There’s been a lot of MJ love being bandied about in light of his tragic, though always looming, death. Which is great, MJ was the King of Pop (self-proclaimed as that title was) and he deserves an internet-crippling amount of grief. But in the muddled tears of all this missin’ MJ, we’re forgetting about MJ’s equally talented bro, Jermaine Jackson.
I read about this track, off Jermaine’s woefully underheard album 1984 from Wax Poetic and was, quite honestly, a little blown away. It has the discordant synth of Thriller but is bereft of the dramatic subtones of that classic. I know absolutely nothing about JJ, but this seems to be a good reason to start picking through the crates.
Also, for you who keep your Jackson diet relegated only to MJ, he sings the vocals on the chorus. Purists, bleck.
In the wake of the King of Pop’s departure from the living, others who’ve died suddenly seem to appear, ghost-like and haunting, in the darker parts of my musical brain.
Dilla passed away almost three years ago, and those who’re interested not only in hip-hop, but in production and sound as a whole lost an absolute genius. Stories and pictures of him still cutting beats while attached to an IV, his life slowly seeping away, still haunt me whenever I hear his beats.
That said, the man seemed to never stop working, never stop producing or tinkering, and because of that we, his fans, keep getting the opportunity to hear new cuts, new beats, new expressions of his genius.
This isn’t the travesty of the Biggie remixes or the money making shitstorm that was everything released after Big L’s death. This is a beautiful collection of Dilla beats mixed and mastered by Pete Rock himself.
Two stories about the massively talented icon that was Michael Jackson:
1. A girl a I used to know once told me that when she lived in Thailand, Michael Jackson had pulled her off the street and taken her to a roadside stand for an orange soda. She said they sat in tiny plastic chairs overlooking a street crowded with 8,000 people. She said he didn’t talk much, that he was very soft-spoken and very nice.
2. When I lived in New Zealand I saw a girl cry once because a friend of mine, a smarmy ass named Matthew Reimer, told her that Michael Jackson was a kook and kidduy-fiddler. She, a wee bit drunk and madly in love with The King of Pop, broke down in to tears. We all stared in shock, completely unaware of the power and influence the late, great Michael Jackson could have.
Hope wherever you are Michael Jackson, you can find some modicum of peace.
While Sound on the Sound is obviously not a music legend, Billboard Top 40, King of Pop kind of Blog, we’d be remiss not to mention the passing of Michael Jackson.
As children of the 80’s we got nightmares from Thriller, tried our hand at the Moonwalk, rented Moonwalker countless times (and still never fully understood it), and sang “Man in The Mirror” in our elementary school choirs.
So, we thought, in celebration of the entity that was Michael Jackson and his music, we’d share Sound on the Sound’s personal favorite MJ videos.
For Abbey, it was all about Smooth Criminal, and yes, we’re talking the full Smooth Criminal mini-movie:
While Josh is all about the dance knife fight of Beat It:
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