The death of Michael Jackson, only 50, leaves a big void in the world of pop music. For a prodigy who began singing and performing when he was six, the number of albums Michael Jackson released is certainly slight. He has released about 10 albums in a career that spanned a little over four decades. That his stature should arise from this slender catalogue is the clearest measure of his achievement. Each album he made has invited controversy and adulation in equal measure, be it for the videos that he showcased his phenomenal singing and dance moves that became widely copied, be it moonwalk or the robot dance. In his initial solo outings he had the backing of the fantastic Mr Quincy Jones, the producer par excellence, who worked with the pop star on Off the Wall, Thriller as well as Bad, albums on which his singing prowess and the production values were outstanding.
Whether he was tackling ballads or some of his less categorisable brand of pop, MJ’s upper register delivery has always been astonishingly unbelievable, clean, and memorable. He could make hiccups, whispers, screeches, anything at all that he chose to utter, sound great and musical.
He had the power. There will be less unanimity on his musical videos some of which included repeated crotch-grabbing but they were certainly compelling and redefined music videos with his charming aggression and extraordinarily smooth moves.
Unfortunately, MJ’s eccentricities, his weird pets, his repeated makeovers, serial rhinoplasty surgeries, his talk show candidness made more news for the greater part of his career. Even though this has never been satisfactorily settled, his controversial baby sitter moments and off colour sleepovers involving underage males and at least one subsequent out of court settlement, helped Jacko look more Wacko than ever. It also didn’t help matters that he reportedly took to heavy dosing on drugs as a lifeline. He helped make vitiligo, an obscure dermatological disorder involving loss of pigmentation, more commonly known than it was before he said he had it. He made some controversial moves in the music world other than making music when he bought the Beatles music catalogue. His brief marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, yielded a brief Grammy moment and a song with lyrics that millions of his grieving fans who lost a big part of themselves when he died must be recollecting: Someone tell me why/did you have to go/and leave my world so cold?