When Michael Jackson died, I downloaded his discography in mp3s. It was the second or third time I did that, I don't remember. The only MJ record I ever owned was DANGEROUS, but as soon as mp3s came around, I started familiarizing myself with everything he's ever recorded.The mp3 era has considerably changed the way we buy music. Back in the days, you had to pay good money for your favorite artists record so you had to make sure the artists you bought in CD were those you really wanted to listen to. People identified themselves a lot more to their music back then. I bought every Pantera album ever recorded, but I never actually bought a Michael Jackson record with my own money. But I like MJ.
His music was a part of my upbringing. It played on the radio, on MusiquePlus*, in every dance the school every organized. It was background music to my teenage years. I have a relationship to Michael's music, considerably more than I had a relationship to the artist himself. One could argue his soul died way before his physical death, but when Dr. Conrad Murray pumped him up full of Propofol and went on to take a leak, I was genuinely sad. Someone who revolutionized the face of music had just passed away. So I downloaded his mp3 to my computer and rocked out to my favorite tunes for a few days. Beat It, Blood on the Dance Floor, Scream, They don't Care about Us, Billie Jean, etc. I didn't flip out as much as those fans who cried at the gates of Neverland, but I had my little Michael moment.
Last Winter, Whitney Houston died. According to Wikipedia, she drowned accidentally in the bathtub of her hotel room. Safe to say it had something to do with the drug addiction she'd been wrestling with since she married Bobby Brown. The media freakout around her death was shorter than the one around Michael's **, but the content was eerily similar. Whitney Houston was painted as this Great Diva of Soul who left a generation mourning her passing. I am sorry, but I beg to differ.
No disrespect meant to the late Mrs. Houston but she never lived up to her potential. She was that proverbial fifty goal scorer that ended up never even scoring thirty. She was only five years younger than Michael Jackson and just like him, had the nineties in reach. Yet, I remember only two songs of her. I Will Always Love You and It's Not Right, but it's OK. I know she had a huge success in the eighties called The Greatest Love of All, but I couldn't even sing it to you. I never listened to a Celine Dion or a Mariah Carey song on purpose, but I could name more of their songs because like Michael Jackson, they've been cultural icons. They were (and still are, if you talk about Celine D.) embedded in pop culture.Omnipresent. Whitney Houston was busy fighting addiction and going down the spiral of her ill-fated wedding to Bobby Brown. Wedding that ended up defining her life. If you play free-associations with anybody and say "Whitney Houston", most likely they will answer "Bobby Brown".
I've been writing a story about the value of death for the last six weeks. About how death changes your perception of somebody. Transforms someone into a strange idea, without any bad sides. Only the good remains. With musicians, the equation is simple. The more good music you made, the more your death will mean people because that's how you survive. Whitney Houston's memorial shows had a lot of footage of I Will Always Love You, of Whitney ad-libbing on stage, but not that much music. Watch a Michael Jackson memorial show and there is always a song in the background.
As different as they were as artists, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston were two human beings with serious issues. They are both remembered for their music today and their early death has caused profound indignation in the community. Someone has to be guilty, someone has to have killed these icons. I agree Conrad Murray shouldn't have practiced medicine, but how such an incompetent doctor has landed around Michael Jackson of all people? Because no responsible doctors would do what he asked, that's why. I was reading on the net that R&B bad boy Ray J*** would've sold her the dope that killed her. Is Ray J. responsible for her death? No. Whitney's issue with drugs is. At the point they were in their respective careers, dying was the most profitable move. It got their music back on the charts and their personal lives swept away. If there's any lesson to this, it doesn't matter who you are, you will be remember for what you did for others.
* French-Canadian MTV
** That was still going on last Fall, with Dr. Murray's trial.
*** Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? It's like RAIIIIIIIIIIIIIN....OK, I stop now.
6 comments:
Both of these artists were big when I was growing up but I didn't follow them much out of the 1980s.
Lots of food for thought, Ben.
Thanks, Dave. They both had a long and agonizing downward spiral throughout the nineties. It's just that Michael kept recording music. His stuff after DANGEROUS was hit or miss but I found something to like in every album. Both artists have got their value going up from their death though
The first time I read this post I couldn’t get past the fourth paragraph. I paused on ‘cultural icons’. I cringed, smiled and wrinkled my nose, all at the same time (weird I know). Cultural icon…Maybe I misunderstood because surely Whitney Houston was a cultural icon. Not in the same way of Mariah Carey or Michael Jackson or Kurt Cobain or [insert name of deceased music artist] but an icon nonetheless—a great diva of soul, at one point or another—loved and recognized not by all, but by many people, by enough people.
My initial reaction took me back to high school and the whole concept of being ‘popular’. Are you popular because you are well-known or because you are well-liked? Famous or infamous? Maybe it doesn’t matter. The truth is Whitney Houston had to deal with a lot of self-imposed demons and no one can deny this. But I like to think that she was iconic and she was admired and she was successful and beautiful and talented. Isn’t that enough to remember her by?
And then I read the rest of the post about the value of death. And I agree, death does alter the perception of the deceased, and once again maybe I’m misunderstanding, but shouldn’t it? Especially since the value of life when they were living was diminished by their chaotic personal lives and self-destructive tendencies.
This is a great post. All this talk of the value of death made me think of this old, Spanish, black-comedy --El cochecito (1960) by Azcona and Ferreri. And now that I think about it, El verdugo (1963) by Garcia Berlanga and Azcona. Both offer interesting commentaries on the value of life and death in very different ways. If you get a chance, check them out. Sorry for all the rambling. Again, great post.
I agree that Whitney Houston was a cultural icon as a character. The struggling diva, coming to terms with her bad wedding. Her multiple comebacks and efforts made her endearing. My point is that as an artist, I think he never came close to tap into her potential. Drugs destroyed every opportunity she ever had. MJ on the other hand, stuggled too but produced so much music its not even funny.
What I meant (or what I think I meant, those are chaotic thoughts I put together. That's why I don't want to start calling these posts essays) is that to me, she left a thin musical legacy. If you look at another singer like Mary J. Blige on the other hand who doesn't have that aura around her but produced so much good music, I think that it's not even a match legacy-wise. But one is dead and the other is alive and working.
I don't want to deny anybody the right to bew grief stricken by the deaht of Whitney Houston. She had many, many fans but my perception of her wasn't altered by her death as much as it could've been with other artists. Does it make sense?
Yeah, it does; unrealized potential and a weak musical legacy, so her impact didn’t seem as great as say, Michael Jackson’s. I can’t say that I totally or completely disagree with that…On a slightly different note, if I ever feel like listening to some soul or r&b, which is rare these days, it won’t be Mary J. Blige…her music now is pretty shitty, but you’re right, she is alive and working.
I haven't listened to Mary J. since Family Affair (what was it, 2005?) so I'd be a bad judge for what she does now, but she's got a stack of success that I've heard through all my youth. Once again, she's an artist I have never bought. She's was just there. She was important in the youth I grew up in. She touched us.
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