Michael Jackson’s Gift to Us

“I want you back,” the Jackson Five sang in 1970. We want Michael Jackson back the way he used to be, the way we loved him, whether with the Jackson Five or as a solo artist. We want the incredible music, the extraordinary riffs, the moonwalk gliding across the stage, the piercing “woohs,” the innate sense of rhythm, blues and soul. We want “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” “Beat It,” “Bad” and “Liberian Girl.”

It’s not because Michael Jackson was the all-time bestselling pop artist, with a total of 750 million album sales – 108 million of which, according to some sources, were “Thriller,” the bestselling album in musical history. It’s because his influence on us was so profound. Because, as an artist, he left something of himself in all of us.

Do you remember his videos? They were always hugely important to him. He was terrific in “Bad” and “Thriller.” Do you remember the riffs? Bam bam bam, bam bam ba-bam – and off we’d go, following in his footsteps, going non-stop, happy to be able to dance, badly, to the music he had created – and even to try to pretend to dance like him.

Michael Jackson was a bloody famous musician, and a bloody amazing dancer. Everyone tried to be Michael Jackson on the dance floor. In vain, of course. Who could be his equal? Who could even try?

Jackson invented a new kind of soul. He made it seem so simple that everyone tried like hell to imitate him. But it only seemed simple. It was really the product of a talent of wild, magnificent, astronomical, inter-galactic proportions. It was because he was Michael Jackson, unique and inimitable, with that voice, that charisma, that beat, those moves, his way of attacking a song. His sheer Michael Jackson-ness – because there’s no other way to describe him.

Michael Jackson got talked about for all kinds of reasons that had nothing to do with his music. That was part of his life, part of who he was – for the worse. But what will remain of him in our hearts is the best. His music, his songs. No one will ever forget them.