So today marks the release of Michael Jackson's first "real" posthumous record, Michael, and the verdict is predictably mixed. It's certainly not the tour-de-force he was rumored to be working on in the years leading up to his death (high profile collaborations, for example with will.i.am and Ne-Yo, are nowhere to be found), but it is also not without its charms. In fact, if you can overlook the god-awful opening "Hold My Hand" (really an Akon solo track with Michael as guest), you'll find some near-prime MJ. Chief among them, "Behind the Mask," a smoking collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto that apparently dates back to the 70s, and despite the puzzling sax flourishes, serves as a great reminder of Michael's dance-floor dominance. Then there's the terrific single "Breaking the News" which some reviewers have dismissed as one of the ill-considered paranoid anti-tabloid rants that characterized his later output, coming across as a retread Dangerous-style "new jack swing" and ringing false in light of his death. They seem to ignore that 1. paranoia has always been a goldmine of inspiration for him and 2. Dangerous was awesome. Plus, the hook is enormous! "Monster" covers similar thematic ground and is only a few steps behind, quality-wise. "Hollywood Tonight," on the other hand, does have the makings of a bonafide MJ-anthem, but ultimately comes off as too much of a work-in-progress. That said, "(I Like) The Way That You Love Me" is pure melody-Michael, very much in the Invincible vein, proving once again that when he scaled back a little, he could still deliver top-notch RnB.
As far as the ballads are concerned, which were always where his tackier side reared its head, things are a bit dodgier. "Keep Your Head Up" is the "Heal the World" here, as catchy as it is insipid, and "Best of Joy" is almost unlistenable. Yet "Much Too Soon," a Thriller outtake, is Michael at his sweetest and most stripped down.
All in all, it's a fun, if safe release. Despite some solid additions to the catalog, one gets the strong feeling that the studio is holding back, big-time (10 tracks?!). But that's ultimately moot - everything is going to come out eventually, and we can compile our dream records then. The real takeaway here is that the first archival release is out of the way, and it could have been a LOT worse.
A couple days late of the 30th anniversary of his death, but with added feeling:
1. Jealous Guy - The Faces. Rockin' Rod and crew proved their impeccable taste in solo-Beatles when they followed up their brilliant cover of "Maybe I'm Amazed" with an equally brilliant version of "Jealous Guy":
2&3. Come Together. One of my least favorite Lennon songs has inexplicably been given the deluxe treatment by not one but three of my heroes. Of special note is the fact that in 1994 it marked Axl's final public appearance before disappearing for six years.
A few years before in the Moonwalker movie, Michael Jackson also paid tribute in a disappointingly faithful but still pretty fun (if completely misread) version: [CONTINUE READING]
1. Our Pensacola mini-conference is underway! If you live in the area, don't be afraid to drop in unannounced... We would love to see you. And those of you that don't live in the area, don't be afraid to say a prayer in support.
2. An unsettling firsthand account of professional plagiarism over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled "The Shadow Scholar", the most arresting portion for us being (ht AZ):
I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America's moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked.
3. A worthy look at Disney's conflicted relationship with its religious past over at First Things, through the lens of Armond White's review of Disney's current PC-schlock-fest Tangled. The always provocative White employs Mbird faves Carl Dreyer, Hans Christian Anderson, and The Pet Shop Boys among others to make his point. He writes:
We’ve accustomed ourselves to the formula by which a family movie designed to pacify children is considered innocuous, but we cannot ignore the ramifications of entertainment concepts that move away from profundity or that deny audiences the persuasiveness and the confirmation of epiphany.
Religion offers a way to understand our human impulses; popular culture has become a way to muddle them. That’s the theme the Pet Shop Boys identify in [their new project, a musical adaptation of] Hans Christian Andersen’s “Most Incredible Thing”; it’s also exemplified by the commercial corruptions that Tangled performs on the tale of Rapunzel. In his classic study The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argued that readers “find folk fairy tales more satisfying than all other children’s stories” because “fairy tales carry important messages to the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind, on whatever level each is functioning at the time.” As pop culture gets away from faith, it also abandons its most important social function, confusing rather than uniting our humanity. It will take faith to raise corrupted pop culture from the dead.
4. New York publishes two curiously affirming profiles of evangelical figures in one week! [CONTINUE READING]
Old news by now, but slightly dated beat aside, it's a fantastic tune, and a great blast of vintage MJ-victimhood spleen-venting:
True, it may not be for us to know the times or dates the Father has set, but occasionally we catch a glimpse: only 34 days until MICHAEL is released! [Click here to watch part of the interview Oprah did with his family yesterday.]
p.s. Never thought such exciting posthumous MJ news could come close to being matched, but word has just come out that Mbird heroes Pulp are reuniting! This blogger has never forgiven himself for missing their secret show with Radiohead at the 9:30 Club after the Tibetan Freedom concert all those years ago... Check out their site for more details (and a lot of clever questions).
With Halloween/Reformation Day almost here, what better time to revisit Michael Jackson's 1996 little-seen opus Ghosts? Conceived as a Thriller-style mini-movie (or maxi-video), the 40-minute "horror" piece never really saw the light of day, and remains unavailable on DVD. Thank God for youtube! Thank God also for Nathan Rabin of The A/V Club, who just published a masterful look at this HIStory-era curio, in an excerpt from his terrific new book, My Year of Flops. If you've never seen Ghosts, I commend it to you for three reasons: 1. It's Michael Jackson 2. The Stan Winston-effects are really something to see and 3. The song "Ghosts" is one of his greatest paranoia anthems, sadly relegated to 1997's (excellent) Blood On The Dance Floor EP. That said, don't get your expectations too high. It's so strange and leaden that you may not be able to watch all the way through (I pity you). I've included a bunch of Rabin's comments, many of which are highly illuminating: [CONTINUE READING]
This Is (Really) It - Death, Resurrection and Michael Jackson
Just couldn't wait until Friday to post this amusing review of This Is It. From TIME magazine of all places, the Mbird-worthy passages of which include (major ht Jeff Dean):
Death and resurrection. That's the scenario not just for gods but for pop stars who earn fans' ardor with an electrifying presence and their sympathy with very public private lives of addiction and misbehavior. The stars' talent makes them unique; their transgressions make them human... It took death to restore [Michael Jackson's] standing as one-of-a-kind entertainer — to bring him back to life.
But full redemption, not to mention true resurrection, requires a personal appearance. And on the 125th day he rose from the dead, at least on screen, with Michael Jackson's This Is It, a docu-musical record of the star's rehearsals for his comeback London concert series that was to begin in July.
Michael's stalwart buddy Elizabeth Taylor, who attended an early screening last week, effusively tweeted that This Is It was "the single most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen."
For a modern entertainer who dies before his time, immortality is measured in residuals — the money from commemorative projects like this. Michael Jackson will have no resurrection — in the end, that was that — but the movie does earn him a redemptive legacy. It proves that, at the end, he was still a thriller. Fans and doubters alike can look at the gentle, driven singer-dancer at the center of this up-close document and say admiringly, This was him.
Our MJ-tribute soldiers on! This time with a little theology thrown in... We drop the word "Pelagian" pretty often on this blog, as well as its more devious cousin "Semi-Pelagian", but I'm not sure we've ever posted a definition. According to Wikipedia (and yes, I can't believe I'm quoting them as an authority either) Pelagianismis:
A theological [heresy] named after Pelagius (ad. 354 – ad. 420/440). It is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special Divine Aid. Thus, Adam's sin was "to set a bad example" for his progeny, but his actions did not have the other consequences imputed to Original Sin. Pelagianism views the role of Jesus as "setting a good example" for the rest of humanity as well as providing an atonement for our sins. In short, humanity has full control, and thus full responsibility, for obeying the Gospel in addition to full responsibility for every sin.
He may not have been aware of it, but no one embraced this frankly rather destructive way of thinking with more ambition or style than Michael Jackson. As I'm fond of saying, he was a man of extremes and nowhere was this more apparent than his global-themed hits. The three most egregious examples being:
1. You guessed it...
A few observations: Steve Perry hits it out of the park, while Cyndi Lauper really makes her line count (probably the artistic highpoint) and Huey Lewis proves once again that he could never be accused of subtlety. Also, when did God "turn stone into bread"?! The undeniable highpoint for me (besides Michael's step-aside moment in the bridge) is the combination of Lindsey Buckingham's high-fade and Dan Akroyd's members-only/saftely glasses outfit (he looks like he just stepped out of a Williamsburg subway stop!). Dylan on the other hand sounds like an alien beaming in from outer space and Springsteen really overdoes it...
2. Heal The World. Michael ups the Pelagian ante a few years later with a children's choir and an absurd number of key changes.
3.HIStory. The title track of my favorite MJ record takes the whole enterprise as far as it can possbily go - "Every day create your history/Every path you take you're leaving your legacy" - including sound bites of Robert Kennedy, Neil Armstrong and of course MLK. GNR mined the same territory in 2001 with their majestic "Madagascar", albeit with a much more angst and self-righteousness.
Bonus: Michael's Least Self-Aggrandizing Moment
Many of us were children when "The Simpsons Sing The Blues" came out. I remember buying the cassette single of "Do The Bartman" and playing it until it warped. The Brad Bird-directed video was a big deal at the time too, debuting on prime-time (a la Black Or White). Looking back, I think we can all agree that his work here really paved the way for what was to come with The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Anyway, it was recently revealed that the writer of "Do The Bartman" was none other than MJ himself!! Take a listen and you can tell. Apparently Michael was a big fan of the show, even adding his voice to an early episode, but refusing credit in both cases. Enjoy:
"[Iranian student Neda Agha Soltan] showed up in our Twitter feeds, then in our Facebook status updates: "is Neda," we wrote after our own names. And when people started Facebook groups inspired by her death, we quickly joined them, feeling happy that we'd done something, that we'd contributed. But whether our virtual virtuousness will result in real-world action is unpredictable, and has as much to do with human nature as it does with amassing enough numbers."
"'Click-through activism' is the term used by Chris Csikszentmihályi, the co-director of MIT's Center for Future Civic Media to describe the participants who might excitedly flit into an online group and then flutter away to something else. In some ways, he says, the ease of the medium 'reminds me of dispensations the Catholic Church used to give.'"
The article also discusses the fascinating results of an experiment undertaken by a Danish psychologist Anders Colding-Jorgensen, in which he started a Facebook group around a completely fictitious cause to see how many members he could attract. By the end of its first week, his group had 10,000 people:
"What surprised Colding-Jorgensen about people's behavior on his site was that the group was 'in no way useful for horizontal discussions.' Users wanted not to educate themselves or figure out how to save the fountain, but to parade their own feelings of outrage around the cyber-public."
2. A great little piece in Christianity Today about St Francis of Assissi, "Speak The Gospel: Use Deeds When Necessary" (ht Jeff Hual). The author, who published a biography of St Francis in 2003, maintains that St Francis not only never said the phrase in question (the inversion of the article's title), but that he was known as much for his preaching as his lifestyle. He writes:
"'Preach the gospel; use words if necessary' goes hand in hand with a postmodern assumption that words are finally empty of meaning. It subtly denigrates the high value that the prophets and Jesus and Paul put on preaching. Of course we want our actions to match our words as much as possible. But the gospel is a message, news about an event and a person upon which the history of the planet turns."
3. This morning's NY Times reported on the sudden resignation of Riverside Church's Rev. Dr. Brad Braxton (ht Caleb Maskell), less than a year after his appointment as rector. Par for the course as far as I can tell, but sad nonetheless. They explain:
"According to dissidents, Dr. Braxton went about [his mandate to bring the church into the 21st century] by bringing elements of evangelical tradition into church services. They said he called on worshipers to come forward and bear witness to their faith, favored the gospel choir over the church’s traditional choir, and preached at times what they considered a Riverside heresy: that Jesus and only Jesus was the way to salvation.
Some members of the congregation may believe that, said Constance Guice-Mills, a member of the church. “But his focus on personal salvation, on the individual, was diametrically opposed to the tradition of Riverside. Here, we believe you achieve salvation by doing social justice. Out in the world. And we have people from all backgrounds. Buddhists.”
4. I've been very impressed with the overall quality of the Michael Jackson think pieces published this past week: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Slate, Salon, Roger Ebert(!), The Village Voice - I recommend them all. But the lady who in my opinion understood Michael most profoundly, who wrote about him with the greatest insight and whose little book On Michael Jackson [read it!] shaped much my thinking about MJ is Margo Jefferson. She wrote his obituary for the Washington Post, and if you only have time for one, go there.
Seven Less Well-Known Michael Jackson Tracks From His Post-Thriller Period
Having explored some of the theological implications in the sermon below, and still sorting out my personal feelings about the guy, it seemed like time for the ongoing Mbird tribute to focus on Michael Jackson's music. His Thriller and pre-Thriller heyday are being very well-covered in the media, so I thought we'd take the strength-in-weakness route and look at seven songs from his underrated post-Thriller period. Here goes:
1. Eaten Alive. As far as I know, the only song Michael ever wrote with the Bee Gees. This one was recorded in 1985 by Diana Ross, with Michael on back-up vocals, as a follow-up to that other infamous MJ/Diana single, “Muscles” (which may well be the worst/most embarrassing song he ever wrote – which is really saying something, if you consider 1984's “Centipede”). But "Eaten Alive" is a great single with great 80s production, full of his signature innocence-tracked-by-evil magic.
2. Streetwalker. An outtake from Bad, why on earth this was left off the final tracklist in favor of “Just Good Friends” or “Speed Demon” is beyond me. The chorus ranks up there with his all-time catchiest.
3. Monkey Business. A leftover from Dangerous, and again, better than at least a third of the stuff that made the final cut (“Keep The Faith”, “Can’t Let Her Get Away”… ugh). Much funkier than most of the New Jack Swing he was recording at the time – think late-period Jackson 5 – it would’ve given the record a much-needed moment of light-heartedness. It’s also a real thrill to hear Michael sing the phrase “lord have mercy” with such panache.
4. Tabloid Junkie. The best of the non-single tracks from HIStory Vol.2, the song not only boasts about fifteen great hooks, it contains that record’s sole trace self-deprecating humor. And it’s hard not to relish the line where he sings, “with your pen you torture men, you crucify the Lord”.
5. Morphine. Sadly prophetic and one of the wildest things Michael ever recorded, verging on heavy metal. The real surprise comes just before the 3-minute mark, when the headbanger stuff gives way to a beautiful baroque bridge with the heart-wrenching lyrics, “Demerol, Demerol, oh God, he’s taking Demerol." Which, of course, is the drug that killed him. In Guns N' Roses parlance, this is Michael’s “Rocket Queen”.
6. Whatever Happens. After “You Rock My World”, this is my favorite off of the otherwise sub-par Invincible. Carlos Santana of all people helps out on this track, turning up the menace factor to 11. Again, no one sings about danger like Mike.
7. We’ve Had Enough. As silly as it may sound, I consider this big-production number from the 2003 Ultimate Collection boxed set to be the best anti-Iraq War song out there. Essentially a re-write of “Earth Song” (not a bad thing in my book), it ends with Michael pleading over an enormous Gospel choir, “Just let God decide!” Priceless.
Stay tuned for a similar list covering the Jackson 5 years. And while you're waiting, check out the unbelievable claymation "Speed Demon" sequence from long lost Moonwalker film:
This is a very, very sad day. In tribute, here's something we ran last year, celebrating his work in the 90s. He will be deeply missed:
Michael Jackson has been back in the spotlight this past month to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Thriller. He’s riding a wave of nostalgia powerful enough, it would seem, to make people forget/ignore what he’s become in the intervening years. People love Thriller (and what Thriller represents) THAT much!
Part of me is very excited about this. I have been a BIG Michael Jackson fan for a long time, and it’s gratifying to see him recognized for something other than kookiness. And Thriller is awesome, an incredible piece of work.
But there’s “another part of me”(!) that, frankly, resents the revival and sees it as fair-weather friendship, one that fundamentally misses the boat when it comes to Michael Jackson.
What do I mean? For those of us interested in the practical ramifications of the Christian Gospel - a.k.a. how judgment, demand, scrutiny and conversely, love, forgiveness, and mercy play out in everyday life – there is NO more interesting case study than Michael Jackson. (No, not even Britney Spears!). And not Thriller-era MJ, I’m talking about Michael Jackson in the 90s. Dangerous-era, HIStory-era, Lisa Marie Presley-era, etc.
The 90s also happen to be my favorite period of his, when I would argue he produced his greatest music. I realize this is a controversial opinion, so let’s be clear: Michael Jackson is strange, strange man, full of contradictions, and a true megalomaniac. Deranged? Perhaps, I don’t know. I may have agreed with the not-guilty verdict re: the “allegations”, but I would never go so far as to label him innocent. Not knowing him personally, I don’t feel qualified to comment more than that. What I do feel qualified to comment on, however, is his art: his music, his dancing, and his videos, but especially his music.
By 1990, Michael Jackson had been in the public eye for over 20 years, roughly since the age of 10. This includes the 1980s, when he may well have been the most famous person on the planet. And his fame was well-deserved: he was that rare celebrity whose creativity and talent matched his charisma. (People often forget that Michael wrote and co-produced nearly all of his major hits). But if his 90s output is to be taken at face value, the success brought with it unbearable pressure and scrutiny. Suddenly everyone (in the world!) was entitled to have an opinion about him. Judgment with a capital J!
Take the Free Willy song, “Will You Be There?”, released in 1991 on the album Dangerous. After a truly ridiculous choral intro, we hear Michael plead with a gospel choir for love and understanding, crying “I’m only human!” over and over. It’s powerful. The exhaustion continues in “Black Or White”, where he (and Slash!!) tells us, “I’m tired of this devil/I’m tired of this stuff/I’m tired of this business”.
The final masterpiece on Dangerous is “Who Is It”, another in his series of paranoid anthems (“Billie Jean”, “Smooth Criminal”, “Leave Me Alone”, “Ghosts” etc), where he confesses, “the will has brought no fortune/still I cry alone at night/don’t you judge of my composure/cause I’m lying to myself” and then finally, “I can’t take it cause I’m lonely!” It’s the sound of a man hanging by a thread.
Of course, elsewhere on the record is “Heal the World”, a song so sappy it makes “We Are The World” look edgy. (Sidenote: the absurd range in quality found on a Michael Jackson album, with nigh-perfect tracks alongside ones so bad they produce secondhand embarrassment, is one of the many ways he reminds me of Brian Wilson.)
As dark as Dangerous gets, it doesn’t hold a candle to the second disc of 1996’s HIStory. Which is ironic, considering that the first disc of HIStory (a defacto greatest hits) has got to be one of the most overt attempts at self-deification ever unleashed. The cover depicts our hero in statue form, for crying out loud! It’s not subtle.
But HIStory disc two, or HIStory Continues, is Michael at his most personal and vulnerable - his Plastic Ono Band, if you will. It opens with my all-time favorite MJ single, “Scream”. Over a chorus of breaking glass and slamming doors, he and his sister Janet yell, “stop pressuring me/just stop pressuring me/stop pressuring me/[you] make me want to scream” before finally begging, “somebody please have mercy cause I just can’t take it!” Woah.
I don’t see how anyone who’s actually listened to “Scream” could argue that it’s not operating on a deeper, more profound (albeit less fun) level than Thriller. Sadly, he made it impossible for us to just listen – we had to look too, and his appearance, by this time, had become way too bizarre. Just check out the video, where he unfortunately looked EXACTLY like the alien he was trying (not?) to portray:
The second track onHIStory, right after “Scream”, is another blast of disaffection called “They Don’t Care About Us”. Then comes the inspired “Stranger in Moscow”, the loneliest of all his lonely songs, where he mentions his "swift and sudden fall from grace" and asks, “how does it feel/when you’re alone and you’re cold inside?” As if that's not intense enough, he also makes reference to Stalin's tomb, the KGB and nuclear Armageddon. We're a long way from "Rockin' Robin".
Michael’s solution to all this pain and fear: Peter Pan-style retreat to childhood, a place he associates with the unconditional love, joy and freedom he's never known. I know I’m treading on (very) shaky ground here, but taken out of the courtroom context, doesn’t this seem to jive, at least a little, with Jesus’ words in Mark 10 about little children and the kingdom of God? On second thought…
I could go on - don’t get me started on the brilliance that is the Blood On The Dance Floor EP – but my point is this: when St. Paul tells us that “the letter kills” (2 Cor 3:6), he’s not kidding. The fruit of the law here, i.e. “thou shalt be the King Of Pop”, is alienation and loneliness, anger, depression, writer’s block and, yes, in all likelihood, more sin. A starker contrast to The Traveling Wilburys one could not find.
The burden of being Michael Jackson is something no one should ever have to bear. That he would crack up under that kind of pressure, that he would even try to transform himself into a different person, was a foregone conclusion. (Substitution, anyone?!). I’m just grateful his talent didn’t abandon him in his struggles. I hope he finds the mercy he’s dying for.
In 1986, Michael Jackson collaborated with George Lucas on a short 3-D film for Disney World called Captain Eo. I remember visiting the Magic Kingdom shortly after its release and deciding not to wait in the incredibly long line, opting instead to take a second ride on those lame rocket ships... What a short-sighted 7-year-old I was! Watching it on youtube yesterday, I realized that it sums up many of my hopes and dreams for this week's Mockingbird conference. Here's part 1:
