iTunes Top album chart the day after Michael Jackson died

I felt inclined to write a blog about Michael Jackson and his passing yesterday. It feels weird even typing the fact that Michael Jackson is dead. He was a music icon and even though he was one of possibly the weirdest people in the world, he still left an indelible mark on the world as whole.

I remember as a kid, probably no more then 5 or 6, having a red leather jacket that was my Michael Jackson jacket from the video Beat It. Sure it had plastic zippers instead of metal ones, but it did the job. I was a white kid from Ottawa, without MTV or MuchMusic, yet still Michael Jackson managed to be a factor in my life even at an early age. MJ was everywhere in the 1980′s. The album Thriller on cassette was one of the few albums my parents had that I was actually interested in listening to out of their collection. As I got older and got a portable cassette player for my birthday the first album I can ever recall latching onto and listening to inside out was Michael Jackson’s Dangerous. I was 11 when it came out. I remember that the video for Black and White premiered during primetime. This was after both the US and Canada both had a devoted music video stations and still MJ had enough clout to make it a primetime event. As someone who was born in 1980, Michael Jackson was the biggest musical icon of my generation. As big as The Beatles or Elvis were, they never had nearly the effect on my life that MJ did.

I’ve seen many people trying to tear MJ down, but I’ve found I’ve always had sympathy for the guy. I know myself I started to become conscious of the world and remember things starting when I was about 4. Michael Jackson at 5 was already in a band and by 8 he was one of the lead singers. Even without the side factors that were involved, Michael’s childhood was practically non-existent. We’ve seen so many childhood celebrities crash and burn, yet Jackson persevered and built himself into the biggest selling artist of all-time. From that perspective, how is it possible to be normal when you never even had a chance to know what normal is?

I know myself I’ve been as guilty as the next person of letting the media crucify Michael Jackson. The media has a long history of creating heroes only to tear them down as monsters at the first opportunity. In a bittersweet way I’m kinda happy Michael passed away young as opposed to having to experience another 10 or 20 years of the media dissecting his idiosyncratic life and continually casting him as a societal boogie man instead of the music giant he was. Given the reaction from much of the general population it seems that many people aside from me had lots of fond MJ memories lying just under the surface waiting to come out. I know since MJ had announced his 50 date shows in London I had been crossing my fingers he would put all of his legal and medical troubles behind him and be able to mount a proper goodbye tour. If MJ was playing in Toronto I would have been there in a heartbeat.

Rest in peace Michael, you will be missed.

George Carlin on Michael Jackson