When you wake up, you happen to check facebook for birthdays and you read RIP Michael Jackson in your timeline, you know it’s a sad sad sad day. I went numb. How can he die? He used to live in Neverland, for crying out loud. No no no! But then the news channels confirmed it and I couldn’t help but shed a few tears. Michael Jackson was my hero not for a year or two, not a teenage obsession. He was ‘the’ dude, I’ve always thought. Laser Discs (they never caught on) had just arrived and dad bought a player and got the Dangerous LD for us to watch. His music videos, tours, were all covered in that video and that’s how my love affair with the man’s music began.
Our generation might have seen many pop icons, influences, but what MJ did to our generation is significant. His whacky videos, his gyrating moves, his expressiveness. Those things made us… Everybody wanted to dance like him everybody wanted to have his style, his panache. He was the ‘shit’, as they say.
His music ranged from pop to rock to soul. And it really did rock the late 80s and 90s. When he sang the Free Willy theme, he actually formed a bond with the whale, Keiko. He poured his soul into his music. He spoke about dangerous girls, racial discrimination, burning up the dance floors but he also told us to make the world a better place. He made us believe in making an effort to make sure the world was a happier place for the coming generations. But that said, his personal life was a complete mess. He married the King of RocknRoll’s daughter. He fathered illegitimate children. And the worse was when he was tried for pedophilia, in which he was found not guilty. And let’s leave that at that! Enigma, mystery and controversy, he lived a life full of it and yet he once famously said, “I’m just like anyone. I cut, bleed and get easily embarrassed”
MJ… He sure made the world a better place for you and for me and the entire human race with his music… There’s a place in my heart and I know that you are still rocking it in there. Because you will be alive in the millions hearts that learned to beat to your rhythm. Whatever the controversies, one cannot deny the fact that he leaves behind a legacy- his music.
R I P King Of Pop. You are not like anyone and there will be none like you.
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