News broke a few hours ago that Michael Jackson has passed away. So far the cause of death has been given as Cardiac Arrest, the official report is expected some time tomorrow.
Was watching TV, Waj was over he left and I went and woke my computer, took a quick glance at Facebook and people were posting RIP MJ status messages. Naturally I thought it was some internet hoax. So I immediately fired up Google News, and there it was as the top story.
I have been in a state of shock since. I headed back to the telly and watched the Sky News live coverage, till the point that the interviews and coverage was looping. So I was flicking through the channels, naturally I ended up at the music channels. MTV decided to run their Top 40 MJ Tracks program – hosted by David Guest, on all their channels. This was obviously recorded some years ago. David Guest has been Jackson’s friend since childhood, and had some really cool stories about the various songs and videos. As I write this it is still on just got to ‘15′ which is ‘Leave Me Alone’, amazingly Thriller went by ages ago charting at 30.
When Thriller came out I must have been seven or eight years old, I remember it especially since me and my friend were rushing home to watch Top of the Pops which was premiering the video that evening. My friend had a VCR so it got recorded, in those days TotPs was on thursdays, so friday evening, most of saturday and sunday we must have watched Thriller back to back at least 50 times. We were leaving marks on the carpet trying to moonwalk or moving the furniture so we could dance like zombies.
Still sitting here watching the program for the last few of hours has reminded me how truly great Michael Jackson was. I haven’t heard some of these songs in years, yet I know the words. Even the lesser songs from the Dangerous and History albums. Yet it’s strange if someone asked me to name 30 MJ tracks I don’t think I could do it.
Mati and me tried to get MJ tickets for the London comeback tour. However 02’s advanced ticket option failed us, since the majority of tickets went in a flash. When they added more dates we had realised it was not meant to be and did not even try again to get tickets. Our reasoning was that Jackson had not toured in years, the majority of dates were probably going to get cancelled or moved. (I hate being right!)
There had been lots of mixed press about the dates set to start next month, some stories indicating problems with Jackson’s health, that 50 nights was going to be very tough for him. When the promoters announced a few weeks ago that they were delaying the tour by a few days. All sorts of rumors started coming out, firstly MJ never wanted to do 50 dates, only 5. Then it came out he only agreed to 50 since he would be allowed to lip sync as opposed to actually perform. For some night he could even use doubles. After my previous bad experiences of seeing acts that I hold in high regard, do comeback tours, and turn out to be crap, is heartbreaking. So in many ways I was happy I did not get tickets. I figured if the tour worked out well, there would be new material resulting in more tour dates in the future, how wrong I was.
The news had a segment were they had the editor of NME at Glastonbury give a quick interview, he was clearly shaken up from the news. He must be in his mid-30’s so I guess being in the same age group I agree with the sentiment of what he said. Which was basically everyone should put away all the negative things we have heard about Jackson in the last 10 years, and that he should be remembered for most his music and his contribution to pop culture. To my generation he was and always will be the King of Pop.
The commute into work is going to be an interesting one, for some the cover of Metro will be the first they hear of the news, so obviously there will be some shocked looks on the tube in the morning. It will also be interesting to see how the organisers of the Michael Jackson concerts handle ticket refunds.
