Triumph and Tragedy

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This post originally appeared on my music column ‘The Crossroads’ on Dad-Blogs.com on July 1, 2009.

Over the past few days I’ve been trying to put together a tribute piece to Michael Jackson, but for some reasons the words have escaped me. Everything I wrote seemed formulaic and unoriginal. A lot has been said about Michael, his life and his music. However, I received some inspiration courtesy of E. Payne at Makes Me Wanna Holler after reading his post ‘Getting Over the Hump‘. His message was simple, direct and, to me, instructive: Let the music speak for itself.

As any fan of music knows Michael Jackson’s career helped pave the way for a lot of today’s music. The way he entertained was innovative and his music videos elaborate spectacles. I appreciate his music, but would not categorize myself as an ardent fan. As heretical as this may sound, I do not count ‘Thriller‘ among the six hundred plus albums that reside on my iPod. I’ve always appreciated his music, but I was always more of a fan of the sweet Motown sound of the Jackson 5.

Michael Jackson’s passing is tragic on many levels and his transformative power as an artist is not one we are likely to see again for generations. No matter how the man may or may not have lived his life, I choose to celebrate his triumphs and the gifts he gave us in the form of his music.

From the beginning:

To one of his best solo efforts:

A personal favorite:

The star studded collaboration:

(What Michael, Lionel Ritchie and Quincy Jones pulled off here is still amazing 25 years later, but I’ll never understand why Dan Ackroyd was there)

A career apex?

Do you have a music question for me? Is there something, or someone, you’d like me to cover? Leave a comment or drop me an email at pj@realmendriveminivans.com so I can work on it for a future article. Also, if you’re new here, consider joining Dad-Blogs and grab the RSS feed so you can get this and all of the other awesome columns delivered fresh directly to you. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the ride!