Where were you?
Where were you when you heard that Michael Jackson was dead?
He meant so much to so many people.
Thriller sold over 60 million and Bad was another magnificent album in 1987.
Yes, we were a Jacko family. We had kids in the Eighties, Michael in ’82 and Caroline in ’85, and we all loved Michael Jackson, played his CDs and listened to cassettes of Billie Jean, Beat It, Man In the Mirror and all those songs on drives to Wales and Oxford.
So did millions of other British families
For the first time in the history of the world, the biggest star in the world was black.
Michael Jackson was a fantastic dancer, a phenomenal ballad singer, a thrilling singer of uptempo songs, a genius of dance music, the most super of superstars, dwarfing all other superstars – Prince, Springsteen and Sting were dull compared to Jacko at his best.
As a music journalist, I wrote about him from time to time.
On Sunday, November 12, 1972, I reviewed The Jackson Five at the Empire Pool, Wembley, for The Times. We sat in the second row and they were electrifying.
Some groups make music and a few make music happen. Most just play and sing but the Jackson Five, Rolling Stones and Tina Turner made music happen. I criticised the promoter for charging higher ticket prices than had ever been charged in London before : £2.50. The show was 25 minutes but it was so exciting, musically and visually, that you didn’t notice how short it was. They did two shows that night.
At that time I was friendly with Alice Cooper and his manager Shep Gordon. Shep told me that they played an enormous basketball hall down in the south west somewhere and he was really pleased to sell it out. After Alice’s gig the manager of the facility told Shep that the Jackson Five had played there the week before and had sold out four shows. “They’re huge!” said Shep. He wasn’t jealous, just amazed that any group could be so popular.
In Oz, putting together my 10-best albums of the year feature for Felix Dennis, my top two LPs were Music of My Mind and St Dominic’s Preview, followed by Rod Stewart, The Eagles debut album, Jackson Browne’s debut, the Jackson Five’s greatest hits, and several other records including one by the Rascals, a white soul group.
For The Scotsman, I did a full page review of his Bad show at Wembley Stadium on July 23, 1988.
Later, for The Glasgow Herald, I did a huge piece about his Dangerous show at Wembley.
I explained in detail why the Bad show was phenomenally good, and why the Dangerous one was garbage.
Later still, when I lucked into a world exclusive story about a legal case against Jackson, I wrote it and sold it to The Observer and they ran it on the front page.
After that I didn’t read about Jacko or write about him.
Bottom line : his albums after Bad were rubbish. Quincy Jones made him write great songs and he lost the plot after he split with Quincy, in every way.
I wasn’t interested in Jacko the paedophile, Jacko the freak whose ridiculous “marriages” made him the most tragic weirdo in show business. Plastic surgery? Surgical masks ? Hanging out with Sheikh Abdullah of Bahrain? Sleepovers at Neverland? It was all beyond ridiculous and I just wasn’t interested.
Being allergic to awards shows, I never watch things like the Brit Awards but somehow in 1996 I was lucky enough to see live, as it happened, Jacko the messiah leading a choir of children onto the stage, only to be interrupted by a drunken Jarvis Cocker. It was a wonderfully moral attempt to sabotage an outrageous, sick spectacle by a nutcase who was so rich and powerful that nobody dared say No! to him.
Jarvis Cocker said NO!NO!NO! to Jacko and that was a moment that made me proud to be an Englishman
Last night after Book Slam I was in Ladbroke Grove.
After a gig I arrived at a bus stop to find two young girls there, not together. One was talking into her mobile, saying, “Michael Jackson’s dead. I feel like shouting it from the rooftops: Michael Jackson’s dead!”
I spoke to her as a 52 arrived and as we got onto the bus together she said, “I think it’s a publicity stunt.”
I said, “I read his book. The Jackson Five used to come home from school and rehearse every day. Their dad would drive them 200 miles to a talent contest to sing one song and drive 200 miles back late at night. They’d go to school the following day and come home and rehearse again. With neighbours throwing rocks at the house and shouting, ‘You’ll never make it !’ “
“Wow!” she said.
I sat upstairs on the bus and reflected on Book Slam, which had kicked off its first monthly event in a new home at The Tabernacle.
Trinidadian poet Roger Robinson was marvellous, Patrick Neate read from his audacious new novel Jerusalem, and Soweto Kinch played electronic alto and did a freestyle rap and got all the girls to stand up and dance on one leg, as he was doing on the edge of the low stage. An entertaining, heart-warming night.
The Tabernacle is more spacious and comfortable than 12 Acklam Road, less like a dance club, more like an arts centre. I’d only been there once before, back in 1990, when The Tabernacle was a funky community centre, for a Stones press conference where Mick Jagger did a hip, hilarious 14-minute Q&A that no other rock star could have done.
The 52 bus was crowded with young people but pretty quiet because everybody was tired. Then a girl behind me said, “Michael Jackson’s dead, a heart attack.” I turned round and she was looking at a text on her mobile.
When I got home about 11.45 pm I heard a voice from our loft bedroom.
“Hello,” said Jan.
“Hello,” I replied, shouting up the stairs
“Caroline phoned. Michael Jackson’s dead.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“A girl at a bus stop told me.”
I went upstairs and found my wife in bed with Ian Rankin and we talked about Jacko and then I read her a poem from Suckle, Roger Robinson’s new paperback, one he had done at the gig, a poem about his mother, who has prayers for everything.
Then I went downstairs to watch a Sky+ recording of Brazil v South Africa, fast-forwarding to 10 minutes, which was when I went out.
At 12.15am Michael came in and he had heard about Jacko too. He had been talking to two Asian guys on the way home. “One of them said, ‘He can’t be dead ! I’ve got tickets for his concert !’ He looked crestfallen.”
I’m not gonna read stuff about Jacko today. I know enough and I don’t need more than Bob Lefsetz tells me in his music business newsletter. Subject line : The King is dead.
Bob’s intro is good :
He missed his childhood and now he’s gonna miss his old age.
How fuc*ed up is that?
Michael Jackson never had a chance. He had to succeed for his family, his parents’ dreams were dependent upon him.
And a boy with that much pressure delivers. He works truly hard, so he will be loved. That’s all Michael Jackson was looking for, love.