The Man In The Mirror

My wife called me upset that Michael Jackson had died. My initial reaction was indifference. Who could be shocked that Jackson checked out at 50, alone in a Hollywood Mansion with strangers, doped up on prescription drugs?

Then there was his strangeness. I don't know whether Jackson was guilty of molesting young boys, but this I do know: he had an unhealthy relationship with them. We may never know the truth because the morals of the children's parents mirrored the pimps of kids on the streets of Mumbai. So it’s plausible to consider that Jackson may have been set up.

But I did not really care. Jackson had long ceased to be a value to anyone, including himself.

But somewhere over the last several days of global hysteria, I too started to mourn the loss of Jackson. I found myself playing his music and watching his innovative videos. I am not mourning the caricature of the human being who was on media display the last 10 years. I am mourning the loss of the 25-year-old who caught lighting in a bottle.

I mourned the 11-year-old who sang the blues as if he had just come home and caught his wife in the bed with another man; the kid who sang I’ll Be There as if he had fallen in love for the first time.

We forget that as Jackson grew out of his teenage years, music critics were writing him off as a just another child star who faded into pubescent obscurity. Little did they know that Jackson was about to become the seminal musical and cultural figure of the 20th Century.

I remember being at a house party in 1979, listening to the DJ spin Don't Stop Till You Get Enough. Everyone was hearing it for the first time and, as if directed by a subconscious message, the house began to dance. The DJ went straight into Rock With You and it was over. Everyone in the world knew immediately that Jackson had made the transition from cute child star to a serious artist. But none of us were ready for what was to come.

Thriller remains the greatest pop album ever. If it was released today, unchanged, it would sell 100 million copies and captivate the world as it did 25 years ago. Thriller was not just a musical milestone, it was a cultural earthquake. It was the first time white America fell unfettered, in love with a person of color. A whole generation of white children grew up idolizing Jackson and others who would follow. So for this generation, going gaga over Obama was as natural as eating your Wheaties.

Although critics, for the most part, underrate Jackson’s third solo album, Bad when compared with Off The Wall and Thriller, the singles Dirty Diana and Man in the Mirror were as good as anything Jackson had done. And for me, the Dirty Diana video captured the full range of Jackson’s talents. It is the most open display of sexuality that Jackson ever allowed the public to see. From the model exiting the limousine, with legs up to her shoulders, sauntering up and down the sidewalk to the lyrics:

She waits at backstage doors
For those who have prestige
Who promise fortune and fame
A life that's so carefree
She's saying that's ok
Hey baby do what you want
I'll be your night lovin' thing
I'll be the freak you can taunt

to the music that forever broke down barriers between Pop, R&B, and Rock; to Jackson's screeching vocals. Raw sexuality is at its peak when Jackson brings all the elements to a crescendo, ripping his white under shirt off, standing in mist, with his arm outstretched and his head pointed to the sky. Visually, it was simply stunning.

In that moment he had it all: the charisma of Elvis, the musicality of the Beatles and the unrefined sexuality of Chuck Berry, strutting across the stage.

On the day that Jackson died, the world stopped.

And the world rarely stops for any one individual. The world does not mourn Jackson because he got out of cars with no underwear; or he released a sex tape. The world is not mourning an ambiguous racial figure that was trapped in a life of turmoil.

No, the whole planet is linked in virtual grief over Jackson because of the talent he displayed 25 years ago.

Have there been better singers? Of course. Have there been better songwriters? No doubt. Have there been more important musical figures? For sure. But no one has ever been able to do it all at Jackson's level

We now know that the vessel that housed this tremendous talent was deeply flawed. But in this moment, it does not matter whether Joe Jackson is the beast Michael said he was or appears to be, even now. Nor does it matter whether Jackson was a pedophile or that he disfigured his beautiful chocolate face out of self-hatred. Over the next several centuries, all those riddles will be explored and some may never be answered.

What we do know is that those of us, who were alive over the last 40 years, witnessed something rare: A human talent who reminded us of the power of art to move a world and change a culture.

Jackson was a true Thriller, who may have also been a Smooth Criminal, but he was surely Off The Wall.