Michael Jackson Dies of a Heart Attack
June 25th, 2009
I just heard that Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack at 50 years old. Either he’s gunna come up from the grave with a hoard of other zombie-types and chase the cute girl through town again, or this is the end of the line for the King of Pop:
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From TMz-”Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hill home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back”
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I’ve got to be perfectly honest and say I’m not sure how this makes me feel. On the one hand (no glove puns intended) this is the music of my youth. Everyone I knew had a some sort of MJ paraphernalia that they wore while trying to pull off the moonwalk. On the other hand, there is the whole Jesus Juice thing….
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Either way, RIP MJ.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Triple El Es said:
No shame at all in admiring the man. Regardless of how eccentric (being nice out of respect) he was, there’s no denying his talent. I still dig the Jackson 5 every now and then.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Blood Red Dancers (Julian) said:
Forget the man but let his music live on. let’s raise a glass in his honor tonight.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
SCTG said:
I flat out love ‘Off The Wall’. In my mind it’s nothing short of a perfect work. The production fits the arrangements, the arrangements suit the material, and the material covers a range of emotions and vibes that no other artist (then or now) can pull off on a single album. Michael was at the top of his game. ‘Thriller’ was his defining work, and it’s a great album–but I was no fan of breakdancing, and I wasn’t able to separate the two for many years. Love the Jackson 5. Was the music of my childhood, among all the hits of the 70s. But ‘Off The Wall’ was genius. Before the plastic surgery. Before the crotch grabbing and endless hee-hees and shouts. Before all the weirdness that came to stand for the former man (and yes, I know he was still a man after…), there was this person who so embodied the feeling of his music that his very pores seemed to exude it, even when he barely moved. He moved people from the moment he could walk. He launched and/or buoyed countless careers. He was Madonna when Madonna was just a groupie-in-waiting outside the clubs she couldn’t get into. There is no Madonna without him. There is no Britney without him. There’s no Oprah without him. As much as I will vomit throughout the ensuing media blitz of rehash and repackaging that begins now, you don’t have NOW without Michael. He was not the king of my pop, because my pop was (by then) not mainstream pop. But as the Elvis album cover declared, 50,000,000 fans can’t be wrong. Michael took that to exponential extremes. There will be, for me at least, one very welcome by-product of the media circus that will drag on for the next few weeks. Someone will re-air “The Jacksons: An American Dream”. If you haven’t seen it, give it a watch. Tivo it. It’s a made for TV movie. It’s cheesy. But it’s damn satisfying. I don’t know if it was the unvarnished truth. I don’t care. Watch the scene where ‘Michael’ sings “Human Nature”. If you don’t come to appreciate who he was at that time, then you never will. I’m not shedding tears for the man tonight. He lost me long ago. But I am raising a glass to the man and what he accomplished. The truth truly was stranger (and more wonderful) than fiction.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Tom.Blodgett said:
Yep. MJ is dead but why is Joe Jackson still alive and not in jail? Well we all learned that by tormenting your children, you might make them great. Well at least 10% of the time (unless you count Janet).
Michael Jackson is a big part of what made the 80’s awesome and he made some damn great music. I don’t know if he ever felt love, which would be ironic considering he sang so many cherished pop love songs.
I just caught up on the wiki of MJ’s life and now want to watch the 18 min movie he made for Disney, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and replay the video game with monkeys.
He was a talented performer, dancer, and singer but does anyone know if he didn’t any of the song writing or if he produced any of the music?
Thanks for the changing the world and for giving us Alien Ant Farm.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
dj100proof said:
Off the Wall is the best pop record of all time.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:07 am
LB said:
I too am a big, big fan of Off the Wall. Thriller is the awesomeness that everyone claims it is, but it became both his blessing AND his curse (at least that’s what someone on CNN told me).
Tom, MJ has partial writing and producing credits on both OtW and Thriller. Quincy Jones did quite a bit of production and Rod Temperton wrote quite a few songs on both. Those 3 guys are the heavyweights.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:39 am
misterlevitan said:
I spent part of the weekend revisiting (or visiting for the first time) many of his videos. I confess I couldn’t recall seeing “Smooth Criminal” before, and the live version from MTV was amazing too. A montage of a bunch of other songs including “Remember the Time.” Wow. I am really surprised at how much thought and conversation was devoted to him in my house this weekend. The man was a freak but his art was inspiring and groundbreaking… (what artist ISN’T a freak of some kind? Van Gogh, Prince, Frida Cahlo? etc etc) So let his music live on… Maybe he had not created anything as significant as OtW and Thriller in decades, but we can’t deny something’s *changed* now that that potential will never thrill us in a new way again.
Rest In Peace.