I was born in 77. It's commonly accepted that children develop long term memory around the age of 3. This was unfortunate for me, since that means I remember all of the 1980's...a decade known as much for its bad music as it was for big hair, male rock bands dressing like women and women digging it (?!?), personal computers with no internal hard drive, cell phones so big you had to carry them in a bag over your shoulder, and male shorts that were too short...seriously, who thought that was a good idea.
I hated 80's music, on the whole. Now, don't get me wrong...I can dig on some early Madonna, Cindy Lauper, some Duran Duran, and some of the more popular stuff that didn't suck and had some redeeming musical content. But, I was never into the whole synth sound. I took up saxophone in 4th grade, and from that point forward there was nothing that pissed me off more than listening to someone like Steve Winwood playing a solo on a song that is obviously a saxophone patch of some kind (2:42 on the recording below), or backing brass hits played on a synth. COME ON. There are musicians out of work, and here you are with your crappy Moog rubbing it in their face.
I hate Steve Winwood. It's true. Not sure if you could tell.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time in doctors' offices as a child, so I had to listen to a lot of this nonsense. It was always playing. Maybe it reminds me of getting tubes in my ears or sinus surgery. I don't know. It sucks.
So, what's a 7 year old boy to do when all the music available to him is a steaming pile? MICHAEL JACKSON.
I was not aware of "Off the Wall" when I first got into MJ. "Thriller" was released in 1982, and I immediately begged my parents for it. MJ engaged in a revolutionary marketing strategy, putting together a mini-movie / music video to be shown on the networks. There was no MTV, and music videos in general were crappy and not often made since there was no outlet for it. Later on the 80's there was Friday Night Videos, which premiered in 1983 as a network outlet for this blossoming art, but at the time there was nothing. MJ said, "I'll see your nothing and raise you AWESOME!" The world bought in, and Michael Jackson was instantly the coolest thing on the planet.
Once we got Thriller I listened to it constantly. I learned the words to every song. Are there synths in Thriller, absolutely...but the difference was that they weren't the central focus point like they are with morons like Steve Winwood. The songs were built around MJ's vocal lines, RHYTHM, and the bass. I hadn't been exposed to any pop music like this before, and it changed the way that I looked at music forever.
After Thriller, I became interested in buying up anything Michael Jackson that I could. Of course, my parents had something to say about that, since at age 5 and 6 I had little of my own money. What money I did have came from my $.50 a week allowance for folding my brother's and sister's reusable diapers and doing other chores. That wasn't enough to buy a "Beat It" jacket with all those cool zippers. I STILL want one of those things, but now I think my wife would have something to say about that. DAMN!
Luckily, my dad was a Motown guy, so we went out and got some cool Jackson 5 stuff. Unbelievable. He was MY AGE (at the time) and he could sing like that. I could barely roller skate, and here was this 6, 7 year old kid wailing on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans. I wanted that life. The interesting thing to me was how different the music was than what he ended up producing with Thriller. I needed to find out how he got from point A to point C.
Point B was "Off the Wall". In my opinion, Off the Wall is Michael Jackson's magnum opus...it's his Sistine Chapel, his Mona Lisa. Off the Wall is an album created by two geniuses, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. This collaboration is how Michael became Michael. This is still, to this day, one of my favorite albums of all time. It's timeless.
The rhythms were contagious and made me get off my white butt and dance around the basement like I was MJ. I learned how to Moonwalk
I learned every word to every song. My brother and sister got into it too! When my parents would have to go out for some reason and my dad's folks would come over to watch us, we'd drag them down to the basement and put on lip syncing concerts for them. BOY, were they pleased. I immediately picked up on the fact that they did not enjoy the MJ like we did. It didn't matter though. Once we started, there was no stopping us because we "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough."
I remember everything from the hair on fire incident in the Pepsi commercial (I used to think he lived at the Pepsi plant near our house) to his ever changing look. I wasn't too into "Bad," when it came out, and then pretty much everything after that goes into the trash for me.
Rhythm is what I learned from Michael Jackson. Layering of different rhythms, how it all works together, how rhythm can be melody, and the integration of all of the various elements of music.
I learned melody and harmony from Elton John and Billy Joel. MJ, EJ, and BJ were my best friends growing up. I spent countless hours listening to song after song...each time focusing on a different instrument or a different moving line...trying to learn as much as I possibly could. Of course, at the time I didn't realize that I was learning, or I probably wouldn't have done it. I have always been a critical listener. It's just how I enjoy music. I didn't realize that most people just listen to music for entertainment. I was truly hearing the music and dissecting it in my brain...practice for the musician I would later become.
In the 1990's I diversified my listening enjoyment a bit and got into the Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, and others...listening to music just for music's sake is a skill I had to teach myself. But, I've always held onto my respect for Michael Jackson's contribution to the musical landscape. His ability to rise above the nonsense in the 80's with Thriller and just do his own thing is why it has become such an endearing legacy. He had as much of an effect on music as any composer ever had on their musical era. Is his music as complex as Bach? No...of course not...but like Bach, he worked and innovated within the established system and set himself apart.
Don't be so quick to discount popular music as legitimate music. Music is music, and to dismiss Michael Jackson's influence on the art is closed minded and a mistake.
So, thank you, Michael Jackson, for working hard and doing what you did for so long. It's a shame that things turned out for you like they did, but your legacy lives on in my life and in the lives of millions of others. You may be gone, but you'll never be "...Out of My Life."
No comments:
Post a Comment