Michael Jackson....

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist and entertainer. - Wikepedia


It feels quite surreal to read that sentence.


My first musical memories are of Michael Jackson. I was three and and a half years old when he released Bad in August 1987. It was his seventh studio album but for all i knew it was his first , Michael Jackson year zero.




When i saw the music video for Bad it blew my mind. This man was the coolest person i had ever seen...The release of a new Jackson album and the music videos that accompanied them were events. Those music videos from the 1980s still give me goosebumps , the music , the choreography , the physics defying dance moves , the sheer ambition of it all. If you want to talk about childhood heroes yeah i guess you could say Michael Jackson was mine.

I pretty much stopped caring about Michael Jackson and his musical output in my early teens around the time he released HIStory. I remember it as being an event alright but somehow the man and his downright weird and strange personal life had got in the way of my enjoyment of his music , and truth be told his music just wasnt as good as before. ( okay Stranger in Moscow from 1996 is a damn good song.)

Maybe the Michael Jackson i grew up idolising died a long time ago. Maybe some time around 1993 and those child abuse allegations...I dont know. I suppose i just find it hard to seperate the man from the music. But maybe i could allow for two Michael Jacksons , : my childhood hero who seemed to make the world a more exciting place and the sad strange man whose world turned into a freakshow. I know which one ill be mourning the loss of.

Michael Jackson was an American recording artist and entertainer.


PS: For the record i now believe that Jackson was never a child molester but, rather, the victim of two extortion attempts.