Written a year before his death:
Michael Jackson has been back in the spotlight this past month to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Thriller. He’s riding a wave of nostalgia powerful enough, it would seem, to make people forget/ignore what he’s become in the intervening years. People love Thriller (and what Thriller represents) THAT much!
Part of me is excited about this. I have been a devoted Michael Jackson fan since I first saw Captain EO as a six year-old, and it’s gratifying to see him recognized for something other than kookiness. And Thriller is an incredible piece of work.
But there’s “another part of me”(!) that, frankly, resents the revival and sees it as fair-weather friendship, one that fundamentally misses the boat when it comes to the King of Pop.
What do I mean? For those of us interested in the practical ramifications of the Christian Gospel, AKA how judgment, demand, scrutiny and conversely, love, forgiveness, and mercy play out in everyday life–there is no more interesting case study than Michael Jackson. And not Thriller-era, I’m talking about Michael Jackson in the 90s. Dangerous-era, HIStory-era, Lisa Marie Presley-era, etc.
The 90s also happen to be my favorite period of MJ, when I would argue he produced much of his greatest music. This is a controversial opinion, so let’s be clear: Michael Jackson is strange, strange man, full of contradictions, and an undeniable megalomaniac. Deranged? Perhaps. I may have agreed with the not-guilty verdict re: the “allegations”, but I would never go so far as to label him innocent. Not knowing him personally, none of us are qualified comment more than that. Where I do feel qualified to comment, however, is his art: his music, his dancing, and his videos, but especially his music.
By 1990, Michael Jackson had been in the public eye for over 20 years, roughly since the age of 10. This includes the 1980s, when he may well have been the most famous person on the planet. And his fame was well-deserved: he was that rare celebrity whose creativity and talent matched his charisma. (People often forget that Michael wrote and co-produced nearly all of his major hits). But if his 90s output is to be taken at face value, the success brought with it unbearable pressure and scrutiny. Suddenly everyone–in the world–was entitled to have an opinion about him. Judgment with a capital J!
Take the Free Willy song, “Will You Be There?”, released in 1991 on the album Dangerous. After a truly ridiculous choral intro, we hear Michael plead with a gospel choir for love and understanding, crying “I’m only human!” over and over. It’s powerful. The exhaustion continues in “Black Or White”, where he (and Slash!!) tells us, “I’m tired of this devil/I’m tired of this stuff/I’m tired of this business”.
The final masterpiece on Dangerous is “Who Is It”, another in his series of paranoid anthems (“Billie Jean”, “Smooth Criminal”, “Leave Me Alone”, “Ghosts” etc), where he confesses, “the will has brought no fortune/still I cry alone at night/don’t you judge of my composure/cause I’m lying to myself” and then finally, “I can’t take it cause I’m lonely!” It’s the sound of a man hanging by a thread.
Of course, elsewhere on the record is “Heal the World”, a song so sappy it makes “We Are The World” look edgy. As a sidenote, the range in quality found on a Michael Jackson album, with nigh-perfect tracks alongside ones so bad they produce secondhand embarrassment, is one of the many ways in which MJ is reminiscent of Brian Wilson.
As dark as Dangerous gets, it doesn’t hold a candle to the second disc of 1996’s HIStory. Which is ironic, considering that the first disc of HIStory (a defacto greatest hits) has got to be one of the most overt attempts at self-deification ever unleashed. The cover depicts our hero in statue form–it is not subtle.
But HIStory disc two, or HIStory Continues, is Michael at his most personal and vulnerable, his Plastic Ono Band, if you will. It opens with my all-time favorite MJ single, “Scream”. Over a chorus of breaking glass and slamming doors, he and his sister Janet yell, “stop pressuring me/just stop pressuring me/stop pressuring me/[you] make me want to scream” before finally begging, “somebody please have mercy cause I just can’t take it!” Woah.
I don’t see how anyone who’s actually listened to “Scream” could argue that it’s not operating on a deeper, more profound (albeit less fun) level than Thriller. Sadly, Michael made it impossible for us to just listen–we had to look too, and his appearance, by this time, had become way too bizarre. Just check out the video, where he unfortunately looked almost exactly like the alien he was trying (not?) to portray:
The second track on HIStory, right after “Scream”, is another blast of disaffection called “They Don’t Care About Us”. Then comes the inspired “Stranger in Moscow”, the loneliest of all his lonely songs, where he mentions his “swift and sudden fall from grace” and asks, “how does it feel/when you’re alone and you’re cold inside?” As if that’s not intense enough, he also makes reference to Stalin’s tomb, the KGB, and nuclear Armageddon. We’re a long way from “Rockin’ Robin”.
Michael’s solution to all this pain and fear: Peter Pan-style retreat to childhood, a place he associates with the unconditional love, joy and freedom he’s never known. I know I’m treading on shaky ground here, but taken out of the courtroom context, doesn’t this seem to jive, at least a little, with Jesus’ words in Mark 10 about little children and the kingdom of God? On second thought…
One could go on–don’t get me started on the brilliance that is the Blood On The Dance Floor EP–but the point is this: when St. Paul wrote that “the letter kills” (2 Cor 3:6), he was not kidding. The fruit of the law here, i.e. “thou shalt be the King Of Pop”, is alienation and loneliness, anger, depression, writer’s block and, yes, in all likelihood, more sin. A starker contrast to The Traveling Wilburys one could not find.
The burden of being Michael Jackson is something no one should ever have to bear. That he would crack up under that kind of pressure, that he would even try to transform himself into a different person, was a foregone conclusion. It may be a small mercy that his talent did not abandon him during his struggles, but it is a mercy nonetheless–and in a life that contained far too little, no message should have been any clearer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qfOE3oWuz4&w=600
P.S. Lest you thought MJ lost even a fraction of a step, dance-wise, in the 90s, hold on to your hat (pun intended):
COMMENTS
15 responses to “A Stranger in Moscow (and on Planet Earth): Michael Jackson in the 90s”
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This is very, very impressive, this post. It goes into new territory, alarming Gospel territory.
And let’s not forget to bow our heads in relation to “Thriller”, that unforgettable single (if I may focus on the Teenage Werewolf side) with V. Price and the dancing zombies that will never depart from our deepest gate of memory.
It should be noted that, in typical MJ fashion, the video for “Will You Be There” completely contradicts the message of the song (at least, my interpretation of it), with Jackson in full-on Messiah mode, the same shtick that provoked Jarvis Cocker’s hilarious outburst in 1996…
well done D.
Ahh yes, The Epcot Captain EO experience. This Floridian will never forget.
Of course I also can’t forget the Sega Genesis Moonwalker video game, where MJ dances to kill and hangs out with kidnaped children.
Alex
That video game was amazing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDg7kWgs5e0
Dear David Zahl,
You write about the ramifications of not following the Bible, yes you alluded to it very strongly… But, you yourself have judged; and very harshly. Who is Michael Jackson? The question is, “who are you?” Where do you get the right to tear Mr. Jackson apart the way you did; even though you did complement him? Imagine for one moment living this man’s life. He couldn’t even walk out of his door let alone walk into a grocery store and buy a candy bar. There was either paparazzi everywhere or people literally clawing at him! You have no idea what-so-ever, what this kind of pressure can do to a person. Michael Jackson is a child of God just like the rest of us… And the way he chose to deliver his messages through his music is not for you to judge. It’s not for anyone to judge. Like it? OK Dislike it? OK, too… But, you sir, are playing “judge” as much as you accused Michael Jackson of playing “King”! ( and according to you that’s not right. Make up your mind. Pick one or the other. )
Yes it’s true… almost all of us do not know what goes on behind closed doors of popular celebrities. Michael Jackson is the most known person in the entire world! Can you possibly imagine what they could do to a person? My thoughts on that probably don’t even reach the height of stress, loneliness, despair, fright ( and any other awful emotion you can possibly think of), that he suffered.
Outwardly he was a very gentle, calm, loving and very giving individual. It’s up to God to judge him now. All of the jerks in society love to raise someone up to a pedestal, but once they are there, they get intense pleasure ripping them down! That is so crooked, unGodly and evil that these words I just used don’t even come close… There is a lot wrong with the kind of attitude in this world we live in . Most people that have their eyes open even a little bit know that the music industry is evil. They take someone that is making billions of dollars and they try to run them and “own” them. They take over their lives. The artist takes it for a while and then they get sick of it. ( I won’t even get into what our government does )
If you’re a God-fearing man, why would “Heal the Workd” and other songs like “Will You Be There” seem, “ridiculous”, to you? That’s what artists do… They try to convey emotions, feelings and the plight of life ( usually their own experiences, because that’s what they can draw from ), through music. The man doesn’t even swear in any of his songs! ( dog gone it, funky, etc.)
You are right about one thing… The burden Michael was under, no one should have to bear! You said you loved him and his music since you were a child and then you proceeded to rip him apart until the end of your so-called article… unless you were there, you have no idea what was really true or untrue, do you? So, practice with you preach and don’t judge people with a capital “J”.
How do you think you would feel ( and I am not making fun of his song “Stranger in Moscow”), if you had to live the secluded and terribly unhappy life that he lived? You can’t even begin to imagine it, can you? There’s no way. Michael Jackson was the most popular artist on the face of the earth for decades! by the way, there was a reason for this… You can’t even for a minute understand that even though there’s crowds of people chanting at you, you actually feel lonely? That’s because none of those people actually knew him… They just loved his music. He was a human being! Everything that was said about him and done to him over the decades would probably drive anyone nuts. That doesn’t mean he’s worth less or worthless.
That being said, Michael had to deal with what all of us assholes in this world threw at him. True or not. Period. Everybody thinks they’re better than everyone else and knows exactly what’s going on with everyone else; and nothing could be further from the truth. I hate articles like yours and the way they judge people they don’t even know. I pray Michael Jackson is with Jesus Christ. He deserves to be with Him. Just like you do. I would not want to live his life for any amount of money in the world… Speaking of money, Michael Jackson gave more than $300 million to charities; more than any other human being/artist alive or dead. He also constantly visited hospitals and other countries to help people. FYI.
I pray for two things… One, Michael Jackson faked his death and got away from everybody and is living a normal life somewhere like he wanted/deserves and will someday be with Jesus.
Two, ( if he was really murdered ), he asked for forgiveness (like we all should), received it and is finally happy in the arms of Jesus Christ.
We all know Michael Jackson loved to write songs, sing and especially, dance… He told that to his fans/the world, himself. Too many people try to pick his music apart and try to show that he was Satanic and a lot of other bull crap. Only the man himself knows what those words in his songs actually mean. I actually feel sorry for him having to live such a rotten life (due to other people) when all he was trying to do was share his God given talent.
Since you wrote this article 7 years ago, you may not be alive to read it… I don’t know. But, I hope you are. We should all love each other on this planet. If we did, these types of awful things wouldn’t happen all the time… And by golly, that was the exact message Michael Jackson was trying to spread. Imagine that .
Dee