R.I.P. Michael Jackson 1958-2009

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't spend the past 20 years making the same jokes about Michael Jackson like everyone else did. Thing is, no one wanted him dead. Every child of the 80s grew up with Michael Jackson being the biggest star in the world, and he was imposible to ignore whether you liked his music or not. For me, Michael Jackson was my first exposure to popular music. Growing up, I was schooled in my parents' music collection, but Jackson was the first "modern" pop artist that I got into and subsequently became the barometer for which I judged future pop artists. "Thriller" was one of my first cassette tapes, and I spent hours trying to imitate Michael's dance moves to "Billie Jean" and "Beat It".

Michael's first three solo albums (Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad) are flawless pop albums and for all the craziness that Jackson brought upon himself after his success, he will still have these musical accomplishments under his belt. As he entered the 90s, the quality of his music began to decline and accusations of child molestation hurt his public image more than any rumor about buying the Elephant Man's bones ever could. We may never know if he was guilty of these crimes, but he certainly didn't help. One would think that after facing such accusations, he would stop hanging out with children all the time just to be on the safe side. As Michael descended into insanity and his musical output becoming minimalized, people seemed to forget why we cared about him in the first place. His obvious plastic surgery, general weirdness, and the minimal output of music in the 90s and 00s made it harder to defend the man. We all made jokes about Michael Jackson. It was far too easy. Nobody wanted the man dead, though. Deep down, we knew there was still that 11 year old kid that sang "I Want You Back" with the soul of a man well beyond his years. Underneath his plastic face was the guy that was MTV's first big star, one of the first black artists to introduce elements of rock music to r&b, a guy that could dance in a way that seemed to defy the laws of physics. People wanted him to remain the King of Pop despite his wackiness.

Michael Jackson's music was the first music I got into, and I will always give him credit for that. Whether he was guilty of his crimes, or just a misunderstood man, he created some of the best music of the 20th century, and changed the game for pop music in a drastic way. I just hope history remembers him for that.

Here is a video of Michael Jackson performing at Motown's 25th Anniversary Special shortly after the Thriller album came out. Watch closely at 3:47 for the precise moment in history when Michael Jackson blew all of our minds.



--Peter Gardner