Friday, June 26, 2009
Michael Jackson (1958 - 2009)
The opening bars of Billie Jean always make me feel like I’m getting into a disco (though I’m not much of a dancer) with the promise of a great night lying ahead. Thriller was one of my first music albums.
One of the greatest pop icons of modern times, Michael Jackson, died today at the age of 50. Speaking strictly for myself, I was never a big fan of the fellow’s music except for the album, Thriller which is a classic, and a few songs here and there.
He lived a strange life, surrounded by controversies, diseases and the many makeovers.
But, he (along with Madonna and Wham) made English popular music a mass product for a generation of Indians. Before him, English music was limited to a few urban audiences. After his album ‘Bad’, every kid was doing the moonwalk with a poster of BAD hanging from the wall of his / her room.
Starting at the early age of 5, musically, he drew influences from Soul, Soft Rock, R&B, Pop and Jazz. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice and had 13 Grammys and 13 Number One Singles. These are some telling statistics, indicating his role and influence in music and popular culture.
He will be remembered by many.
ps: for a visual tribute to the deceased icon, you can go here
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8 comments:
cant remember what western music I heard before I heard him. Some real guitars going real wild in his songs is what I cant forget.
There is something unique in being irreplaceable...
for many people, my age 'Thriller' was the first English albums.
Yes very much "Thriller" was my first English album as well. even after death he is getting Postmortem again and that is a controversy too.
Fan forever of the incredible Thriller album , + a few other songs (just like u said) and of MJ's own unique X-Xactor , that hard-to-explain 'something' that goes into superstardom...in this day of choice and fragmentation , he may well turn out to have been the last of the 'superstars' ...In any case : RIP , Jacko.
Saman n I heavily borrowed from his songs (Ben being our fav!) during our ritualistic phone conversations while curious moms tried hard to eavesdrop. Thanks MJ for making life easier!
bhaskar,
Very well said about him being the last of the larger than life, superstars. These days, thanks to the excess of media, everyone is a superstar for precisely 15 secs (and Warhol had predicted this long ago).
lmtam,
And to realize that Ben was written for a rat by the same name for a musical.
Cheers!
m
But i always thought that Ben was written for a dog...guess it was ur gyan only..correct me if i am wrong.
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