minor jive

So much of what Michael Jackson did in music doesn’t seem like the work of a mere mortal. First, he broke through as a pop figure at a ridiculously young age. Child stars have been around forever, of course, but the best of those Jackson 5 records don’t sound remotely like a gimmick. You believe every word of “I Want You Back”, that this little guy has something profound to say about love, and he is saying it in the most energetic and life-affirming way you’ve ever heard. This is 1969, when he was just 11; a fifth grader, if he’d been a normal kid and gone to fifth grade. Which he wasn’t, and so he didn’t. His childhood was put on hold. But you listen to that music now and wonder how it was possible that a boy so young could be so thoroughly in command of his gifts.

Fast-forward 13 years: Motown’s 25th anniversary special. The cheer that erupts from the audience when they see him do the moonwalk during “Billie Jean” is more like a gasp, a huge “Did you see that?” wail, like this guy had just leapt a tall building and no one was sure if they should believe their eyes. He was 24 then, Thriller had been out for four months. That night an icon was minted in an instant: the fedora, the sequined socks, that front leg-kick thing he did— he flew in from another dimension and looked like the greatest dancer in pop music history. Superhero. He even dressed the part. Along the way, he broke the color barrier at MTV and changed the relationship between pop music and the moving image. He also began to do bizarre things no one understood that at first only added to his myth….

Take away the music, and Michael Jackson’s life is just too sad to contemplate. Which is a very good argument for not taking away the music, ever. We’re all going to die someday, too. So let’s live. You start with “I Want You Back” and “ABC” and “I’ll Be There”. You go through the Jacksons years with “Dancing Machine” and “Can You Feel It”, and then a long stop at the incomparable Off the Wall. Jackson sang a small handful of tunes with a legitimate claim as the best pop song of the past 40 years, and “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” is one of them. Then it’s on to “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” and “Thriller” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Something”, and on through later hits: “Bad”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man in the Mirror”, “Black or White”, “Will You Be There”, and sure, why not, “Gone Too Soon”. Michael Jackson— superhero, cartoon, singer, dancer, supremely troubled dude— made all this music, and it’s amazing.