I'm going to disagree with you about his music, even though I'm not a huge Michael Jackson fan, because he had a killer groove. But Jackson was never a musician first and foremost. He was a dancer. He was the best dancer of this last half century, bar none. He was the dancer that inspired enormous movements in dance. When he performed for Motown, none other than Fred Astaire, king of the old dancers, called him to congratulate him. I'm not a big fan of dance, but watching Michael in action was like watching a man defy physics. The way he moved inspired me to start working out and treating my body properly; because of him I want to learn to dance. I'll never dance like him, but he showed me that my body was an instrument as much as anything manmade can be.
To his death, he still had those moves. Just because he became the center of a freakish media circus doesn't mean he'd lost all talent. In fact, he's one of the few celebrities who never seemed to like his celebrity. He didn't get coked up or destroy things. The controversies surrounding him are all ones he wished would go away. He remained famous first and foremost for his incredible talent.
His death truly affects few, let alone profoundly.
I'm not an MJ fan and I never will be, but your comment is just overly myopic.
I know people who were impacted profoundly by his music and no doubt when I next see them, I will find out that his death has also affected them profoundly. Just because I personally am not affected in the slighest does not mean that I cannot understand why others will be.
That's funny, because myopic is exactly how I would describe the attention this is getting.
I guess it depends on your definition of "profound." I know people who are profoundly affected in the same sense when their fantasy football team loses.
Sounds like my definition of "profound" may contain a lower amount of pretentiousness than yours.
People are moved by many and varied things in this world. Often it's not necessarily the importance or the profundity of the thing its self (in this case Michael Jackson's music) but the associations that the individual connects to that thing.
You mock how someone could be affected by such things as their fantasy football team and by implication, Michael Jackson's music. I only see this as an indication that you have very little insight into the inner workings of your own mind or that of anyone else's.
Nope, I hate when my FF team loses. But I recognize it doesn't really matter and I think most people will have only a superficial feeling of loss.
The commenter above called this a "once in a lifetime event" that "has a profound impact on almost everyone." I don't think so, but maybe I'm too pretentious or lack insight. Thanks for that.
I agree that it would usually be kind of silly to have any sort of profound association with one's FF team losing. My point was only that seemingly unimportant things can still have a profound effect on people, by associated feelings, if nothing else. Even if I don't share their feelings on this particular occasion, I can understand where they might come from.
An FF team loses many times and wins also, the king of pop dies once only. This has effected me, I am not sure about profoundly, but to some extent. Mostly because I, like many others of whatever age, grew up with his music and I personally felt a sort of anger that he was covered into all sorts of personal controversy rather than allowed to give this world more of his talent through other great albums that he would have made.
There is a sort of sadness to his later life which I believe will be used as the example of the culture of the 21st century media. Media can kill!
This is a man who like Tesla offered the world so much and yet died so low. It speaks a lot about the society we live in. You do not need to like his music, or the guy, or his dance moves, but it would be hard to deny that Michael has entertained the world like no one else I've experienced and his record proves that.
When the queen will die, here in the UK at least, I am sure that everyone will drop whatever they are doing to share the moment because she is a person loved greatly. If the US and perhaps the world entertainment had a King, that is Michael and I believe that he is greatly loved.
I wish him peace and I wish that the world learns from this sad tragedy. He will be remembered as the King of Pop for sure, but he also tests our prejudices - our judging of him as a freak because he wanted to change his nose - our ignorance of the effect that his skin colour might have had on him personally - our refusal to understand the profound effect that his childhood had on him, instead to insist that he judged according to conventions, a grown man does not have a playing ground park, as a freak - but above all our irrational mania with Michael as the person rather than the artist. This is like being more interested in what Einstein ate for dinner, rather than his relative theory, or being more interested that some great author does drugs than some magnificent novel he has written. The world now grieves, not only because this man had so much talent, but because this talent killed him!
His death affects ticket brokers... I got a 3 pack of tickets two days ago for his final show; they were just about the best seats on the market and I would have been able to sell two of them for enough to very comfortably finance my trip to see Michael Jackson in person.
So I'm personally affected in that I'm out $1000+ in potential profit and I'm missing the chance to see the King of Pop perform. It is a sad day for lovers of music.
You're being downvoted, but you're right to point out the commercial knock-on effect this will have. My sympathies are with all of the people involved in producing the forthcoming comeback tour - that would have been the shining diamond in nearly all of their résumes (dancers, lighting folks, producers, audio technicians, etc) and likely have changed many of their careers.
I actually am expecting them to utilize the current production planning for a series of tribute shows. Any number of singers would be happy to sing, and it is a waste for all the production planning to amount to nothing.
I am completely serious. I am sure Timberlake has offered, at this point it is up to Michael Jackson's family to decide what kind of tribute show they want to do as they have been inundated with offers.
His death truly affects few, let alone profoundly.
The fact it's covered on every news station indicates it's probably not news and reason enough not to include here.