The boyf and I were talking about Michael Jackson last night. I had experienced relative fits of incredulity as I sat on ONTD and TMZ and hit F5, F5, F5 as the reports on MJ’s condition worsened and it seemed a very real possibility that the king of pop would be dead by the end of the day, if not the hour. And he was.
Last night, he brought up the question as to whether or not there would ever be another Michael Jackson and asserted that he didn’t think it was possible to have a pop star of such international magnitude and intrigue. I maintain that there will be – wherever there are beats and pretty girls, pop will live forever – but one is hard-pressed to find someone, aside from Madonna (and he argued Radiohead; I cited Britney), that has been able to reach cult status, reinvent himself and land success all over the world.
Chuck Klosterman writes about shared experience in IV, his pop culture manifesto, and how because we have 600 channels and bootlegs and even the internet, where niche markets are so overserved but inevitably separated, he doesn’t think we’ll ever have a true experience that EVERYONE has seen. He says in his book that Johnny Carson’s last episode was the last time we’d have something that everyone in the world has seen. Back then it was the radio and cassettes; now it’s iPods and niche radios. It’s so personalized that the chance of having everyone see one event simultaneously is slim to none.
That being said, the market is so segregated that it’s nearly impossible to have someone conquer the charts once, let alone thirteen times like Michael did. Billboard charts everything from Top 40 to ringtone sales; how is anyone supposed to keep up with all of it? Half the time, when you read the list of Grammy nominations, you don’t know who half the people are. Best Bossa Nova compilation? Huh? Having success in one particular category means nothing to the average person.
And that was who MJ appealed to – from today’s pop stars to your neighbor down the street who whistled Beat It while he went out to get the paper from the end of the driveway. You could hang out in your kitchen with socks on and try to moonwalk or put on one mitten and you WERE him, even if for a brief second. His personal life made him even more bizarre; you wanted to figure him out, to see why he was the way he was. Maybe it was because he started in the Jackson 5 when he was eight – who’s ready to be in the spotlight before hitting double digits? Nobody. Maybe it was because he had an odd affinity for chimpanzees and clinging to the childhood he never got to have. He was weird, but you always wanted to know more.
So while pop tarts and their respective hits come and go and celebrities express their love for vodka and Red Bull or eating pizza in bathtubs and posting it on Twitter, there will be a gaping hole where MJ was – keeping us confused, intrigued and dancing in our armchairs.
