The death of Michael Jackson marks the end of an era. The news of his death certainly delivers a blow to the triumphancy (I know its not a word, but it should be) of the Summer of Soul, and to pop music fans around the world. In many ways there is no artist that epitomized the transcendent powers of pop music and the corrupting powers of fame. Born in Gary Indian (a suburb of Chicago, and now one of the poorest cities in the united states) his tremendous talent was utilized at a young age with his involvement in the Jackson 5 (singing on such seminal soul tracks as ABC, I Want You Back, I'll Be There and many others) that elevated him to a permanent status in popular culture around the world that has been achieved by few public entertainment figures (The Beatles and Michael Jordan are really the only two comparisons that I can think of now). His tremendous fame at such a young age certainly took its toll as we all know, leading to strange stories about his personal life, erratic behavior, and drug use.
All this aside though (such a topic is not appropriate for such a post in my opinion) his 1982 album Thriller is far and away the highest selling album of all time selling over 100 million copies, and at its peak selling over a million records a week. Its sound was a mix of funk, soul, rock n' roll, and the burgeoning influence of synthesizers (still incredibly present in music today) that has proved to be one of the most influential records of all time. Listening to Thriller today, it is hard to listen pop music as it sounds today without hearing its overarching presence. But this brings me to an interesting point. With the increasing prevalence of the internet (with such cultural phenoms such as YouTube, illegal downloading, and the blog-o-sphere) and the demise of radio never has the music that we encounter has been more diverse and accessible.
What I am hinting at here is the demise of mass produced music, well at least on Michael Jackson's scale and the fact that Thriller will unlikely be usurped from its standing as the highest selling album of all time in our lifetime or possibly in this century or beyond. With the dying record industry and increased accessibility to homegrown forms (such as the availability of digital recording and myspace) the age of celebrity, at least in music, seems to be on its way out. I experienced this first hand when working at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater (formerly the Tweeter Center, formerly the World Music Amphitheater) by my house in Tinely Park. One of Chicago's largest music venues, when working I saw not a single sold out show. Not for Nine Inch Nails, not even for Bruce Springstien. The format seemed tired: overpriced tickets, overpriced food, seating about a quarter of a mile from the stage. This is not music. If any one of those people took the time to find a music blog they liked they could have found a show of similar music for a third of the price at a small venue in the city and had a good time to boot. The
Lets be honest, we all have our favorite artists, but everything is relative, especially in music. Familiarity is nice but when it comes down to it, but nowadays with increasing musical accessibility, it is easy to point out that many artists big and small across the world make music that are much like each other and are comparable in quality. The recordings probably aren't as good with smaller artists but with a few beers in you (that are not eight dollars for a budweiser) and an intimate setting, most live performances of small semi-professional bands (forget punk ass emo bullshit highschoolers though) are great. Anyone in the biz will tell you its more about style and who you know, not what you play.
Sociologists have reported (the article is blanking me right now, and I think I left it in new york) that during times of increased commercialization of music and un-sated demand communal music forms have taken prevalence (i.e. folk forms based on principals of locality and live performance) over commercial. What we have been experiencing at least since WWII is a dominance of the commercial music market place over local forms. Of course previously in Europe and even America, classical composers, were promoted as national artifacts and symbols of western intellectual dominance due to their theoretical complexity. In general the superiority of western theoretical dominance due its rigorous complexity, western classical music theory was often hailed as irrefutable evidence. This point has since been refuted by many most modern music scholars, in particular in the 1950's with the ethnomusicologists at UCLA citing the complexity of Balinesian Gamillan music used in traditional religious practices. Similar to the pre-conception of western classical music's dominance the advent of the phenomenon of pop music and the modern music industry, have caused many to think that music had been permanently altered towards sound with a highly visceral affect (this is an opinion I hold, being that pop music tends to focus on pumping one up or marking one cry, so to speak) and one model of dispersion.
The other day my friend Spencer and I were talking about how we thought that U.K. dub-step could probably be the "next big thing". It is being played more and more in clubs and raves all around the world, as well as its influence becoming increasingly more prevalent in hip-hop and pop. The model of electronica I think probably serves as one of many new models of musical dispersion in the coming future. For one reason it doesn't rely on radio play or album sales for income, and thus the ability for people to dedicate their lives to their craft. People who want to be pop-stars will be hard pressed to find a network of venues or even the community of dedicated artists to share their craft, hence the lonely desperate souls we see on American Idol giving all their hope to a single shot in the dark. I guess, someone who wants to be a pop singer could enter the world of session recording for commercial music banks, but that pursuit is notoriously unfulfilling. Connoisseurs of electronic music/technology have a pre-established network where they can find gigs as DJ's, trade their tapes with fellow artists, remix and produce other peoples work, or use their knowledge of their local scene to contribute to blogs, magazines, etc... This is the same in any sub-culture, but electronica, as a worldwide form and electronically based (which makes for easy transfer of recordings) is primed to be a refuge for many makers of music.
But what's that you say, all electronica sounds the same? I think people who say this are right, in terms of musical texture, and often musical language, this isn't a bad thing though. My argument, what is wrong with that? The same goes for rock or jazz or folk. When music is similar to itself it allows people to who enjoy that form to subtly modify it to their own taste, maybe, just maybe come up with something new. As is the case with dub-step, or Thriller. The Jackson 5 were a great group that managed to make a number of hits, but listening to the Summer of Soul playlist I think it is easy to see that many people were out there making songs of similar quality, whether they had big names or not. Jackson is of course incredibly talented. It was when Michael Jackson made Thriller that his unique background and life of music had culminated into the greatest selling album of all time and perhaps the most influential pop-recording of the last twenty years, when Jackson created a sound we could no longer return from (thus his incredible stature).
But here is what really got me thinking. The death of Michael Jackson, the king of pop, marks the end of one of the biggest superstars the world has ever seen. With the increasing diversity of music we are exposed to do we really have the capacity to obsess over a single sound or artist the way we did in the eighties? This fact is compounded by the continual decline in record sales that has not been supplemented by digital downloads (in addition to peak oil, global warming, and the increasing chance of nuclear holocaust). This all makes me feel there is potential that Thriller may be the largest selling album of all time... for-ev-errrrr (sandlot reference). The more easily accepted point is that the way we receive music is changing and the passing of Michael Jackson marks a paradigm shift that has been occurring for the last decade or so from the heyday of commercial pop-music to the atmosphere surrounding its current decline.
Will Thriller ever be ucerped? I don't think in my lifetime, I put the odds at one in five.
Here are the songs I chose to commemorate Michael Jackson
I will also take this opportunity to repost the link to The Summer of Soul : Electric Boogaloo mix
