I’ve listened to the comments and debates over the Michael Jackson documentary airing on HBO recently (Leaving Neverland), and of course, we all have a viewpoint on it. But it wasn’t until I watched the Studio-54 documentary on Netflix (Studio 54 The Documentary) that I paused to consider where I stood with ‘listening’ or ‘playing’ his music was concerned.
Seeing the portion of documentary where a young Michael Jackson is in the late Steve Rubell’s back office at the club, while listening to Michael and watching him, I realized, given the unusual behaviors he exhibited over the years, we all knew something was off with him. The animals as friends and plastic-surgery overkill. The ‘vitiligo’ treatments and perpetual ‘Peter Pan’ persona. We knew something wasn’t right—but buying his records, we did—making his albums bestsellers.
His legal troubles in the nineties, related to child sex abuse, surprised … only a few. His music continued—and so did our purchases of it.
But now, as the tenth anniversary of his death approaches, HBO has aired Leaving Neverland, and ‘we’ are all in an uproar again—because now, with the accounts of two victims’ of Jackson’s alleged child abuse, there’s ‘proof’—of something we’ve suspected all along. The word ‘alleged’ must be used because Mr. Jackson cannot defend himself, but well, there’s common sense and logic and circumstantial nuances and riveting recountings which … override that ‘alleged’ word for the majority of us.
Anyway, Jackson being dead brings me to the issue of listening to his music going forward.
Jackson’s death in 2009 left in its wake a range and depth of anguish and mental and emotional turmoil for his victims (and their families) I cannot begin to understand, can only try to empathize with (and still feel as if coming up short). But his death also left a legacy of unprecedented musical achievement—accomplished during which we already had inklings of something being ‘off’ with him.
I don’t listen to Jackson’s music regularly, but I’m not trashing any albums/CDs of his I’ve purchased, nor am I going out of my way to delete his music from a playlist here or there, or to change the radio station (should stations continue airing his music) if “Off the Wall” comes on (although, I do anticipate there will be plenty doing rounds of extensive over-analyzing of his song lyrics now, if they haven’t already). His music was good, better than good–as the record books would indicate.
What Mr. Jackson ‘allegedly’ (there’s that necessary word again) did was awful, and no, I don’t believe his talent as an artist should overshadow that, should negate it. Some of us are able to separate the two, separate the man from the music. And while, when it comes to the man, I won’t be buying any new music or merchandise out of Jackson’s camp (and thus increasing his estate’s bottom line), when it comes to the music, I won’t discount his talent as an artist, either.
And you know, it’s funny, R. Kelly being alive, leaves me with the same non-future-purchase response, but with a different reasoning viewpoint entirely.
