Michael Jackson died in the late eighties. It was after Bad that it all went bad. It was a child of eleven, beaten up by his father, who died this week.
He took Motown and everything that it stood for, culturally and musically, and delivered it to the global stage. But he was produced by others, notably by Quincy Jones in the great albums of the 1970s and 1980s. He was a great musician, as so many are saying, but not a great thinking musician.
Compare him with Miles Davis, who changed jazz forever. Miles had a new sensibility, a transforming musical intelligence. Yet Miles acknowledged Jackson when he covered Human Nature on the album You’re Under Arrest in 1985. But it is Miles who is expanding musical boundaries here, not Jackson.
Listen to Jackson’s Human Nature, and it’s a child singing about love. Miles’s version is music for grown-ups.
Yes, Jackson’s music was at the pinnacle of popular consumerist culture. Yes, he created the template for pop production today. Yes, he was the first truly global black pop star.
All because he was good enough to be shaped and produced into something that took over the world.
“Michael Jackson” was a collective achievement, and the idea of individual genius doesn’t apply.
As musicians like to say, Jackson paid his dues on the Jackson 5 recordings. And on the MTV videos. But his individual success after that was always commercial, always a need to please, and to make money.
Remember when Jarvis Cocker was at some ghastly over-produced Jackson theatre event, and dropped his trousers in the direction of the star?
Yes, his death is a significant moment. He will feature in the history of music, but not as a pioneering musician. He was never allowed to be truly original.
As for his personal life, that was a weird tragedy right from the start. In the photographs at the hospital, his father looks like a monster.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment