I had intended to bring it back to him. My point was certainly not to suggest that was some kind of ‘inspired choice’ by Jimi…)
Fun factoid: according to wikipedia, the opening beats of Thriller were played on an Australian-made synthesizer.
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The Fairlight perchance? The sequencer sampler was invented in this country. And of course it grew into a massive domestic export industry – not.
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Miles would make a much better Spiderman villain.
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Yes. A Miles super-villain! I like.
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that clunky, almost awkward (notably so for MJ), drum machine part starts up, Beat It announces itself as essentially a white rocker.
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Mmmm clunky and almost awkward drum machine? Now where would that come from? Kraftwerk? Now who was it that was combining Krautrock and Philly Soul in the mid-70s, twice appeared on Soul Train (and doesn’t remember any of it)?
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MJ really was far more about recognising and celebrating an American musical tradition
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He was a product of Motown. He was the tradition. The tradition is now a composite of various logos and a registered trademark of BastardoCorp who will shortly be sending us a bill for talking of these matters.
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Thing is that what separates and unites white music and black music as we’ve talking of it is the riff. How it’s played and who plays it. The black musicians tend to have more complex, syncopated riff played by the bass guitarists. The white musicians often don’t have riffs at all.
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But ‘Beat It’ is white rock that’s right. Listen to the riff. Good riff ‘ey? Rock riff on a soul song. (Cue: Rick Rubin to pinch that one ) There’s no Berlin Wall ‘tween the black folks and the white folks. It’s jes’ the black folks like to dance mostly and the white folks like to sing lah lah lah I lost my farm n’ shit.
what I wanted to with that Jimi reference
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Any Jimi reference is a good reference. Did you know Hendrix and Miles were to collaborate on an album. He died just before they were to discuss it.
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I reckon within decades ideas about ‘white’ music and ‘black’ music will be of historical curiosity value.
Michael Jsckson died at 50.
What artistically worthwhile thing did he do after the age of 25?
“MJ really was far more about recognising and celebrating an American musical tradition”
Hokey Smoke! When the Jackson 5 did their 30th anniversary gig*, what did they choose as their entry music before busting into “can you feel it”? Aaron Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the common man’. It’s hard not to read that as ‘We are part of the American tradition, our music is for The People (and this gig is a big deal)’
Or maybe Tito and Marlon were big Emerson, Lake and Palmer fans. Who can say?
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(* via Zoe’s link above which unfortunately has some awkward jumps but there’s a slightly better version at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrAsuBnWvdE )
There is no drum machine on Billie Jean.
Just sayin’…
Some seriously choice cuts:
Fantastic ‘Billie Jean’, from the 1984 ‘Victory’ Tour with audience comments and lots of screamin, crying and dancing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkNHsOZNVtA
Nth-generation tape copy of ‘Beat it’ from the Dallas stop of ‘Victory’ guest starring Eddie (with a mad stadium rock ending) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82mhFXKS2es
And just to prove there’s no school like the old school, 1979 in London http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw5ux1x_4bw and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYCFLeQ7yRA
Different song, FDB.
Umm, yeah.
I was drunk on the awesome power of studio magic. Plus scotch.
Seems to me there is an undercurrent of “thank god he’s dead, now we can idolise him properly without being embarrassed by what a whack-job he has become”. Or something.
Aidan: or at least “ain’t no mo’ young boys in danger from him no mo’ he ain’t molestin’ no mo’”
FDB – There is no drum machine on Billie Jean.
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No but ‘Beat It’? One of these maybe? Sounds electronic. (Remember those? Hello Pseudo Echo!).
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Predictably there was Michael Jackson all over the place this week-end. Some girl hung out half the window of a speeding car screechin’ “Michael Jackson” over and over again. (What class).
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Nearby, where you turn right off the Swantson St bridge onto South Bank I could hear three different Michael Jackson songs coming from different directions. As usual the EQ Latte-bar and Swank had the best tune:
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Methinks the lyrics are of the essence of this thing we call: ‘black music’.
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And today, having dedicated the past three days to lauding the guy, I noticed the papers’ve started to kick him: The Dark Side of Whacko Jacko. Are you ready? Here we go…
I think Beat It might be a bunch of really processed (and/or synthesised) drum sounds sequenced on the Fairlight you were referring to earlier actually. It doesn’t really sound like any of the synth drum kits or in-a-box drum machines I’ve heard – although with the multi-outs on a DMX or 808 you could put each voice on a different channel of the desk and eq/compress/effect it to sound pretty unlike itself.
Anyway, I got’s nothing against drum machines. I lost my 1/2 share of an 808 in the move from Perth, retaining the Juno in preference, but still have a 606 kicking* around. There’s certainly nothing “white” about them necessarily, and I see that as a bigoted conceit that black folks are “natural” musicians.
*Though anyone familiar with the 606 bass drum sound might find that choice of terminology amusing. Sounds like a shoebox being tapped with a biro.
For the record, FDB, I wasn’t inferring at all that drum machines are ‘white’ sounding – just that intro beat. Whether it was sequenced or not is kinda irrelevant (though I’m assuming it was), apart from to suggest a bit more obvious intentionality on the part of the producers.
Much as I don’t wanna open this can of worms all over again, well here’s just a spoonful of worms instead of a whole diet of worms…
“Methinks the lyrics are of the essence of this thing we call: ‘black music.’”
You know, just tha other night I dreamed I was listening to “Death Letter Blues” in my Wonderbra, and wondering whether or not the lyrics were ‘of the essence’ of anything I was familiar with. And then when I woke up, my pillow was gone! –And my eardrums were scorched, too, but that nice white feller Fred Astaire was singing “Slap That Bass” so I didn’t mind so much. Dreams are funny!
FDB – There’s certainly nothing “white” about them necessarily
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Nein! Neine!!!. It voz German. It waz. Please led uz haf zomezink. You beat de shit out of us in two Vorld Vorz unt zen ze 1950 Vorlt Cop. Unt all ve hef iz ze I ham ze operadaw off my pocket calculay-daw.
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Please? Juzt led uz hef zis one zink. Pleaze, ve haf ze chocolate coloured Germans now unt ve are all hippiez.
JPZ – Has David Lynch called you yet? About the film rights to #94 that is? Who would you like to play you?
Somehow I get the feeling whiteys are protesting too much. Absent Black music, hell Black history from America and what you left with? Hymns and Shirley Temple.
WHAT IS GOING ON WITH JPZ’S GRAVATAR STOP
IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE STOP
MAKE THE IMAGES STOP STOP
GIVE THE MAN A BIT OF DIGNITY STOP
STOP COLLABORATE AND LISTEN STOP
His Tomb Stone should read:
Boy, did this boy have issues.
“I lost my 1/2 share of an 808 in the move from Perth, retaining the Juno in preference”
Ooh, I can’t believe you did that
“It doesn’t really sound like any of the synth drum kits or in-a-box drum machines I’ve heard – although with the multi-outs on a DMX or 808 you could put each voice on a different channel [...]”
I’m really sick of listening to this bloody intro, but here’s my best guess (which FWIW I happen to think is pretty close!
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The kick is probably just 808, possibly doubled w. an 808 low tom (you can hear it mixed very quietly, slightly panned to the right).
The quieter snare is almost definitely 808, pretty much straight up and untreated.
The hats are closed 808, w. a short-decay open hats panned left on every 2nd of 8.
The cabasa is definitely LM1 (and a clue to the rest), panned right, w. a slapback panned centre.
The accent/effects snare sounds like it could be LM1 snare on the left, doubled with (almost definitely) an LM1 low tom on the right.
I don’t think it sounds like they bothered to try to sync the two machines. Rather, the 808 was sequenced and the LM1 probably played by hand…
(Bored you all silly yet?? Remind me not to arrive home from the pub and decide to micro-analyse ten seconds of drum programming ever again…)
Bored?!?!?!
On the contrary, I find your ideas fascinating and wish to subscribe to your pamphlet!
The Juno/808 thing was a real gut-wrencher. In the end, it was a decision based on utility (or frequency thereof), and the fact that my mate and I had done a pretty exhaustive multisample of the whole thing. Even the cowbell! It’s really bloody hard to tell the difference. The handclap on the old dear used to sometimes inexplicably play back with a really short decay, and the crash cymbal with a much longer attack than normal, so I still have the ideosyncrasies too.
Oh be still my beating Poly-800; a music-geek stoush. Class! Someone start some vigourous one upmanship viz the Moog synthesizer, or maybe The Beatles: genius songmen or George Martin’s boy band?
Hmm. Did they ever do one of those “Classic Albums” shows on Thriller?
The coolest part of that was probably where they got the artist or producer sitting at a mixing desk with the original multi-track recording of the song. They then fiddled around with the desk to bring attention to particular bits of instrumentation.
FDB: “even the cowbell!”
Did someone say… cowbell? (cue Christopher Walken, that splendid man.)
btw, please elect Phil @ 97 as President of the Lefties for Life. Never has such a pure crystalline Summa Sinistra in all its glory been enunciated so clearly, so tersely, and yet so comprehensively.
Ecce homo!