The king is dead

Afternoon guys and girls.

I hope you have been enjoying the summer weather of the last week or so. Although, for those foolhardy souls who made the trip to Glastonbury, I hope that you went suitably prepared with umbrella and Wellies! The height of summer also means the annual pilgrimage to SW19 and the sounds of a yellow ball being whacked on graphite and the sight of Union Jack adorning socialites sipping Pimms and eating strawberries on Murray Mount.

I will speak more about Wimbledon in the next instalment of this blog, but the last couple of days have really been dominated by one story in the news, the sad demise of Michael Jackson. So, it is only right and proper for this blog to talk about the one time King of Pop.

Yesterday I was travelling to work on the train, some 7 or 8 hours after the reports of Michael Jackson's death were confirmed. As I was travelling, while reading one of the papers that had run a late edition to report Jackson's death, a thought entered my head. In my very nearly 31 years on this planet, there can have been so few occasions when a news story of a death of a famous person or of a world atrocity could have had such an impact.

As a child of 1978, I was born the year after Elvis Presley died and so therefore missed out on experiencing the mass outpouring of grief that accompanied the demise of the previous title holder of the King of Pop. I would only have been two years old at the time of John Lennon's murder outside the Dakota Building in New York City in 1980 and so obviously I do not recall that event either. Bob Marley's death from cancer a year later was also far too early in my childhood to register as a memory.

Since those times, there have been no massive deaths from popular culture that have made an impact on a global scale. I can remember Freddie Mercury's death in 1991, but even though I was only 13 at the time, I can recall that this was not unexpected, as by then the public were aware that he was HIV positive. The only comparable death in the public eye in terms of its magnitude would have been that of Princess Diana's back in 1997. It is amazing to think that her death was so long ago because the aftermath of hysteria and almost enforced grieving from the media remains clear in the memory. I can recall that it took nearly a week for the television and radio schedules to get back to normal after her death, with radio stations in particular playing a looped playlist of sombre and funereal tracks for several days afterwards.

Diana's death reached hysteric levels in this country because she was a British glamour icon and people identified with the demise of an English rose. There has also always been a sympathy for someone who is taken from this mortal coil before their due time and because of Diana's previous circumstances, having been through a divorce and seemingly on the way to finding happiness, the public was able to express much sympathy and sadness at the perceived cruelty of her demise.

Other than Diana's death, the only other world event to happen in my lifetime that really forced you to stop what you were doing and watch was 9/11. This is the single most monumental world event I can remember in my lifetime and the reason for this was that the shocking images that people round the world saw meant people's reality was changed forever. Up until then, people's school of thought was that such events and such images could be seen "only in Hollywood". But this was no film script, no Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford blockbuster. The events people were seeing had really happened, aircraft had been crashed into buildings and the atrocities were real. I could live to be 100 and I do not think I will ever see a more poignant or life affirming news event.

The one difference between the death of Diana and the planes crashing into the Twin Towers compared to the news of Michael Jackson's death breaking was that I was not in front of a television to follow the story in the first two cases, whereas with Jackson, what had already been a surreal day for me on a personal level, ended surreally as well by hearing of his reported death and then having this confirmed as events unfolded on the news channel I flicked over to watch. With regards to Princess Diana, I was in bed by the time the car crash had been reported and then latterly when her death was confirmed. I did not hear of her death until the following morning.

In the case of 9/11, it really was one of those "you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing" moments and on the day in question, I was at work and had been required to go over to another office in the afternoon to sit on an interview panel to interview a temporary member of staff who the company I was with at the time were wanting to come in and start running a new project until a permanent person was in place.

The interview was fairly unmemorable but after it finished, I had to walk back to the office where I worked to pick up some belongings I had left there before heading home. On the ten minute walk back, I remember walking past a newsagents with the local newspaper's placard outside. The words on it were few but the impact was immediate. "Planes hit Twin Towers" it said. My immediate thought was "That's surely caused some damage". As I walked up a side street back to the office, I was conscious that every house I passed had the BBC news on in the living room. I just wanted to go and collect my belongings and get home as quickly as possible to see what had happened. When I did, the images and the knowledge of the atrocities were truly shocking.

The death of Michael Jackson is certainly not in the same ball park as far as its wide reaching effects and the magnitude it had. But in terms of deaths of famous people, cultural icons if you like, in my recollected lifetime hitherto, only Princess Diana's death is in any way comparable in terms of its impact. Why is this? I mean, Michael Jackson's death in itself was not entirely surprising. He had had struggles with his health for fifteen years or more and Jackson's surgery and lifestyle choices had taken their toll on his physical and mental wellbeing. When it was announced earlier in the year that Jackson would be performing 50 shows at the O2 Arena, I do not believe I was alone in voicing cynicism that these shows might not happen. That this prophecy has been fulfilled in such tragic circumstances, however, is something that this soothsayer is neither happy to have forecast nor one that he expected to turn out in this way.

People might also wonder how it is that Jackson's death can have dominated the news agenda in the way that it has at a time of other pressing matters around the world, especially when Jackson's stock has fallen significantly in recent years, with his appearances in the newspapers usually being for more sinister implications associated with his private life, rather than for any positive accomplishments in his professional life. After all, Jackson had not recorded any new material since 2001.

Let's consider a few things though. First of all, am I alone in not being too bothered if the fallout from Michael Jackson's death is given priority on the news over yet more tedious reports of MPs having fiddled their expenses? Yes, it is quite shocking that MPs can get away with flipping second homes, more than that in fact, it is a fraudulent offence to which you hope the offenders will be brought to book. But the revelation that MPs are shady characters that will take advantage of a system that they regulated is about as earth shattering as discovering that the world is round. The story has just run and run in recent weeks, far beyond its natural saturation point. Discovering that an MP made a claim for a packet of biscuits or peppermint tea is really not newsworthy.

The wider point to be considered though is that if you ask the big media giants, Reuters or Sky News or the BBC for example, what influences what news stories you cover, their answer will be a simple one. Their response will be "our audience's demands will determine what news we give to them". With that in mind, consider this. On Thursday night, in the light of one news agency announcing the first rumours of Michael Jackson's death, inquisitive web users made a beeline for the world's most popular search engine to find out news, so much so that it resulted in said search engine crashing, buckling under the weight of its enquirers' insatiable demands for updates.

Of course, the moralists and the people with the highest brows in society will turn their noses up at this and scoff that this is a sign of standards diminishing in society. Hmm, maybe there are some grains of truth in there somewhere. But we live in a celebrity obsessed society. Go into your average household and at least one person will be reading a glossy celebrity magazine or reading the gossip pages of a tabloid newspaper, showing pictures of some F-list celebrity falling in or out of a taxi after excessive fuelling. The attitude of newspaper editors and media executives can be found in the lyrics to "Going Underground" by The Jam - The public gets what the public wants.

But this was the death of no run of the mill celebrity. This was not the death of a reality television star or a soap actress, both of which have brought the guarantee of a front page headline in recent times. Michael Jackson has dominated the media coverage and resulted in the mass level of World Wide Web hits over the past 48 hours because quite simply he was a global icon and megastar, who was identifiable the world over, even allowing for his plastic surgery over the years. OK, his star has fallen and diminished and his reputation has been sullied by revelations of his private life and the allegations and court cases that went with this. But look at the evidence, Google broke under the strain just two nights ago and his concert tickets sold out in no time at all.

I was talking to a couple of people at work yesterday and also holding court on a website forum I use discussing Michael Jackson's death and one of the things that I tapped into was that even if you are not an ardent fan of Michael Jackson and you are either a casual fan that just a copy of his Greatest Hits at home (a group which I would include myself in), or you do not like his music at all, Jackson's music in some way will remind you of an event or a time in your life that you can recollect when you hear his music or which your mind will have gone back to when you heard of his death. I think this is a phenomenon that readers of the human mind refer to as association.

This mind set is true for me, as I am sure it is for many of you out there. I expect there are plenty of couples who will have chosen a Michael Jackson track as the backing music to the first dance at their wedding, or who may even have conceived to one of his past classics. To people of my age and I would say people currently aged between 30 and 50, Jackson's music may well have featured in the soundtrack to their lives growing up.

Personal moments of Michael Jackson association for me would be thus. Being at junior school back around 1987-1988, I can remember classmates in the school playground copying Jackson's Moonwalk dance moves. I can remember a birthday party where this author decided to caricature Jackson's vocals on Bad. Needless to say my efforts matched the song title and my only prior poison had been orange juice. Well, I was only 10 years old at the time! Fast forward a few years to my final year at school and I can remember another party, this time where the poison on offer was harder. At this party, I can remember some joker putting one of Michael Jackson's albums on the CD player and playing a track that featured breaking glass sound effects, in order to preturb the girl whose party it was, who was out of the room at the time, into thinking that a real glass had been shattered. Incidentally, if anyone can tell me what Michael Jackson track I am referring to, I would be very grateful as it is something of an unsolved mystery to me. Thinking of the timeline, I think it might be off of the Dangerous album, but I am not completely sure.

My point is that these sorts of personal memories will ring true for those of you reading this blog and for many other people out there, certainly among people currently in their 30s right up to people even in their early 50s. Just as people of a certain age will have recollected their youth when Elvis Presley died, so now people will remember their halcyon days of youth when hearing of Michael Jackson's death. Back in times when Top of the Pops was a staple part of the television schedules, people will have grown up watching Jackson's latest video featuring at number one. The visual medium was something that Jackson tapped into and the release of Thriller, two years after MTV America first aired, was an example of someone using the right media at the right time.

Of course, detractors will report that Jackson was not really a pioneer in this field and that the pioneering music video that opened the door to its wider use as part of the package when releasing a new single was to be found back in 1975 when Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody. It is true to say that Bo Rhap was the first proper music video to be widely associated with its composition (although Bob Dylan and The Beatles had used film some 10 years before) but Michael Jackson raised the bar and took advantage of the new visual media. Without Bohemian Rhapsody or Another Brick In The Wall, maybe MTV would never have had a reason for being. But what Jackson did was see that MTV had arrived and reinvent the whole concept of the music video. Thriller was not so much a pop video as a short film and was put together on a budget more expensive than some Hollywood blockbusters.

Then there are those that apply the school of thought that Jackson is not really a musician on the grounds that "he can't play an instrument". Not only is this incorrect, as Jackson was certainly a proficient piano player, but it ignores the fact that the human voice is an instrument within, an instrument that both requires natural gifts and nurturing. Purists may argue that Jackson was not a great vocalist in a technical sense but he was certainly a showman and the vocal range that he used in his back catalogue over the years was extensive. It also ignores the possibility that Jackson intended to use his dance moves as an instrument, an interpretation of his lyrics and the tempo of his songs.

Wherever you look in the current pop music climate, Jackson's influences are to be found, both in a musical sense and from a choreographical perspective. If you look at the current R&B scene and even the rap scene, there are several artists who borrow from Jackson's work, the beats, the arrangements, the dance routines. Look at Take That. Here is a band that spends hours practising specially crafted dance routines and which uses complicated sets for their stage performances. Who are they borrowing from in adopting this approach? A Mr M. Jackson features highly. His influences cross over to just about every musical genre, from soul and R&B right over to rock and Indie music.

Of course, part of what has made the Michael Jackson story what it is has been the story of him having all the talent in the world but leading, what to all intents and purposes, appears to have been a reclusive life that he did not enjoy. Like some other stars who found fame at a young age and who were pushed into show business by their parents, such as Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore and Macaulay Culkin, Jackson has led a tumultuous life in the public gaze from an early age and the childhood he was seemingly deprived of at its natural age, he has sought to cling on to in aspects of his adult life. This is something that has led to unsavoury perceptions among many and it would be remiss to accept that some of Jackson's behaviour over the years would constitute acceptable conduct as far as social norms are concerned. However, it is very important to remember that Jackson has never been found guilty of any crime and for as long as the judicial system operates an innocent until proven guilty policy, then any judgements people make are being made on hearsay and rumours rather than any concrete proof. The phrase "no smoke without fire" is one of the most dangerous catch phrases in common usage.

Jackson's lifestyle choices and decision making have at times been naive and misguided at best and this is not just confined to his conduct around children. His insecurities that led to his constant changing of his appearance and then his regular wearing of masks will have, in some way, contributed to the deterioration in his health and ultimately to his untimely death. 50 is no age to die, especially when you consider that Madonna, some two weeks older than Jackson, remains in peak fitness while Bono at 49 years old is still bounding around stage like a man 20 years younger on U2's latest world tour.

Jackson is the latest in a long line of flawed geniuses who have been bestowed with great natural gifts and talents but who have been consumed by other demons that they have never been able to conquer. In these times of Britain's Got Talent and the X-Factor, young men and particularly women crave fame without necessarily having the rudimentary requirements of a talent. Jackson did have this talent and certainly had the fame, but the fame he achieved was a pyrrhic victory and one which sadly proved to be his undoing, as ill health led to more medication and more medication surely led to more side effects, which in turn, led to, seemingly the last devastating cardiac arrest that he endured.

So what of the aftermath of Jackson's death? It would seem that the media are keen to point the fingers of blame at his doctor and at organisers of the concerts that he was due to perform in London, just next month. This is probably a natural process wherever such a big name person has died, but in truth, it does not help anybody because unless the post-mortem proves otherwise, we can only ever assume that Jackson's death was as a result of natural causes, his heart arrested and he could not be resuscitated. However, because of this finger pointing, we can expect the story of Jackson's demise to continue to be played out in the public eye for some time to come, even if it does not produce quite the levels of hysteria associated with Princess Diana's death.

Whatever Jackson's faults that have been touched upon earlier, whatever the sordid allegations and connotations, the simple facts are that there will not be many occasions in our lifetime when a defining figure's passing makes such an impact through the media. The death of a monarch or of a US president would certainly eclipse it, but it is hard to think of anyone else's passing that would. The reason I feel that this is the case is that for so many people, Jackson's music is a reminder of a past moment in their life, a significant event, a recollection of a time of happiness or possibly sadness, but also a realisation of more innocent times, innocent times no longer afforded to them because of responsibilities.

Jackson's legacy will be his back catalogue, much the same as it will always be for Elvis, The Beatles, Buddy Holly and any other stars long after their demise. If today's news that Jackson had 100 pre-recorded tracks left in a vault at his home are true, then his influence can carry on, albeit in a posthumous sense. We can only speculate on what Jackson would have achieved musically had he lived long into his 50s, but maybe we can still find out. At the very least, with Quincy Jones still around, there is surely the possibility of a Beatles Anthology-esque album or two emerging.

As for his grieving fans, expecting to see him in London in a matter of weeks, well if the O2 have any sense then they should consider going ahead with at least some of the concerts, albeit with Jackson's appearance only being via previous video footage. This may still be enough for plenty of admirers to still attend, while others can claim their full refunds. And it could also be an opportunity for some of the great and the good to stop by for the night and pay their own special tribute to the man who was supposed to be the headline act.

Whatever way you look at it, the past week has been a surreal week and Jackson's death whilst not on the surface really being a seismic shock, has nonetheless, registered a greater impact than his fading star suggested it should do. Thanks for the memories.