MAGIC         PORK

A while back - maybe a year or so? - I started to write a post about Michael Jackson. I abandoned the post because it just wasn’t working. I had some vague disjointed ideas but when I went to write them up, it wasn’t flowing right and was just kind of stupid. I’m sure it appears that I just slap these posts together, but believe it or not I put effort into them. That’s how bad of a writer I am that these are the best I got in me. Occasionally I’ve started posts that just weren’t up to the high standards of Magic Pork and they never saw the light of day. I was always disheartened that I abandoned that Michael Jackson post because I felt like there was gold to be mined there.

Now, with the news that Michael Jackson is dead, and with my friends and family starting to harass me to post something, it’s time. But there’s still no flow to these ideas so I’ll just make a bulleted list and throw out there whatever comes to mind.

• Michael Jackson’s little girlish outbursts - you know, the “hee”, “hoo” type noises - what do you call them? There’s got to be a term for that. Well whatever they’re called, they’re absolutely one of the best contributions to pop music ever. You could make a mediocre pop song good just by throwing in some Jacksongasms. Jacksongasm!  I just made that up now! What do you think? It works, right? So got a word for it now. I don’t want to picture “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” or “The Way You Make Me Feel” without Jacksongasms. That last part of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” with the “ma-ma-say-ma-ma-sah-ma-ma-ku-sah” (that Rihanna lifted for “Don’t Stop The Music”)? It’s good, but the accompanying Jacksongasms push it to great. He just goes insane with them at the end of that song. I picture Quincy Jones saying “more Jacksongasm!” like Christopher Walken in that “more cowbell” SNL skit.
  
  Now that I repeat “Jacksongasm” that many times, it’s lost its appeal to me. Must use that sparingly.
• “Just Good Friends” with Stevie Wonder is underrated.
• “The Girl Is Mine” with Paul McCartney is rated just right - it’s not a very good song. It’s like a bad Vegas lounge act. But I do give it points for two things: The bridge is decent, and the talking at the end is (I assume unintentionally) hilarious. You have to listen to it to get the full effect, but here’s what they say:
  
  Paul: Michael, we’re not going to fight about this, okay?
  Michael: Paul, I think I told you: I’m a lover not a fighter.
  Paul: I’ve heard it all before, Michael. She told me that I’m her forever lover, you know, don’t you remember?
  Michael: Well, after loving me she said she couldn’t love another.
  Paul: Is that what she said?
  Michael: Yes, she said it. You keep dreaming.
  Paul: I don’t believe it.
  
  Yeah Paul I wouldn’t believe that either. The best line is “She told me that I’m her forever lover”. Who talks like that? Cracks me up, but that’s probably just me.
• If asked to compare the two, I would have to say Thriller is a superior album to Bad. Pretty much everyone would. Then why do I tend to listen to Bad more often? Does that mean I like it more? I don’t know - it may be because Thriller has some great songs but also some not-so-great songs (see above), whereas Bad may not have as many great songs but it’s pretty consistently good. Or it could just be that I hear the songs from Thriller so often that they wore on me. When I lived in Rochester, I’d sometimes go to this bar that plays a lot of 80’s songs called Vinyl and some of those songs (”Thriller”, “P.Y.T.”, “Billie Jean”, “Beat It”) were in regular rotation. Someone needs to tell their DJ that there are a whole lot of 80’s songs. He doesn’t need to play the same ones every weekend. But hey the bar was always packed so what do I know.
• I remember after “Dirty Diana” was released - I was in junior high school I think - I heard two boys talking about metal bands and hard rock stuff. Then one of them said that “Dirty Diana” was pretty good. And you know what? He was right - that song kicks ass. It’s just begging for a cover by Disturbed. Disturbed did two awesome hard rock covers of 80’s songs: “Shout” by Tears For Fears and “Land of Confusion” by Genesis. I know they could do something great with “Dirty Diana”.
• Speaking of covers, the video to Alien Ant Farm’s cover of “Smooth Criminal” was really good. It walks a perfect line between homage and satire, and their cover is just great too. I hated that other song they released from that album though - “Movies” or something. I’d say they should stick to other people’s songs but are they even around any more? This wikipedia page lists the Michael Jackson references in the video, and the video is on YouTube, although the quality is horrible like most videos on YouTube.
• I can’t figure out why after listening to the entire Bad album, it’s always “Liberian Girl” that gets stuck in my head. That’s the worst song on the album so why does that happen?? Even if I skip past the song, it still happens. I don’t even listen to it and it still gets into my head! That’s just not fair. It’ll probably happen now just because I wrote about it. That’s how much I sacrifice to bring this great content to you.

I suppose I should end with some statement about his death. I’m not a huge Michael Jackson fan despite what it may look like from me rambling on about the guy. I think he was very talented though, and to be honest I always personally believed that he wasn’t a child molester, just some really odd guy with a stunted mental maturity and isolated enough from reality to not know or care how his closeness to kids was perceived. So - am I sad he’s dead? No, not in particular - but I do think it’s unfortunate. He made great music, he was a unique guy (very unique), and I think the world may just have been a little better with him in it - or at least more interesting.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 4:33 pm and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.