Head Tale

There's tons of commentary all over the web after the news broke that Michael Jackson died today.  I don't have much to add but here's a couple random thoughts….

– like probably a million people, “Thriller” was my first “real” record (I'm not counting Mini-Pops and crap like that – er, except I loved the Mini-Pops back in the day.)
– I'm curious what, if anything, will happen to his 50% share of the Beatles catalogue
– as heartless as it sounds, if he had to die (relatively) young, he probably would've been better off dying ten or fifteen years ago.  Then he would've been remembered much less ambigulously than the reaction's been today
– he was preparing for a 50 show stand in London as you probably heard.  If they recorded his rehearsals, that footage is going to be worth a fortune.
– my favourite Michael Jackson song? “Dirty Diana”
– I never did learn how to moonwalk myself but I have a vivid memory of a girl who was a few years older than me and lived down the street spending a whole afternoon with a friend trying to learn how to moonwalk.
– that face morphing in “Black or White” was pretty fricken awesome at the time as were a lot of MJ's videos.
– it was a big deal to stay up late to watch the big premier of the full-length video version of “Thriller” on “Good Rockin' Tonight” with Terry David Mulligan.  The video scared me so badly, I had nightmares for a few days afterwards!
– if you want some really tasteless Michael Jackson jokes, check out that Reddit thread above.  Whether he molested children or not (he was never found guilty but it's also one of those things that people will probably ever know for sure), the implication was enough to forever colour people's perception of him.
– When we were in Cancun, our resort had nightly entertainment in its show lounge and one night was a Michael Jackson impersonator who was so good compared to the rest of the generic song & dance acts that week, it was unbelievable.  The performer was obviously so into Michael Jackson and if memory serves, appeared to have even had his own plastic surgery to more closely resemble his idol.  I feel really bad for that guy tonight for some reason.
– Thriller is often cited as the biggest selling album of all-time.  I wonder if part of what makes this story so big is that Michael Jackson was the last artist to reach the level of appeal that only a select few – Elvis, The Beatles – have and with the segmentation of the market via the Internet and the 500-channel universe, etc, that's unlikely to happen ever again?
– here's a little clip you may not have seen before sort of showing the over-the-top side of Jackson.  Read the blurb to get the full story but basically, he was doing a Messianic performance at the Brit Awards in 1996 so Jarvis Cocker from Pulp hopped on stage, wandered around, waggled his bum at the camera then got tackled by Jackson's security guards.