I promised myself that I wouldn’t do it – that I wouldn’t dive into the already overcrowded waters of Michael Jackson obituary, hagiography and/or armchair autopsy. I managed to keep that promise for a whole month – primarily because I didn’t have a coherent “take” on Michael’s life or his death. Yet here I find myself … inevitably, inescapably, if about five weeks late.
I have declined to babble about the moments when Michael’s music provided my life’s soundtrack – how the J5’s Greatest Hits was the first album I ever owned as a 5-year-old; how my friends and I cruised my hometown debating whether the best part of “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” was the “Mama say, mama sa, mama coo sa” part or the “Yee hahs!”; how the entire world (including even my cloistered grad-school community) paused to take in the premiere of the “Black or White” video and then burned up the phone lines asking each other, “What the fuck was that last part?”
I have stifled the urge to pontificate on how the world leapt right past forgiveness to forgetfulness last month, or how the family trotted out and exploited Michael’s long-sheltered children to help ensure that his extramusical legacy wouldn’t (exclusively) involve images of surgical masks, hyperbaric chambers, court appearances, Emmanuel Lewis and Bubbles. And I’ve remained quiet as, in the weeks since the memorial service, we have so quickly and efficiently stuffed MJ into Elvis’ (metaphorical) box. To wit: Elvis was a hugely influential pop progenitor and oft-described King who died bloated, sequined and strung out on prescription medication. Michael was a hugely influential, sequined crossover-pop progenitor and self-described King who died emaciated, caucasian … and strung out on prescription medication.
But last week, as we passed the one-month mark since Michael became omnipresent once more, I finally figured out what I’d like to say to him as he passes into legend. It’s this: Thanks for destroying the record industry! (more…)
Sound ridiculous? Or does it sound like the obvious conclusion for an industry that continues to lose money and customer patronage, seeking to cut away anything that doesn’t promote profit — album tracks that may appeal to a creative sense but can’t be capitalized upon, extra production costs inherent in those tracks, and design, packaging, and promotion of a product the public only wants 10 percent of. Witness the next music-industry model circa 2010: the business model of 1961. A label executive now sees his competition focused solely on bankrolling hits, not album sides or expensive packaging, and has to mull over whether it’s better business-wise to chop his staff in half or chop his label’s output in half, retaining the profitable side for himself. Of course the second option is better. He follows suit, and the business model we know today ceases to exist.