Hello again, fair readers.
I remember very clearly where I was when I heard Michael Jackson died. It was almost three years ago, if that seems at all possible. I was locking the doors for the day at my office when my boss told me with no preamble or warning - just a very matter-of-fact "Michael Jackson died", a hint of gossipy glee barely masked in his voice. Of course, being at work I had no access to the proper channels and was most likely one of the last to know. I had been a fan of his work like anyone in the world, but I had fallen out of touch with his music. When I was young, absolutely no question about it, he was the alpha and omega of music, the King of Pop. Then things went down in the 90s and he became the living embodiment of tired jokes and I completely forgot about how great his music was. I was all into angsty, guitar driven alternative and electronica and Michael Jackson was some outdated, weirdo stuff. Sad how wrong I was.
In college my better half and I had a series of long, long road trips to get her moved into her apartment at her university. With the advent of iPods we were able to play name that tune and play music that was, in my opinion, much better than whatever was on the radio. So while we were laughing about the snippets of soundtrack from The Simpsons that would occasionally pop up or grooving along to Brother Ali's still-amazing Shadows On The Sun, there was an unexpected moment when the shuffle feature brought us to an unexpectedly jarring sound. It was the opening crashes of Jackson's better-than-it-has-any-right-
"Oh my god" I mused.
"What?" she asked, concerned.
I shook my head. "This is good," I said. "Like, really, really good"
She shrugged and kept driving, acknowledging "Yeah. It's Michael Jackson," as if saying "and you're just realizing this now?"
I had completely forgotten how mind-blowingly good he was. I made her endure working through everything of his she had on her ipod after that. The whole time we were singing along, jamming in the car and snapping our fingers. I copied all her music of his, as I hadn't downloaded any of his up to that point and I didn't have any CDs either. From then on, I listened to him more often but it was still this sheepish, guilty pleasure. My friends would often give me guff for it, like it wasn't normal for a guy to listen to it, but I would just let it play and if I'd ask them later they would cop to loving it as well. Jokes about his legal history or not, dude was awesome, plain and simple.
When Jackson passed away in 2009 the world lost its mind for just a bit. My better half happened to be passing through Times Square that night and she still talks about the surreal spectacle or people out in the streets paying tribute to him. I had listened to his established hits, the number one singles, plenty of times. So when I kept hearing about the later work he did and how some of it was actually quite good, my curiosity got the best of me and I bought a couple tracks, including the dark and disturbing song 'Morphine'.
If enough people had heard this track when it was first released, one would almost think he would still be alive, today.
Almost.
The song is angry and grinding, some of the most visceral stuff he ever released. Composed of broken drum samples and pounding synths, the song serves as a backdrop for Jackson to work out some pent-up aggression over his increasingly demanding drug addiction. It's honestly a bit scary to hear Jackson scream the refrain, wailing "You're doing morphine!" over and over. When the song switches modes halfway through to that of a piano-driven ballad, he starts to sing about the very Demerol that killed him, even scarier in hindsight. It's quite haunting and disturbing, but worst of all its incredibly catchy and well written, a sign of a truly talented artist in the clutches of narcotics. Maybe I'm wrong about all of this, but you have to ask whether his dwindling audiences heard the cries of a man in need of serious help. Unfortunately Jackson was too isolated and cutoff from reality to get the help he needed. Hey, trying to quit these very drugs could have killed him as well, so what do I know?
It's a terrible shame that we lost such a talented artist to such a preventable thing, but then again we tend to get the world we deserve and not the one we want. Still, I'm glad I took the chance on digging into some of his lesser known work, just to get some insight into the demons that plagued him.
I remember very clearly where I was when I heard Michael Jackson died. It was almost three years ago, if that seems at all possible. I was locking the doors for the day at my office when my boss told me with no preamble or warning - just a very matter-of-fact "Michael Jackson died", a hint of gossipy glee barely masked in his voice. Of course, being at work I had no access to the proper channels and was most likely one of the last to know. I had been a fan of his work like anyone in the world, but I had fallen out of touch with his music. When I was young, absolutely no question about it, he was the alpha and omega of music, the King of Pop. Then things went down in the 90s and he became the living embodiment of tired jokes and I completely forgot about how great his music was. I was all into angsty, guitar driven alternative and electronica and Michael Jackson was some outdated, weirdo stuff. Sad how wrong I was.
"Oh my god" I mused.
"What?" she asked, concerned.
I shook my head. "This is good," I said. "Like, really, really good"
She shrugged and kept driving, acknowledging "Yeah. It's Michael Jackson," as if saying "and you're just realizing this now?"
I had completely forgotten how mind-blowingly good he was. I made her endure working through everything of his she had on her ipod after that. The whole time we were singing along, jamming in the car and snapping our fingers. I copied all her music of his, as I hadn't downloaded any of his up to that point and I didn't have any CDs either. From then on, I listened to him more often but it was still this sheepish, guilty pleasure. My friends would often give me guff for it, like it wasn't normal for a guy to listen to it, but I would just let it play and if I'd ask them later they would cop to loving it as well. Jokes about his legal history or not, dude was awesome, plain and simple.
If enough people had heard this track when it was first released, one would almost think he would still be alive, today.
Almost.
The song is angry and grinding, some of the most visceral stuff he ever released. Composed of broken drum samples and pounding synths, the song serves as a backdrop for Jackson to work out some pent-up aggression over his increasingly demanding drug addiction. It's honestly a bit scary to hear Jackson scream the refrain, wailing "You're doing morphine!" over and over. When the song switches modes halfway through to that of a piano-driven ballad, he starts to sing about the very Demerol that killed him, even scarier in hindsight. It's quite haunting and disturbing, but worst of all its incredibly catchy and well written, a sign of a truly talented artist in the clutches of narcotics. Maybe I'm wrong about all of this, but you have to ask whether his dwindling audiences heard the cries of a man in need of serious help. Unfortunately Jackson was too isolated and cutoff from reality to get the help he needed. Hey, trying to quit these very drugs could have killed him as well, so what do I know?
