Michael Jackson R.I.P 1958 - 2009

The King of Pop has passed away; long live Prince. I was going to write something cutting, acerbic and a bit silly about Michael Jackson's passing, but decided against it as google's search engines are quite powerful and I don't want people to hunt me down and murder me, only for my family find my naked, dead body in lake with one white glove stuck to my chest. The fact is like most people my age Michael's music (his MUSIC) touched me- in a good way, obviously. The first song I ever really loved was bad, and one of my earliest memories is watching the video for Black or White on MTV and being amazed at the face morphing on display. And the bit at the end where everyone changes into another person was quite good as well. You can't judge Michael Jackson's cultural significance through any one measure alone, he was a cultural phenomenon the likes we will never see again. The only way any death could match the scal of this is if Coca-Cola or Mickey Mouse were to somehow die, and even then it wouldn't be too bad as we'd still have Pepsi and Spongebob(which, in many ways, are better). But Michael leaves behind noone: A whole host of imitators, but no equal. Every facet of entertainment that Michael turned his hand to he excelled in: Music, Videos, stage shows. He revolutionised the way music was marketed and sold, the Thriller album alone had 7 singles, which meant from them on artists couldn't rely on filler to beef up their albums as people now expected more. Rolling Stone described his as a "One man rescue mission for the music industry" and they weren't far wrong. The only entertainment venture he failed in was Theme Park construction as, from what I can gather, Neverland was a bit shit, but we'll forgive him that. There will obviously be conroversy around his death as there was in his life, and public opinion will be divided over the majesty of his professional life compared to the shambles of his personal life. Michael Jackson was an enigma, a more superficial construct than any of the characters from his videos, but therein lied part of his appeal. He was otherwordly- etheral, even. While many of his contempories- Bobby Brown, Prince e.t.c- were deeply flawed human beings Michael Jackson, at times, didn't seem human and maybe that's how we should remember him, as an entertainer. He was Elvis, Fred Astair and Bono rolled in to one, and at least twenty times more exciting than that sounds, so whatever your feelings toward him as a person, and remeber you didn't know him personally, just remember him for what he gave you. And even if that was merely shaking your head over the latest Wacko Jacko story in the newspaper, then that's still more than a hundred Justin Timberlakes or Ushers will ever give you.