Remembering Michael Jackson

"… my goal in life is to give to the world what I was lucky to receive: the ecstasy of divine union through my music and my dance. It’s… my purpose, it’s what I’m here for."

-- Michael Jackson, Ebony Magazine, May 1992

As an artist, Jackson broke so many records and received so many accolades over the decades – “Thriller” being the biggest selling album of all time, with over 100 million copies sold worldwide, in addition to 13 Grammys to his name - that one may grow desensitized to his tremendous impact on the music business. In the early eighties, when MTV was just getting started and music videos were a nascent art form, Jackson already saw the possibilities inherent in this new medium and dared to cross boundaries.

If others have conveniently forgotten this, Jackson did not. In an interview he gave Ebony magazine two years ago, he remembers the early days when MTV turned down Billie Jean because they ‘don’t play Black artists.’ Jackson, however, refused to be ignored; and, of course, when he eventually got them to play it, it set a record. After that, not only were they asking him for everything he had, but he paved the way for Prince and other Black artists to come along.

Jackson’s secret, other than raw talent, was shrewd showmanship. Already, as a young man watching early MTV, he noted: ‘if only they could give this stuff some more entertainment value, more story, a little more dance, I’m sure people would love it more.’ Which is precisely what Jackson went on to do. By turning music videos into mini movies, and capitalizing on this heady cultural Moment, Jackson successfully launched himself into the public consciousness in an unprecedented manner.

Moreover, because Jackson was so fluid, and indeterminate in many ways –- black/white, adult/child/, rock/pop –- he was embraced by all and went on to become an international, cross-over artist. Instinctively, Jackson recognized the power of song and dance to transcend all boundaries and wordlessly communicate joy. Thus, his appeal was, and remains universal - irrespective of typical barriers of generation, genre, or ethnicity. African-American admirers, however, credit him with paving the way for Black heroes well beyond the sphere of music. Without Michael Jackson, some suggest, the likes of an Obama, Oprah, Tiger Woods, or Magic Johnson would not have been possible.

Who knows to what degree this is true. What is certain is that Jackson was a visionary and pioneer. The long-term measure of any artist may be gauged by the extent of their influence on a younger generation of artists. In the case of Jackson, the shadow he cast was so vast that only some could be said to have entirely escaped its reach. Some of the more notable contemporary artists who play in the shade that he created might be: Usher, Chris Brown, Timberlake, Ne-Yo, Akon, to name but a very few. The list is long, and it goes on…

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Measure of the Man in Full

The Michael Jackson conjured at the memorial service reminded us how exceedingly complex he was as an individual. Yes, he was immensely gifted as we always knew and witnessed, yet forgot and remembered again. But, also he was a great humanitarian, a beloved father and above all an artist who gave of himself, unstintingly. Also, just as he was more mischievous and playful than we had suspected, so he was more psychologically fragile and in pain (physical and otherwise) for longer than we had previously allowed.

Even as a child prodigy, Jackson seems to have had inklings of his Destiny, with his eyes set on his place in musical history, since his teens. To secure his grand ambitions, he studied the entertainment greats – James Brown, Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Barnum Bailey - seeking to distill their essences, and sometimes emulate their lives or even surpass their performances.

In the same revealing Ebony magazine interview of 2007, Jackson goes so far as to liken his ambition to that of Michelangelo, who said: ‘I know the creator will go, but his work survives. That is why to escape death, I attempt to bind my soul to my work.’ “And that’s how I feel. I give my all to my work. I want it to just live,” added Jackson.

Sculpting his career and mystique as painstakingly as his signature dance moves, Jackson, the student of the greats, graduated into a Master, and pulled off the spiritual stunt of escaping death and binding his soul to his work. As we contemplate this extraordinary life, we can now better appreciate the personal cost of Jackson’s great talent and the isolating pressures of such a fame. It is ironic that the flawed man had to get out of his own way – a person who in the words of Alice in Wonderland grew ‘curiouser and curiouser’ - for us to appreciate the profusion of his gifts and fully evaluate the lasting legacy of the artist. But, perhaps it could not have been otherwise.

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He Knew He Couldn’t Last

Whether it was out of a sense of premonition – the flip side of his sense of being fated as a child - or a veiled death wish (due to overwhelming suffering) Michael Jackson knew he could not last. Breaking her silence shortly after Jackson’s death, ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley recounted a chilling conversation she’d had with Michael years ago. While discussing her father’s death,

‘[Michael] stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, "I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did." I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that.’

Terrible as it is to consider, Michael Jackson’s untimely death has secured his immortality in a way that no long (and happy?) life could have. For one thing, Jackson’s obsession with his appearance and youth, made it improbable that he would have aged gracefully or found peace in a reduced body. True, at the time of his death, he had sold 750,000 tickets in a matter of minutes for his final live shows (presciently called: This is it). Yet, also of note, when the 10 London shows he’d originally signed on for where bumped up to 50, he was visibly vexed and expressed fear for his health.

Speaking to fans outside rehearsals, Jackson reportedly said: "I don't know how I'm going to do 50 shows… I'm not a big eater - I need to put some weight on." In a desperate effort to bulk up, the rail-thin, 50-year-old hired as his personal trainer, Lou Ferrigno (the star of the 1970's TV hit The Incredible Hulk)

Perhaps, in the final equation, the strain proved too great for his already frayed nerves and dwindling health. Ever the perfectionist, constantly seeking to break his own records and outdo himself, it is unlikely that Jackson at this (st)age would have performed to his own jaw-dropping expectations, or those of fans who remember the Thriller from decades earlier. In dying when he did, Jackson achieved his impossible wish of being Frozen in Time, ageless and deathless. Michael Jackson now partakes of the unearthly aura and eternal glamour of icons-gone-too-soon. In this haloed pantheon of prematurely-departed stars, he lives forever in the public imagination: gracefully mid-leap, with his possibilities unexhausted and inexhaustible.

(Images: Pixabay)