Now that Michael Jackson is dead, I’m not going to miss him. I didn’t know him. I don’t think many people did. I do, however, miss the Michael Jackson I once thought I knew, back before it all got so weird. You see, there was a time…
I never really loved Michael Jackson’s music, but I loved his music videos. Back in the early 1980s, creating videos for songs was still a new and controversial idea. I liked the videos, but a lot of people, including a lot of artists, thought they were a distraction from the music. Record companies made videos, but they didn’t take them seriously.
Michael Jackson helped change all that. At a time when a music video might have a budget of $40,000, he spent about a half-million dollars on the Thriller video and got a major motion picture director to film it. Nowadays, many motion picture directors get started with music videos and think nothing of producing one for musicians they like, but back then nobody had heard of such a thing.
I admired Michael for taking this fledgling artform to heart and treating its fans with respect.
It may sound odd, but I also admired Michael Jackson for his willingness to let Weird Al Yankovic parody his songs. Musicians with considerably less fame and talent took themselves too seriously to let Al do his thing (I’m looking at you, Coolio!) but Michael Jackson was always willing.
That’s the Michael Jackson I miss. Something bad happened to him a long time ago.
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