Sunday, November 01, 2009, 9:07 PM
Music, Movies, Celebrities, Stop the Presses
By Kevin Moreau
Long live the King
From Day One, everything about Michael Jackson’s story screamed for our attention as if it were hatched by a roomful of Hollywood screenwriters. Pressed into service in the family band before the age of 10, he was browbeaten by a domineering father, which only fueled his desire to please others. Fortunately, he loved entertaining. Unfortunately, he so excelled at it that the spotlight fixed him in its red-hot glare and never let him go, depriving him of any chance at a normal childhood.
Michael Jackson was a pop star before he hit puberty, and could easily have slid into the spiral of drugs and infamy that afflicts so many child stars. Instead, he held off long enough to release a ridiculously catchy breakthrough album while barely in his 20s. Either accomplishment—his string of hits with the Jackson 5 or 1979’s “Off the Wall”—would have been enough for any mortal. And then came “Thriller.”
At the height of “Thriller” mania in the early ’80s, I worked at a Wendy’s restaurant after school with a kid named Larry Perkins. Larry so loved both Jackson and Prince, he came to work more than once demanding to be referred to as Prince, yet wearing one sequined glove, like Michael did. He couldn’t figure out which star he idolized more. To me, a white suburban metalhead, his dilemma was baffling. Even I knew: There was no contest.
Like Madonna—the third member of the era’s holy trinity of pop icons—Prince rose to fame with a persona cobbled together from other famous figures—a little Sly Stone here, a dash of Jimi Hendrix there. Michael Jackson was pop royalty, an insanely gifted prodigy who shaped the course of pop music as a kid and established his own indelibly unique, idiosyncratic style as a young adult. Jackson’s innovative videos for “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” exploded with more creative energy than the entire “Purple Rain” movie. It wasn’t even close.
Over the last two decades, Jackson’s life has taken more bizarre turns than even those screenwriters could have envisioned. The physical transformation. Bubbles the chimp. His relationships with Brooke Shields and Lisa Marie Presley. Neverland Ranch. The allegations of child sexual abuse. The financial troubles. Even the circumstances surrounding his death seem tailor-made for tabloids.
But strip all that away, and you’re left with a talent that shone brighter than Prince’s, Madonna’s, or any other entertainer of his generation. “This Is It” may be an imperfect farewell to the King of Pop, but then, any sendoff would be. The King is dead; long live the King.