michael-veli

Michael Jackson wrote lots of songs--as many as forty or fifty--for each of his albums, and included only the twelve or so best on the final version. So expect lots of posthumous releases from him, and since these will generally be culled from the material he deemed inferior to his official output, they will dilute the quality of his œuvre.

Personally, I'm excited for the posthumous Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG mash-ups.

(The weird thing about being a celebrity is how lucrative passing away can be.)

• Queen Latifah has a suprising combination of mainstream appeal and street credibility. She's like if people still feared Will Smith.


• Smokey Robinson looks like he's mixed race with something.


• They probably had to dig pretty deep to unearth Trey Lorenz for this.


• You know how other musicians are paying tribute to Michael Jackson by performing songs? Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson should, on stage, play one-on-one or HORSE or something.
  
  How come Michael Jordan isn't here? Actually--Ron Artest should be here too, since he apparently picked jersey #37 in honor of Thriller (Epic).


• I don't really see how Kobe Bryant fits in to any of this? Is he the designated Staples Center chaperone?


• You Are Not Alone (Epic) is musically one of the least interesting songs Michael Jackson--or R Kelly-- did.


• It's a little bit unfortunate for young people that John Mayer counts as a guitar hero these days.


• I don't think Brooke Shields's assertions that she never experienced sexual tension between herself and Michael Jackson when they were children really helps his case.


• They should devote a section of the memorial to the fact that Pete King (R-NY) is a dick. You'd think that, if anyone, elected officials should be careful about repeated accusations that were rejected by our criminal justice system.


• Of the thousands of children around Michael Jackson during his lifetime, only two accused him of sexual abuse. Even if those allegations were true, that's still a pretty good percentage. In baseball, you win a Gold Glove for that.


• Whatever skin diseases, plastic surgeries, &c. Michael Jackson had, La Toya was apparently having them in parallel.


• Black people are following the coverage of Michael Jackson's untimely passing more than are white people, but who's following this even more closely than black people are people who are the same race as Michael Jackson--or, at least, they would be if there were any.


• The conventional wisdom was that the Jacksons were a fucked up showbusiness family, but it doesn't seem that way anymore. Partly, moments like this are when families seem the most together, but mostly I think, since them, a lot of other showbusiness families have proven themselves far more dysfunctional.


• Is that Glen Rice?


• It's weird to hear Larry King speak so fondly about Usher.


• Michael Jackson talked over the ends of some of his songs, which shows how talented he is. Other groups--e.g., Boyz II Men--required a full whole member dedicated just to doing that.


• Where has Elton John been during all of this? Shouldn't he have repurposed a song about someone else into a tribute to Michael Jackson by now?

What's interesting to me is that I don't think anyone else--even Elvis Presley or John Lennon--has ever had or will ever have the same level of worldwide impact in his own lifetime. Most people who have a more profound impact (e.g., intellectual) don't see their influence fully manifest in their lifetimes; anyone who is going to reach as many people as Michael Jackson did is going to have to be a pop cultural idol. Michael Jackson was immensely talented, but also came at a time when mass media allowed him to showcase that talent to as many people as it did, but before mass media started to become as fragmented--geographically, demographically, &c.--as it has. It's cliché, I know, but it's hard to imagine the confluence of circumstances that could create another superstar on the same level.

The only person alive that I think can even come close (and it's a pretty distant second)--and this might sound weird at first, but think about it--is Tiger Woods.