Michael might be gone too soon, but through his music, he will always be remembered.

by Teddy Fikre.  Posted:  Friday, June 25, 2010


It is still hard to imagine that the King of Pop, the iconic figure of music in our lifetime, has been dead for a year.  I still find it hard to believe that my childhood hero would be demonized in my adult life, that the kid who refused to grow up would draw the ire of so many people in the United States.  A year after his death, I am heartened to see that the legacy and music of Michael Jackson has outlived the ire of his detractors.

We will never know if Michael Jackson was truly the man that he was painted to be by the mass media.  I will admit that I too started to believe the darker side which was portrayed of Michael Jackson.  Before the first news broke of the allegations against Michael from Never Never land, I had grown distant from Michael Jackson.  The image of MJ moon walking at the Grammy Awards faded into the ether, replaced by a man that I could no longer recognized.  With each successive plastic surgery and lightening of his skin, the further he pop locked from my mind.

What I realize now, and which I did not realize before, is that Michael Jackson the myth was not Michael Jackson the man.  It is so much easy to paint a caricature of people and to break them down into simple constructs that we can readily understand.  Michael was a man of immense talent who was also burdened with immense issues.  He never had a childhood, his formative years were spent entertaining us and living up to the pressures of his father.  We could never get enough of Michael as a child super nova, only to turn around and be galled when the same child refused to grow up.

The truth is that we, the consumers of his music, played our part in Michael’s tumultuous life.  Our insatiable appetite for his music, for news about Michael, to know every detail of his fed a hyperbolic media to invade every part of his life.  Imagine if your life was literally a fish bowl, imaging every step you take recorded and splashed on the television screen to be consumed by fans that can never get enough.  Imagine a hyperbolic media that is intent on driving up their ratings through sensationalized yellow journalism.  Imagine if the paparazzi was clicking away at every corner hoping to catch the next embarrassing moment in your life.

The thing is, we will never know what that feels like to be Michael, all we can know is what Michael’s music makes us feel.  For me, listening to the Thriller album or his songs with the Jackson 5 makes me remember my own childhood, a time when I used to wear fake red leather jackets and would try my hardest to moon walk and do that 360 move.  As I listen to his music today, that is what I remember the most about Michael.  I am sure that millions of his fans feel the same way.  In this way, Michael Jackson’s legacy will far out live his short time on this earth.  Michael might be gone too soon, but through his music, he will always be remembered.