Amaranthian

kate was crying yesterday. i can only imagine how my best friend richard reacted, as he 1) loves mj and 2) it was his birthday. i'm glad that the news coverage was mostly about the music, and that the crazy shit he did was treated as misguided rather than aggressively psychopathic.

:(
My dad states that at 4 I saw Thriller and had terrible dreams. All I can remember in the undead category is some sort of vampire film with...Eddie Murphy? Some sort of scene where the whole neighborhood has turned and they are barricading a door against them. :\
Fun music though, I hope people remember the good, and that the bad/misguided passes. BEt had a bunch of videos running last night. I stayed up a few hours watching them. :)

Holy shit that's the best thing ever.

A couple sites had articles today about how popular "charlie bit me was" thus creating a resurgence in its popularity.

Also, not to be a curmudgeon, but I REALLY don't get what the big deal is with Michael Jackson. He mad good, extremely popular pop music. But like, comparing him to John Lennon? Why are people STILL talking about/obsessing over this?

I think a lot of factors made for the MJ story having legs - he wasn't young, but nobody thought he was about to die either. He was villified by a lot of people and deified by as many. The child molestation thing never went away, but when he died, most media wanted to concentrate on positive aspects of his life, which was music. Suddenly, everyone who hasn't heard his music is waking up to it, so now he's back at the top of the charts, which keeps the ball rolling about it being sad that he died.

i think he was far more of an elvis figure than a lennon figure. he also really deserved and deserves all the attention that he has ever gotten, good and bad.

Looked like quite a few of his music videos were attempts to raise awareness of such serious issues. :\

I know better than to get into a music argument with Vasya. :)

I agree that U2 is just a rock band, and their music is not particularly revolutionary or influential.

I think the Bowie/MJ/Prince grouping is fair. I would also put Madonna in that group. I think they all make really good music, which I like. They were all exceptionally good at making music that held unbelievably widespread appeal within a certain cultural period. There were some elements of all of them that were innovative, I think most notably with the visual presentation of their music, such as the glam aspects of bowie, sex and madonna, or the central part dance played in MJ's music- and the related rise of the music video (Just as a side note, Fred Astaire did this 50 years earlier).

I think, perhaps, it comes down to a distinction in my mind between revolutionizing art forms, and popularizing them. Both are important, because we don't necessarily even recognize the former without some contribution from the latter, if that makes sense. There is certainly skill, and importance, in being able to perfect and sell something in a way that makes it accessible to a large number of people. I think personally, MJ is one of the latter. But you may disagree.

I was thinking about who the most influential musicians of the last 50 or 60 years would be (since pop music became relevant). Here's who I might say-

1)Beatles
2)Led Zeppelin
3)Velvet Underground
4)Nirvana
5)Bob Dylan
6)Elvis
7)Chuck Berry

Hmm, that list is pretty bent towards rock genres, which probably is indicative of my preference more than anything else. I'd stopped because I'd probably continue with like, Queen and Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and the Clash, but then I'd have to add the Ramones. And what about Aretha Franklin and Bob Marley and George Clinton? Radiohead is up here too. And really, too many others to even try to assign relative importance.

I guess I ultimately feel like modern pop, especially of the adult contemporary variety, is a pretty marginal art form. I couldn't imagine grouping anyone who makes modern, radio, AC pop (a la MJ, Madonna, Prince, etc.) as being anywhere close to as important as the above group. I wonder sometimes if the window for really meaningful, important, influential music is closed. Other than Nirvana and Radiohead, what post-1990 musician or group is there?

That's also why I feel that it's SO important for musicians, and really all modern popular artists, to make their lives and music meaningful in other ways. That's why I think Bono and Moby, for example, are two of the most important musicians alive today, and the ones whose deaths I would be most affected by.

Sorry for the ramble, I'm feeling socially isolated and this topic interests me. I'd love to hear responses! :)

I have to reject the notion that elvis was more revolutionary than MJ. Elvis played music that already existed, but the fact that he was a white, attractive, all-american boy from the south made the white people in america listen to and accept the music he was playing. the only really revolutionary thing that elvis did was bring music that black people had been inventing to a mainstream white audience. MJ, on the other hand, fused existing musics into new sounds, and created a way of performing (dancing with a bunch of other back-ups) that has been copied by just about every pop star since then, including madonna. MJ, while I wont say that i think his pop is necessarily better than the early 50's blues and rock that elvis copied, influenced more acts and more people's perceptions on what the popular music formula should be. Elvis and the early beatles opened up main stream america to black music, while MJ did the same thing and at the same time made new sounds and images that became an absolute standard.

Not to say I prefer him to like, the nyc dolls or stooges or pixies or whatnot (three bands i think are responsible for all good rock since the 70s). I just think his imprint went beyond a cult of personality, which was elvis's main legacy.

Haha, the New York City dolls.

._. I need to find out how to listen to all these bands ppl are mentioning! (I've heard of quite a few, but haven't done any immersion into them yet.) How does one go about gathering such music? iTunes store and CD/music shops?

Listening to every influential band ever will take you quite a while Brambles. I would start with the Gregorian chant movement of the late 14th century.

Here's India's impression of MJ!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtJRNyPK-lc

hahaha

Psh, who wants to listen to that oldies shit.