Idolator
Today's entry in the "against" column of the "Should old people be allowed to write about pop music?" debate is author, humorist, and professional penitent for America's cultural sins Joe Queenan, who has written a column on Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." He thinks it's an important song. Not for the reasons a normal person might think—like, you know, musical ones—but because they made a really cool video for it:
No, Billie Jean was groundbreaking because it introduced the idea that a single must be accompanied by a high-production video - preferably by someone who is a bit of a hoofer - thereby transforming a run-of-the-mill song release into an "event"...it launched the Michael Jackson era, a period in which the entire population of the planet made a group decision to follow the career of one star and one star only. This was an era in which a fabulously gifted performer like Prince was forced into a distant second-fiddle role, because even though Prince could dance, he couldn't dance like Michael Jackson. Jackson's all-encompassing appeal was something that had never happened before in the history of pop music...
This was the first time that a song had been upstaged by the performance of a song, creating a peculiar situation where no one really had any interest in hearing the song unless they could simultaneously watch the song being performed.
Later he confuses a studio with a set and claims that "More thought went into the production of this single than would go into the entire recording careers of Axl Rose, Coldplay, Shania Twain or Gwen Stefani," which I guess is a longer way of saying that he hasn't listened to music since 1986. Have fun!
How Billie Jean changed the world [Guardian]
Comments
Oh my...where to begin?
Arguably, Prince's success was concurrent/after "Thriller" ("Purple Rain" came out two years later)...
Wow, that article... sucked isn't a strong enough word... really sucked. Thanks, public school!
Without reading the article, I gotta tell you: Michael Jackson's music that he recorded with Quincy Jones remains culturally very important. Here's the only way I know how to relate this:
1) My niece is 18 years old and is, somewhat, your average American teenager. For one of her recent parties, she asked me to put together a mix of newer dancy music stuff -- Simian Mobile Disco was on there, some LCD Soundsystem, some Justice, some !!!. After about 45 minutes of listening to this stuff, one of her friends, apparently, said, "You know, I've got Thriller in the car if anyone wants to listen to it." A room full of 17 and 18 year old kids all said, "Would you please? That would be awesome! I don't like this crap."
They listened to Thriller for the rest of the night.
2) I was sitting in a hotel lobby the other day. A bunch of caucasian, ostensibly midwestern kids who were travelling to a sports tournament, all boys between like 11 and 15, were playing on the computer behind me while their parents chatted it up about the days events.
One of the parents made the tasteless crack that if this one kid didn't stop whining that "Michael Jackson is gonna come after you." The one boy said, "Dad, don't be gross? Michael Jackson is totally awesome." All the other kids agreed with their friend. Dad shut up and started reading his paper.
Maybe he's a sicko, but you can't mess with Off The Wall and Thriller for party music.
Oh christ. Now I read it. That article needs to be euthanized.
It's like those political cartoons in The Onion where you can't tell if they're real or just a pitch-perfect collection of all the dumb things people sincerely believe.
Be sure to read his "Johnny B Goode" and "Wild Thing" columns--this is truly some of the most bewildering and poorly-written crap I have ever read....
At the time it was very cool, but it didn't have any edge to it. "1999" was out at that time and it was a much better album with an edge and it doesn't sound nearly as dated as anything from "Thriller". The only songs anybody refers to now are "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller". They are also the only songs from that album that get airplay. There's a reason radio doesn't play "PYT".
That's funny, because I just finished reading "Lipstick Traces" by Greil Marcus, and he has a rather lengthy section on the same thing that Queenan writes about here, except more... situanist-y. It was a fascinating point, but in Marcus' case, the book was published in 1989. But Queenan has a good point to mention this, being that Michael Jackson is one of our greatest anomalies for the very reason he mentions. Everyone was sold on Jacko, and he has since been exposed as a grade A psycho-freak, but his music has so much appeal, that we are willing to set those criminal acts aside and let the music speak for itself. He may be a horrible person, but man, Off The Wall? Classic!
Now excuse me while i go around tellng people about this new fangled thing called the internet...
@antistar: You've gotta be kidding. Since when is radio airplay the barometer of quality? And in what universe is Thriller dated? The 3 songs you mention may be the best remembered, but that's mostly because they have the most memorable videos. Take them off the album, and you're still gonna rock the party. PYT is genius, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' has one of the most danceable hooks of all time, and Human Nature is a gorgeous ballad.
If PYT, WBSS and HN are the three best songs on an album, it's still darn near a masterpiece.
The cave that Joe Queenan must be living in does sound kind of nice, though, doesn't it?
And: solo career, whatever. Jackson peaked with the Jackson 5, and while he's been trying to do it, you just can't be 11 years old forever.
It would be interesting, with respect to Loudersoft's white sports kid future-jock story, to see what else these kids revere: pro wrestling? Linkin Park? Avril Lavigne posters in their bedrooms? what great company!
Human Nature is tough to beat. So is Remember the Time, for that matter.
@FionaScrapple: good call on both of those. Y'know, this is making want to listen to my beat-up copy of Thriller (my first LP)...and maybe even pick up a copy of Dangerous in the cheap bins.
Boy, am I tired of only listening to more than one artist at a time. If only my TV had more than three channels.
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