The death of MJ: The commenters strike back

Timothy Howard:
Do you have a reasonable idea of why MJ was apparently so ill for so many years? What were his illnesses? I have heard so many different rumors over the years, but clearly he was frail, weak and often in a wheelchair. We know he was diagnosed with lupus, which contributed to his sun sensitivity, but was he just a hypochondriac who took a lot of drugs for imagined illnesses? Did his heart just give out from years of starving himself?

HV: I’m not a expert in this. The one I remember was vitiligo, which supposedly caused his pigmentation to vary; others say, No, he was bleaching his skin to be white; yet others say no, he was just trying to even out the effects of the vitiligo, which seems nutty. From afar it seems the real problem was some sort of self-hating syndrome that caused him to wish to alter his appearance so dramatically, and so tragically. Again, from the outside, it looked like what he really needed was psychological help, for that and whatever his sexual issues were, to the extent that they made him unhappy, that he wasn’t able to fulfill himself, or that they affected his ability to, ah, conduct himself in accordance with societal mores.

John Bormanis:
Such “suicides” in public seem an almost inevitable result of the drives to go over the top. An interesting question is, why don’t they happen more frequently (one can imagine the same happening to Brit. Spears any moment)? How did he hold out so long? Quite tragic how humans endure abuse for stardom…

HV: We’ve heard as well about the “stress” Jackson was under. I have a feeling that he probably caused more stress for people than he took in. Granted that a child molestation trial wasn’t a walk in the park, and could have been an enormous distraction; at the same time, he took delight into turning the thing into a circus, and along the way his feelings should have run not to stress but to the much more sensible, “How could I be so stupid as to have sleepovers with hundreds of young boys?”

Other than that, you have to ask, What did Michael Jackson do all day? He hadn’t recorded an album within memory and barely appeared in public.

Rvanpatten:
maybe if he would’ve used more recipes from my cookboook, he’d still be around.
dick van patten

HV: This commenter is making a rude reference to a comment I made about Mr. Van Patten in a post about Howard Kurtz and Mariel Hemingway.

Ingrid:
“[Presley’s] tragedy is so vast it calls into question the future of the society that created, and destroyed, him.”
That is a big, big statement. Could you say more about what you mean by “society” - the entertainment industry, the record-buying and movie-going public, the South, what? And destroyed? Didn’t Elvis destroy himself, with help from the doctors who prescribed drugs for him?
I’m not being snarky, I really want to know what leads you to this conclusion.

HV: Presley has become, in a lifetime, an archetype. It’s funny, I remember arguing many years ago with a friend who, irritatingly, kept insisting that “’Star Trek’ had created the first new mythology in 4000 years.” (Wrong on so many levels.) Presley, though: Did we have, before him, the model of the artist who died too young, not in the hot flame of his art, but by keeling over off a toilet to die, his last moments of life spent in the dim haze of a realization that he’d throw away everything? Isn’t that a modern archetype with a primal force to equal other ancient ones?
Anyway, beyond that, Presley also stands as a metaphor for America, given the breathtaking achievement of his wild surmise. If you buy into that, his debauching—by himself and others—and that fate are worrisome. Not just to America-bashers; Virgil, you’ll recall, served as a national poet without peer, but still found in Rome’s behavior disturbing indications—among other things, a dangerously out-of-control leadership and cathartic but needless violence.

You can appreciate both America’s failings and its achievements and worry about a society that, after creating such figures, watches blankly while such an artist collapses. On the other hand, the founding fathers didn’t define the happiness they allowed us to pursue, and some people, particularly people with the funds to underwrite the quest, are going to get it wrong.

Frank Youngwerth:
I think the Colonel, who continuously sucked money out of Elvis’ soul, and Quincy Jones, who apparently considered Michael a jazz artist, deserve consideration too.
HV: I disagree with you about Jones, but in both cases don’t you think the artist shares the blame? If the bioraphies are to be believed, Parker was taking 50 percent of Presley’s income in the latter half of his career, which is different from, for example, the Stones’ shafting at the hands of Allen Klein.

ruben martinez:
elvis presley and michel jackson were both superstars in their field of music. both were great singers, different styles, great charisma attraction. michael jackson was loved it seems by both black and white audiences, while i am not sure the black audience liked presley’s music. what i do know is when elvis died the entire white people of the world mourned plus other non white races like hispanics. i do not know if the same is true about jackson. the point i am trying to make is to me, a hispanic man in my 50s, i grew up with both; i love their music equally. no black or white prejudice and will miss them deeply. but in my opinion because elvis was white his legacy will continue to be supreme over anybody else white or black, and it will be up to the mainly the black race to keep [jackson’s] legacy from being forgotten. they were one of a kind, R M

Bill:
Excellent analysis; great counterpoint. A bit harsh, perhaps, but a bit of reality needs to intrude.
I agree about Elvis. Those of us who lived in the segregated US before the ’60’s will be able to relate to what you meant. Those who have never seen blatant discrimination, in thought and speech as well as in deed, probably will not get it.

TJ Mertz:
Three related thoughts.
First, my brother pointed out a difference he saw yesterday and that is that Elvis seemed to enjoy himself and his stardom (at least for over a decade) and that Michael didn’t.

Second, although you are correct about Michael Jackson building Berry Gordy’s crossover concepts and not pioneering in the sense of Elvis and cross over being primarily a commercial concept, I think the word “merely” isn’t quite right and that (at least in terms of my experience and inner life) Michael’s role is more significant than this captures.

For many those years of the early 1970s were years when the ideals of the Civil Rights movement were being tried out in day-to-day life. As a grade schooler at an consciously integrated school named after Martin Luther King, I was in the middle of this. The Jackson 5 (I wish I could type with the 5 in Jackson 5 ending in a heart like it did in the notebooks of the girls in my grade school) dominated the culture of my school and embodied this idea. In this, their youth and ours were key. We were the “Young Folks,” the children of the dream and the J5 were ours. It was (for the most part) a culture of post-struggles hope and optimism (”bring salvation back”) and joy. We were the children of integration and crossover and were able to lived as if these were natural and ascendant. This made us and J5 different from earlier Motown artists and from the earlier culture of the Civil Rights movement. In important ways cross over did become merely commercial in the larger society, but for people like me the experiences of that time still resonate. The J5 are near the center of those experiences. I’ll add that at the time when Thriller broke I was working with some white working class and relatively racially isolated teenagers at a restaurant in Massachusetts and their embrace of Michael ten years later impressed me as having some of the same qualities in a much less conscious or political way.
Last, I’ve been thinking about how little Michael s death seems to call up personal feelings of mortality among my generation. I recall that when Elvis died people many who came of age in the 50’s and early 60’s spoke and wrote of how his death brought home the end of their youth and brought closer thoughts of the inevitability of their own deaths. I don’t feel this at all with Michael and don’t hear it from others. maybe it is because his life has been so publicly strange for so long that there is more of a personal distance. Maybe it is because there have been so many deaths — Joey Ramone evoked these feeling with me. Maybe, I’m wrong and others do feel it.

TJ

HV: TJ, thanks for taking the time to write. I take your point, but let me press back a little. Consider this: The Jackson Five should have been the very lightest of the great Motown acts in terms of their family-group shitck, but paradoxically became among the most … I won’t say timeless, but beloved. Wasn’t this because of the songs Deke Richards provided for them? Wasn’t it another one of Gordy’s peculiar triumphs that his machine provided the five something extra? Michael was going to be a star, regardless, sure. But those opening chords of “I Want You Back,” the jaunty beat and snappy wordplay of “The Love You Save” … Michael Jackson didn’t do that, The Corporation did. Again, not taking anything away from the Jackson brothers’ specific talents. And finally, I’d point out that the Jackson Five came in toward the end of the label’s golden era. For more than five years Motown acts had been banging the charts; I just took a cursory look at the number one hits of the 1960s; there really weren’t too many by black artists that weren’t Motown acts, and I bet the ratio was the same in the top tens or twenties. By which I mean that the Jackson Five came in at the end of an incredible shift in societal perceptions of black musicians; and for that Motown deserves the credit.
And I’m with you about the mortality issue. I’m disappointed in Jackson, mostly; the loss of Joey Ramone was much more affecting.

Forest:
Among Jackson’s numerous Neverland possessions up for auction a few months ago was something truly fascinating. It was one of those life-sized Elvis statues you sometimes see in theme restaurants - but that wasn’t the fascinating part. Someone (Jackson, I assume), had inscribed a quote on Elvis’ shoulder: “If I could only find a white man with a black man’s sound, I could make a million dollars.” ~ Sam Phillips. How telling.

Mike S.:
While I agree with most of what you’re saying here, I’m kind of confused about the remark you made that Elvis was a sexual predator. What exactly do you mean by that? I haven’t read about Elvis’s life too extensively but I don’t think I’ve come across anything suggesting that.

HV: Examples of this were detailed in Peter Guralnick’s two-volume Presley biographies. And of course Preseley’s fixation on Priscilla began when she was 14. (He was 24.) Leaving aside the malevolent Albert Goldman biography, Guralnick’s books, which are definitive and engrossing but infuriating in their special pleading for Presley, nonetheless include all sorts of other repellent Presley behavior, from dragging around a woman by her hair to missing his bodyguard’s wedding. Presley was supposed to have been the best man.

Andy Price:
In fairness to Ashleigh Banfield, she was fired after, in early 2003, she criticized media coverage (including but not limited to Fox News) of the Iraq invasion and occupation in a speech at Kansas State. So I think she is unworthy of your scorn.

Dan Coyle:
Agreed, Andy. Banfield is all right.

Ann:
Another angle I was totally unaware of: MJ reportedly converted to Islam late last year. The story didn’t get much play, and has been disputed, but I’m surprised I hadn’t heard it before, even as rumor:

Joe Kvidera:
The obligatory stampede of mourners to buy Bad and Thriller again is generating income for the first time in years. And just imagine the estate sale. Sothebys must be licking their lips.

HV: The math is interesting. Jackson Inc. went from having not much income and enormous expenditures into zero expenditures and boatloads of income. I’m no accountant, but I think the latter is better. Jackson’s albums all became best-sellers again since his death, and he’s dominated the top of the Billboard charts. Look more closely at the figures, though, and you’ll notice that in total he sold less than a half-million CD equivalents, including downloads, the first week, and now 800,000 the second. Even in the context of today’s anemic CD sales, that seems quite low to me. Billboard calls it “whopping,” however, so maybe I’m being overly dismissive. Still, you’ll also note that basically half of his CD sales were of greatest hits albums (and not his dorky HIStory, either). I’m sure the Jackson foofara will continue, and his fans will continue to spend money buying related paraphernalia, but I’d bet the music sales will decline steeply after this week.

Mrv:
I find it mind boggling how most of the MSM picks up and regurgitates the same mis-information, i.e. total LP sales-750 million? Watched former RIAA mouthpiece and pit bull Hilary Rosen blather on and on about MJ last night but got all dumb when asked if she had ever met him: Er no, but knew people who had…
What I can’t let go of is that irrespective of his musical chops, he was a suspected pedophile. Simple question to any of these folks busy moaning and gnashing their teeth, would you let your 11 year son sleep over at Michael’s house?

HV: I wouldn’t! Your Rosen story reminds me of when Lou Ferrigno was on I think Larry King the other night, blathering on about what good friends he and Jackson were. King came out of his stupor to ask an interesting question: Did you see evidence of drug use? Ferrigno, quickly: “Oh, I don’t know anything about his personal life!”

Joe Kvidera:
I just happened to surf by the CEO of Epic on TV saying Michael had sold “750 million records” world-wide. I yelled at the screen, “You SAY that here–but how many does it say he sold on your royalty statements?”

David K.:I guess the BILLION people who are said to watch the Oscars are the ones buying those albums.
Don’t expect there to be any rhyme or reason to the crap the media will be throwing out in the next few weeks.

Joe (not Kvidera):
Nice analysis. But the 100 million figure of Thriller isn’t as outlandish as you point out. Michael Jackson is HUGE outside of the U.S. It’s not far fetched to think that Michael sold way more albums overseas compared to the States.

HV: I don’t know, the more I look into it the more bogus the 100 million claim for Thriller seems. As far as I can tell the Guinness people were crediting Jackson with 50-something million sold as recently as a few years ago. And check out this chart anaysis story from Idolator. The writer is bending over backward to give Jackson all sort of credit but still notes:

I find it suspicious that [Thriller] was quoted at just over 40 million in global sales in the mid-’80s and suddenly shifted to the 100-mil figure less than two decades later — in the absence of additional hits, where’d those 50 million in new sales come from?

Bod:
This article (“Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs and the culture of popism”) remembers of that scene following Donnie’s death in The Big Lebowski, when Walter gives the most self-centered eulogy he could think of and the dude really loses it. Like what are you talking about man?

It’s nice to be consistent and not praise Jackson now that he is dead, as you obviously did not like him beforehand. However, Touré is allowed to mention (carefully) that people are damn stupid for celebrating him after rejoicing about his personal problems for years (which is pervert, ironically). But what the heck does Elvis have to do with that? They are lots of singers who are/were more talented that Elvis (or Jackson) and died. That’s not Touré’s point. That’s not the point.
If you want to argue about the quality of Thriller, know that some of Jackson’s album were produced by none other than Quincy Jones (including Thriller). This guy is a legend, like Miles Davis-legend. Are you now going to argue that Springsteen is also better than Quincy Jones?

Bob Peebles:
Bill, your persistent use of a made-up definition of “popism” exposes your intellectual dishonesty — or perhaps your simple lack of brainpower — once more.
You’re just not bright, knowledgeable or witty enough to be a prominent commentator on these issues, which is why you’re relegated to an obscure, self-created blog. All that drives you is seething resentment of those who still have the kind of jobs you lost.

Your dismissal of the merits of Michael Jackson’s music is thoroughly bizarre, churlish and flat-out wrong.
Maybe it’s time to get a new career?

HV: I appreciate your taking the time to write, but I don’t see why it’s so controversial for calling out journalists when they function as a part of the PR campaigns for the music industry. That a guy like Touré can go on national television and talk about Jackson’s achievements as a black artist and not in the same breath at least make acknowledgment that Jackson himself by all the evidence didn’t want to be black is curious to me. That’s one issue. Another: Admitting that Jackson’s artistic heyday ran from 1979 to, really, 1982. After that it can be legitimately said he did some amazing material, which was somewhat undercut by his rather grasping image campaigns (one year “bad,” the next “dangerous”)… and then a quick decline and a subsequent several decades of patent debilitation. And what sort of journalist shouts down someone talking about the negative side of the discussion, not because it’s wrong or anything, but just because it’s not nice to the subject? A popist, that’s who.

TheZeitgeist:
Jackson was someone who courted celebrity to be sure. But he is a unique character. Going from womb to tomb under the spotlights like that is pretty unique. No one else comes to mind in a comparable context.
Also, speculating on Jackson’s andro-image and bizarre fascination with the boys is one thing…hauling him down to the courthouse for what was a complete sham of a trial by a vindictive prosecutor that mentally damaged the dude (IMHO)is something else. Jackson didn’t “ask” for, or deserve that frankly. The guy really was asexual…even about the kids.

Its something that is very, very hard for other people to understand. Asexual people run the gamut, I think Hitler was another example. That behavior seems unbelievable to most people, sex is so important with most people at SOME point in their lives. Instead the response is to guess that they are epic perverts because no sex because that makes more sense in our perverted little minds than NO sex. Just say’in.

HV: This is a fair point: Jackson was never convicted of anything, and even the one settlement could have been a payoff to someone who was essentially blackmailing him. But that doesn’t mean Jackson did not behave inappropriately with kids in ways that should have both sunk his career and resulted in him being legally prevented from being around them. The public record of this behavior, combined with the sight of Neverland’s secret rooms (some with a half-dozen deadbolts) is slightly nauseating. And in that sense Jackson did ask for it. Again, a jury acquitted Jackson, but remember that part of the reason the prosecutor seemed so aggressive is that he was trying to prevent Jackson from again buying off his accuser.

John R.:
While I think you’re right about Elvis’ place in music history, bringing together the genres you listed I’m a little skeptical of your claims that he was a visionary, artistic figure. Michael certainly played a greater role in authoring his product, whether writing and producing his songs, setting up his music videos, or designing his stage shows. Elvis was a great singer and performer but his music was more dependent on writers and producers. As far as Elvis successors go (other than Nicolas Cage), do we have any rockabilly singers on the charts these days?

HV: I’m not an expert-expert on Presley, but I’m persuaded by people who are that his vocal meldings and his musical imagination were definitive. I also think that, far more than even Jackson, he threw this talent away. Never was more talent invested in such an oafish figure.

Jackson should probably be given more credit for his own control of his career, and visualizing that level he aspired to and of course achieved. As I said on NPR the other day, however, in an argument with Nelson George, giving Jackson too much credit for that is a trap—because, if the measure of his worth is that popularity, it must be noted it was a temporary one. As his album sales and his stature declined, he was forced to make up for it with ever-more-grasping posturings, like those oh-so-dated photo ops with him leading extras dressed up in military uniforms. (Talk about screwy: This was when the U.S. was spending a lot of money funding clowns in juntas in Central America.) As Jackson quickly had nothing to be famous about, he had to spend more and more of his time thinking up ways to demonstrate how famous he was.

Jeff:
Elvis remains the most influential artist of his era and the most important artist in rock history for a simple reason: he was the first. Whether intentional or not, he introduced black rhythm & blues to the wider white audience. That was the spark that lit the fire that’s been burning for 50+ years now. One can argue about the many great artists (white and black) of that era who are overlooked today, or the injustice of it, but that’s missing the point. For good and bad, in the context of those times, Elvis was the one.

Michael Jackson, on the other hand, didn’t invent a genre - he refined one already in existence, making it more palatable to the masses. The difference is immense. A better comparison than Elvis or the Beatles (the other name thrown into the mix by TV commentators), I think, is the Bee Gees circa Saturday Night Fever. After a decade in the biz, they shot to superstardom…and flamed out within a few years due to overexposure and changing musical trends. The same was true of MJ. By 1990 he was, for all intents and purposes, an afterthought.

Noam Sane:
Really interesting stuff. But the entertainment business is chock full of guys like this - he just took it large-scale.
For instance, Ahmet Ertegun - a revered music-industry figure. Check this paragraph out from an interview that Uncut Magazine did with the first manager of the Buffalo Springfield,

Frazier Mohawk:
Neil once said I should have stayed with the Buffalo Springfield longer. And I thought that too, but I gave them up at gunpoint so I didn’t have a choice. I was in New York putting on a little Eastern tour with the Springfield, and we were out there with The Byrds. I’d be talking to promoters as we were going about. One day [Atlantic producer/manager] Charlie Greene showed up and asked me out to dinner. So he picked me up in his limo, which I was pretty sure belonged to Ahmet [Ertegun, Atlantic boss] because it wasn’t a rental and he was the only guy I knew in New York with a limo. We drove around and around and Charlie would be talking, saying how he thought he could do a better job with the band. He had a silver revolver that he’d taken out of his waistband and had put in his pocket. The whole time he was talking, he had his hand on it. Eventually I said: “Hey Charlie, how about dinner now?” And he pulled over to a hotdog stand, reached through the window and bought me a hotdog. Then he said “Look, I’ll give you $1,000 for the band”, to which I said no. I think I said I’d think about it, but all I wanted to do was get out of there. So through a series of things, Charlie had written out an ‘agreement’ on a paper napkin. And I hadn’t signed it. As I was finally getting out of the car, and that was the only way I could get out, he stuck $1,000 in my pocket. I said “No no, I really don’t want this.” Charlie said “No, you keep it.” And that was the last I saw of The Buffalo Springfield. Charlie more or less said that if I came back around, I’d be dealt with. It was scary as hell. I never told the band what happened. And to this day, Neil and the others don’t know it happened. It was that whole Sonny Bono group of people at Atlantic. Ahmet was a very aggressive and forceful businessman and he got what he wanted. Yes, he had great ears and did wonderful things with music, but I certainly wasn’t happy.

Andrew Goodwin:
A difference between Elvis and Jackson — Michael was forced into show biz at such a young age that today we might call that child abuse. Which then produces a drivenness and a related need to re-create a lost childhood. Standard psycho-babble? Or simply what happened *to* him?

HV: Yeah, it’s a much different story. Both had a big idea, but when they had it they were at much different places in their lives, and the motivations, which is your point, are in both cases unknowable but plainly different. On the other hand, both had compromised fathers and both were closely attached to their mothers; something was driving Presley, too.

Dan Coyle:
I wonder, when Axl Rose kicks it, if we’re gonna be treated to a similar round of “Misunderstood genius” horseshit. Because that’s another guy who has been locked in his room for years, metaphorically, like Jackson and Elvis.

HV: And, of course, Sly Stone.