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RIP: Michael Jackson (1958 - 2009)[/caption]
When I was a kid one of my favorite musicians that I was a huge fan of (and kind of grew up listening to his music) is Michael Jackson (1958 - 2009), I followed his career as much as any kid could through the late 80s, and even through out the early to mid 90s when he was starting to loose his standing with his fans due to the scandals and allegations, and I remained (and still remain) a fan of this master musicians work to this very day!
Why I am still such a fan, despite the fact that his last (well this is my opinion, but I do think there is some element of truth in this,) but the last truly great album that he did was the one that he did around 1995... Well that is simple... And I will admit that I kind of lost interest in some his more easy listening albums of his later years... But the truth is, is that his more hardcore songs, (Smooth Criminal, Scream & even Thriller), definitely had that R&B Pop element that was pretty much always there, (although sometimes it was little harder to see then others), but there was also other genre influences that I saw in his music (like rock 'n roll in the songs that I mentioned above)...
Another thing that I found to be most fascinating is the fact that in a lot of ways I found that the songs (especially when you see the music videos) were very strongly representative of the time in which the music video was made (with probably one of the few exceptions being, 'Smooth Criminal'... What with the story line in that song taking place in the, 'Gangster' Days.)
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Michael Jackson in the music video, 'The Way You Make Me Feel' (1987)... A song that was very representative of the late 80s![/caption]
A great example of this is, 'Beat it'! Now Beat it was made just barely after what I would say is the look between the 1970s and the 1980s, so there was definitely an element of the 70s (very small... But like most decades, the early part of it does seem to draw some minor inspiration from the decade that preceded it!)
But besides some minor inspiration from the 1970s, for the most part this song had the look, the feel, and the sound of just about everything that in my opinion made the early 1980s great! (Granted most of what I know about that part of the 80s is based on what I saw in movies and TV shows because I was still in diapers when, 'Beat It' came out in 1983!)
Nevertheless another truly great song, a song that I felt was strongly representative of the look/feel/style of the late 80s (really all the way up through the early early 90s was another truly classic song that he did, 'The Way You Make Me Feel'!
And you know what, I will admit that when I first heard about the Child Molestation scandal that rocked his career... I will admit that once I found out what all that was, I thought it was pretty odd, and it did color my perceptions of him and his career... But in all truth, I thought (and still do think) that despite that, Michael Jackson was still an amazing musician (sadly I think that this may have roughly been about around the time when he started having his problems with medications...)
Never the less, I was sad to see him go in to relative obscurity... I mean the guy had a truly legendary career!
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Michael doing a part of one of his signature dance routines![/caption]
And when he started popping back up in the world, in the new millennium, I gotta say that I was truly impressed with some of the work that this amazing talent still had in him, and when I heard about his second set of child abuse allegations, I gotta admit that I was truly shocked and appalled to hear about the second sexual abuse scandal... But I was also glad to hear that he made it past all that!
The truth is, is I strongly suspect that due to the fact that Michael Jackson was an international superstar since he was pretty young, he ended up having some unusual tendencies, and so was he an odd guy... Sure, but he was not a bad guy, and was a truly a prolific musician/actor, and I was truly saddened to hear when he had past away back in 2009!
With that said, absence truly does make the heart grow fonder I suppose, because I have to admit that I was a little shocked to see just the true outpouring of love for the guy and his work... The truth is, is he absolutely deserved (and still does) every ounce of love and respect he got at his death, but if he had gotten that same outpouring when he was alive, I suspect he still would be entertaining audiences all over the world with his live performances!
Anyway, I don't mean to attack anyone for anything, but being a fan through thick and through thin, I have to say that I am sorry to have seen such an amazing talent gone from the world, but for me, I am still a huge fan of Michael Jackson's work and always will be!
http://youtu.be/1glqdih1LsM
http://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA
http://youtu.be/0P4A1K4lXDo
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