Two-faced doesn’t even come close
Posted on Sunday 28th June 2009
I seem to be missing something. The rampant hysteria surrounding Michael Jackson’s death is leaving me somewhat cold. Anyone would think that Diana had died again such is the intensity of emotional outpouring. True, he was a great musician and wrote some seminal songs, but plenty of other more worthy musical icons haven’t received such idolatry.
Of course people are free to engage in acts of grief if they like, but the media have jumped lock-stock on the bandwagon. Not too long ago, many media outlets delighted in picking over the train-wreck that Jackson’s life had become. Schadenfreude doesn’t even begin to describe the enthusiastic mudslinging. Now the volte-face is transparently insincere, with those same agencies now engaging in shameless acts of hero worship.
For shame.
I think you’re right about the schadenfreude, and the hysteria is starting to reach ridiculous levels.
That said, he did soundtrack many people’s youth and anyone under the age of about forty five in the western hemisphere would have had his music soundtrack their childhood at least slightly. And this definitely still continues to this day. A friend who teaches in Primary said he was surprised by how much the kids still rated him, musically speaking.
He did have a major influence on many musicians and sure he produced some utter rubbish but he did pioneer a lot of stuff. Yes he became a walking train crash, and did some spectacularly stupid things, but he also pioneered music video, broke the colour bar on MTV, and produced the best selling album of all time, which is actually a good album.
Was he as important as Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Ghandi? No, of course he wasn’t. But given the choice between Jackson the musician or Diana the woman, I chose the former.