I just don't think you can understand how many people loved and still love Michael Jackson. The only musician I can equate him to so that you might understand would be Springsteen. I'm not saying their musical talents or material or career arks are the same and definitely not their personal lives but in terms of fanbase and sheer impact, this is the closest parallel I can draw for you. Hell, Jackson is much bigger in Europe and Asia than Springsteen.
750 million albums sold - there has to be something more than just a couple catchy tunes and luck there to sell that much, I don't care if you don’t like his music personally and if you think he's an awful human being. When it comes to entertainers, there were few like him and I don't think there will be many more.
I understand that he was the biggest thing of his time, but what I don't understand is why there's still such an emotional connection to him, twenty years later. I mean, I absolutely would understand if everyone was sad and reflective, but people are going fucking insane over this.
My mother, who is not even a Jackson fan, is annoyed with my blunt feelings about this. I was eating lunch, and she had the TV on and there was a report that a huge crowd had gathered outside his childhood home, and I said something akin to, "Are you serious? Come on!" This motivated her to rant (again) about my cynicism.
(As an aside, my mother's about 60% of the reason I can't wait for college. She accused me yesterday of never talking to her unless I was asking about dinner, despite the fact that I hold about 75 conversations a day with her. Christ.)
pfan - That makes sense. As does the difference between being even-keeled and being ... well, like me.
It is interesting to think about, that time gap and disconnect. That's why I was wondering in the other thread last night, about if he was still so scream/cry/shake popular in the rest of the world like we saw in the 90s.
If so, why is he still so popular? It's not like he's been putting out albums consistently and they just haven' done well in the states compared to the rest of the world. Is the rest of the world just that much more passionate about their nostalgia?
For me, I've always thought "geez, sad what's happened to him" over the years, but now that he's dead, it's the first of my childhood idols/heroes to actually die. Not just change and get all weird, but you know, really dead and gone.
I suppose I understand that it's much more final now. I guess I just look and see the creep. I mean, that's all I ever knew him as, was this creepy guy who was probably a pedophile (some people really have the blinders on about that in the Zoo Station forum).
I just, I guess, feel like the mourning for his body of work should have happened a while ago, during one of his two trials or something. Everyone could have had a group reflection or something. I don't know. I just feel like if everyone's so insistent on ignoring the last twenty years, why did you wait till he died to be this reflective. And I don't mean you guys, I mean the ones who are like in tears and are holding vigils and are stopping their lives over this (again, like some in that Zoo Station forum).
I can see how Kalas' passing would have a huge effect on you. Ledger did for me, he did for a lot of us. But like Laz said, there's a difference between a 28 year old cut down by an accidentally lethal cocktail of pills while in the midst of a huge hot streak of brilliant work and an irrelevant, boy-hungry, washed up pop star who never made much of an impact on my life. That's just me though.
I never cried once for Kalas' passing (I have not cried since summer 2006, three years strong without tears). By far the hardest part of anything that went on with Kalas was the first interview with Larry Andersen. Andersen was a pitcher for the Phillies on their legendary 1993 team, and has been a color commentator for the last decade or so.
YouTube - RIP Harry Kalas - Larry Andersen Reaction
That was brutal to watch.
Quick question, is the same guy who, if foul play was at work here, who tried to kill Jeff Goldblum and Indiana Jones the same guy who scratched the name off the door?
Was the Goldblum killing the result of clickish behavior?
Could Goldblum's killer be on this site???
