MJ down?

but I have real news instead to care about


Since he did turn out dead from this, I realize this is a story. It should not be THE STORY. This was once a man who produced major musical records and was idolized around the globe. So his death should be a news worthy event. But it wouldn't be a major story to me unless he died say after the release of Thriller or while on tour or something where he could be considered to have something major to contribute to the world left or at the peak of his powers as an artist (a la Bruce Lee dying suddenly after Enter the Dragon). This is more like Elvis, the tragic footnote of the life of a person who was once king of the pop world. In both cases, they seem highly overrated by my count for musical contributions. At least the Beatles actually said stuff through their music in addition to selling syrupy pop music. Jackson always seemed like a corporate planned and marketed product. Sometimes the product was brilliant, entertaining, and flashy. I'm just not sure how much substance was being stirred in. His sister did much better at that (for a while). Marvin Gaye looks like the predecessor to the Michael Jackson era. To me that says "huge drop-off". Sort of like Jordan leaving nobody in his wake either in basketball. Took another 6-7 years for something more to arrive on the scene (for the Wade/Kobe/LeBron/KG superstar era). In the music world, that's about the time it took for hip-hop to arrive as a major social force (ie, consumed by suburban kids who drove the music business) after Marvin. And then another 6-7 years for rap to become a art just as packaged and syrupy as pop.

Meanwhile there are real events going on. Iran is still ongoing, but without major media there to see most of it, and without easy internet access to broadcast video or photo imagery that briefly captivated people, they don't seem too interested in discussing it. Africa has several major conflicts ongoing involving millions of refugees (along with Pakistan/Iraq/Afghanistan/Sri Lanka in Asia). There's a show trial in Burma involving a Nobel peace prize laureate. There's the new euphemism for sexual affair: "hiking the Appalachian Trail", committed by a man who seems far too boring to have ever been considered for President. Health care reform debates are ongoing, and likely to be intense over the next month or two. There's still a new SCOTUS appointee coming up along with various case decisions coming down over the next week (including an unpardonable decision not to legally reprimand the school principal involved for the strip search case, though at least they said it was unconstitutional policy to do it in the first place). The cap-trade (sort of) bill is still in limbo. The banks are actually still in limbo and nobody seems to realize this. Etc. At least some of these are things that get coverage from time to time.

But really. We must stop the presses to cover the divorce of Jon and Kate (who I've never heard of except in oblique references to the disproportionate amounts of media coverage they get, and by all accounts I've seen anybody could have had seen this coming anyway, making it a boring story of old news in the manner of modern media) and the sudden death of a long-fallen musical pop star. I'll settle for sports news and NBA trades leading up to the draft over the regular news right now if this is what's going to be talked about.

Updated slightly: In retrospect, Jackson's death is significant perhaps more than I feel it is. But this is largely because in my case I basically regarded him as an empty shell of a human being a long time ago. The genius or talent was used up and consumed in a brief and powerful passage of glory. And then there remained only the long tail of a decaying comet to marvel at. That's not very interesting to me I suppose. Perhaps that makes his actual societal contributions harder to evaluate. But it really doesn't seem like he did something revolutionary and powerful with his music itself. It was the flare surrounding the music that maintains the power and mystique. I contrast this with someone like Jimi or Marvin, where the performances had that mystique, but they involved his music, his real artistic work, as much as himself. It's hard to see much changing because someone's got a funky and fun dance move, and this is the reason I've never been impressed by Elvis either (the music just isn't as good as the mystique around it). It could also be the relative transformation of 80s sounds in general, the sort of artificial popular consumption drivel that made everything seem the same for the better part of a decade, and from which MJ was no different. Still though. When I look for some indication of a substance and a power that reaches me on any personal level, it's hard to find. Enjoying something on some aesthetic level is vastly different than being able to contemplate it with feeling or power, and it tends to me to suggest that it is the second form of enjoyment that has lasting and meaningful impact on the world when you're dealing with artistic expression. I'm just not seeing enough of it here. And what there was, there wasn't anything left. We used it all up a long time ago.

That's really the tragedy of this story.