MJ and Me: Remembering Michael Jackson

This past Thursday, as I'm sure all of you have heard by now, the world lost one of its greatest entertainers. For all of his eccentricities, Michael Jackson deserved the outpouring of support that has come in the days following his sudden passing. In his memory, today, I will be reflecting on how I made the transition from an uninitiated kid knowing only the controversies to a devoted fan who even shed a couple of tears when the news broke.

It may come as a surprise to those who don't know me very well, and even some who do know me quite well otherwise, that I was not always a big fan of Michael Jackson. Growing up, I wasn't really a big fan of any musician, period. I knew two types of music: the music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s played on the radio stations my dad listened to, and the music from video games I played. When I listened to tapes or later CDs (my family took a while to jump on the CD/DVD bandwagon), they were almost all homemade mixtapes of tracks from Super Smash Bros. Melee, the Sonic the Hedgehog series, or F-Zero GX. I could recognize a couple of songs by the Jackson 5, but I didn't know who sang them at the time, and I honestly didn't care. To me, they were just more of the songs on endless rotation on the oldies stations, and as much as I enjoyed listening to them, I had no real attachment to them.

As a result, I never made the connection between those songs and a bizarre middle-aged man who occasionally made the news. The Michael Jackson I grew up with was an almost alien creature, a product of countless plastic surgeries infamous for allegations of child abuse and owning a personal theme park. Jokes about happenings on the Neverland Ranch were commonplace in the years following his molestation trial in 2005, and I took part in them, not really knowing anything about the accused apart from the fact that he was once apparently a musician. By this point, I could also recognize some of his more famous solo works, like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", but again I still wasn't attached to them.

But, over time, the controversy quieted, and I went from joking to complacency, knowing who Michael Jackson was but not really caring beyond that. The turning point actually came late last year during an MSN conversation with a friend of mine, Alex Safatli on November 29, 2008. (His now-long-dormant blog, ProseInverse, is linked to from my blog list.) We were discussing costumes based on Code Geass, specifically based on the outfit Lelouch wears as Emperor of Britannia. At one point, Alex sent me a link to a particularly badly-done version available on eBay. I was criticizing the way they made the hat when this exchange occurred:

Me: That's almost criminal.

Alex: No. It's almost smooth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxeNZOLNh4c
Most random video ever, by the way.

That YouTube link, now dead, linked to the music video for Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal". I knew that it was originally a Michael Jackson song, I recognized the kid's dance moves, and I recognized that the chimp in the music video was a reference to Bubbles, but I did not recognize all of the multitude of other MJ references in the video until much later, meaning I just saw the video as a series of incredibly random events. Nevertheless, I liked the song, and listened to it repeatedly on YouTube.

After a little while, I also became curious about the original version. This was also evidently very easy to find on YouTube. Listening to it, I quickly grew to like it more than Alien Ant Farm's cover. By the end of December, it was one of my favourite songs of all time, and I was always looking for excuses to insert it into conversation. A series of New Year's pictures I posted on Facebook was littered with excerpted lyrics from the song as a joke based on this phenomenon.

All this time, I had just been listening to the song on YouTube. Browsing HMV on January 13, I came across the Michael Jackson compilation CD Number Ones for $10. After making sure "Smooth Criminal" was on the track list, I bought it.

This CD gave me a new appreciation of MJ's incredible catalogue of music. "Billie Jean" went from a rotated song on the radio that I could barely remember to the memorable, danceable song it deserved to be. "Black or White", the song that came after "Smooth Criminal" on the track list, grew on me in a big way despite never having heard it before then, at least not that I could remember. It finally clicked in my head that "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" was sung by Michael Jackson. "Dirty Diana", "Earth Song", and "Blood on the Dance Floor" stood out as new favourites. Perhaps most significantly, I finally learned why "Thriller" was so famous, having strangely enough never heard it on the radio. With oldies radio focusing mostly on the 60s and 70s and popular music being confined to the 90s and 2000s, the 80s were a virtually unknown decade to me, with Elton John, Billy Joel, and Rick Astley (cough) being notable exceptions.

Over the past six months, Number Ones eventually became my favourite CD, and Michael Jackson my favourite singer, buoyed largely by "Smooth Criminal", which had definitively become my favourite song. I even tried to teach myself the dance as performed in live concerts, which I now know most of the moves to. I repeatedly considered buying more Michael Jackson CDs, especially the expanded, 2-CD compilation The Essential Michael Jackson, but being a spendthrift, I decided each time that I would be better off saving my money, considering I already had all of my favourites in a neat little package (never mind the fact that I hadn't even heard most of his other songs) and I had a trip to Europe coming up in August that I needed to save up for. So I just kept to just listening to Number Ones and watching videos on YouTube for other songs, such as "Remember the Time", intending to buy more CDs when I had the money. A week ago today, four days before MJ would pass away, I decided that I would buy some version of the King of Pop compilation album while I was in Europe. (It was an album, released to coincide with Michael's 50th birthday, for which fans from each country voted on which songs would be included. For some reason, it was never released in Canada or the US.) A couple of days later, after listening to the 2008 remix of "Billie Jean" on YouTube, I also decided that I would buy the Thriller 25 CD the next chance I got.

Then came Thursday. I'd just come home from meeting with a friend, and I was in a pretty good mood. As I walked over the hill between the bus stop and my home, I listened to "Thriller" on my MP3 player, even lip-synching to the words as long as there was no one else in sight. As I sat down for supper, CNN was reporting breaking news that Michael Jackson had fallen into a coma. I fell completely silent and stared at the TV in disbelief, ignoring my dad whenever he tried to say something. The news of his death followed fairly soon afterwards. After I recovered enough to break my silence, I managed to get the TV in my bedroom working again so I could continue to watch the coverage. At one point, CNN played a montage of clips from Michael Jackson's most famous videos; I was literally brought to tears when they showed a clip of him gripping the microphone in his white 1930s gangster outfit and singing "Smooth Criminal". I was simply in disbelief.

The point where I started to feel better again came when CNN was covering a gathering outside the Apollo Theater in Los Angeles, where the career of the Jackson 5 had begun. A large group of people were standing there singing "Billie Jean", and a couple were dancing to it. When the reporter asked one of the people involved what they were doing, he responded that they were celebrating Michael's life instead of mourning his death. Despite only really discovering Michael Jackson six months ago, I too had much to celebrate.

The next day, I took my lunch break to head down to the HMV on Spring Garden Road to buy some of the CDs I had long intended to buy. By the time I got there, a single copy each of Bad and Dangerous were the only MJ-related items left in the store; the cashier told me of someone who had come in that morning and bought one of every MJ album they had. Later that afternoon, on my way to a friend's house, I stopped in the Mic Mac Mall HMV and bought their lone copy of the DVD Live in Bucharest, the only MJ-related item left in that store. And over this weekend, I've looked in several places for Thriller 25, though I still haven't found it. It was my way of celebrating Michael Jackson's life: listening to more of his music that I had not yet heard. Already, the albums are making their way up my list of favourites, especially Dangerous, which I feel is underappreciated. Notably, while listening to Dangerous, "Will You Be There" stood out, since I could clearly remember having heard it as a young child, but I hadn't heard it since or realized who sang it. It was quite a surprise to hear it on a Michael Jackson album.

Over the past several months, my opinion of Michael Jackson the man also changed dramatically. Having been introduced to songs like "Earth Song" and reading more about his personal life, I became very sympathetic to him. Having performed since the age of five and assuming a lead vocal position in the Jackson 5 by eight, on top of having an abusive father, he never had a real childhood. After learning that, it became obvious that all of his later eccentricities evolved in pursuit of the childhood he so desperately wanted after being deprived of it.

Reading more details of the two accusations of child molestation, I concluded that MJ was innocent, based not only on the ruling of the 2005 trial but also on realizing important aspects of his relationship with children. An overgrown child at heart himself, it seemed to me that he genuinely cared for children and wanted nothing more for them than the ability to live out happy and carefree childhoods like he never had the chance to. It was for that reason that he would invite them to Neverland. If Michael indeed saw himself as a child, or at least wanted to be one, then it would be easy to see how what he would have seen as simple play dates might be misinterpreted by other adults as a sign of pedophilia.

Furthermore, most people overlook his numerous contributions to children's charities, including his own Heal the World Foundation, which even on many occasions gave underprivileged children the chance to come to Neverland themselves. Out of all the many children that had gone there and spent time with Michael, only two had ever complained of abuse. In the first case, the investigation was closed due to lack of evidence and no charges were laid, and when the alleged victim was called to testify in the 2005 trial, he left the country to avoid testifying.

In the second case, several people who had spent time with Michael as children, including Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin, testified that nothing inappropriate had ever happened between them, and many of the witnesses for the prosecution were ultimately found to have had prior disputes with Michael and therefore the possibility of ulterior motives. The most potentially damning evidence brought forward was two books containing photos of nude boys found in Michael's home, but both of these were commercially available artistic works that featured both clothed and naked boys, not child pornography. MJ's vindication in the face of this evidence, and further evidence for my viewpoint detailed above, comes in the form of a message he wrote on the first page of the books: "Look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys' faces, this is the spirit of boyhood, a life I never had and will always dream of. This is the life I want for my children." Even Neverland Ranch itself was named after the place in Peter Pan where children never grew up. (Michael owned a 1911 edition of the original novel Peter and Wendy to boot.)

If there was any lingering doubt about Michael's intentions, one only has to look at the songs he has written and performed. As his music matured since the days of the Jackson 5, Michael nevertheless brought a childlike idealism to many of his songs, notably "Man in the Mirror", "Heal the World", and "We Are the World", the last of which he wrote and subsequently performed with a large group of other prominent singers. By 1995, when he released the album HIStory, he had endured his first round of molestation accusations, and new songs such as "Earth Song" seemed to embody a frustration with how the world was while still holding out hope that it could change. "D.S.", another song from that album, was a direct expression of his frustration with the allegations and the fallout.

All of this is not to say Michael Jackson was perfect. While not ill-meaning, Michael's mental health still deviated quite far from the norm, and his physical health was questionable. Any questions about prescription drug abuses will be answered only by the autopsy results, but I consider it most likely that if there were abuses, they were in response to medical problems or accidentally-developed addictions, not the result of seeking a high.

Nevertheless, through it all, Michael Jackson remained a humanitarian who genuinely desired a better world in the much the same way that a child does once they learn about violence or poverty. He was a loving father of two sons and a daughter, even if they didn't appear in the media very often. And of course, he was a singer and dancer of a calibre that may never be seen again. Michael Jackson may have left us, but his music never will.

To celebrate the legacy of the King of Pop, I will now conclude this post by sharing a clip from the movie Moonwalker that serves as the full-length version of the "Smooth Criminal" music video. It is both, as mentioned above, my favourite song and, in my opinion, the best music video ever made. (The Nostalgia Critic said it best in his review of Moonwalker: While "Thriller" revolutionized the music video, "Smooth Criminal" perfected it.) Enjoy.