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Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
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InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
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Jackson, Michael
Listen to Michael Jackson:
Working once again with Quincy Jones as producer, a man who has been nominated for 76 (!) Grammy awards, Michael Jackson created Thriller, the best-selling album of all time. Forty million copies were sold worldwide and the collection sat at the #1 position for a stupefying thirty-seven weeks. "Billie Jean" was the second of seven singles that were culled from Thriller, all of which entered the top ten. They were "The Girl Is Mine," a duet with Paul McCartney (#2); Billie Jean (#1 for seven weeks); "Beat It" (#1 for three weeks); "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" (#5); "Human Nature (#7); "P.Y.T." (#10); and "Thriller" (#4). Jackson was no longer a star, or even a superstar- he was a phenomenon. His music controlled the airwaves and his videos flooded television screens. Interestingly, his sister Janet repeated his feat a few years later with her album Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 and in one category even surpassed Thriller. Her album also yielded seven top ten singles, but four of them went to #1 ("Miss You Much" for four weeks, "Escapade" for three weeks, and "Black Cat" and "Love Will Never Do" for a week apiece). Before the ink dried in the record books, though, Michael produced five consecutive #1 singles with his own follow-up release, Bad ("I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "The Man In The Mirror" and "Dirty Diana"). I suppose this is what happens when sibling rivalry goes haywire.
"Billie Jean" was accompanied by one of the first high-tech, high budget videos of its kind and it quickly became thoroughly unavoidable. Somehow, I still find it possible to enjoy this song, even after seeing the video so often and in such heavy rotation that it resembled a commercial- which it was, naturally. Anybody watching MTV at this time can attest to the fact that Jackson was the #1 product offered up for sale. By early 1984, his white socks and bejeweled glove were almost as familiar as a Pepsi commercial. (This fact did not go unnoticed by Pepsi's advertising executives. They would soon launch a campaign that featured Jackson and Madonna as ad reps, but the net result would be somewhat disastrous. Madonna would dance before burning crosses, prompting her dismissal, while Jackson's hair would catch on fire during a commercial filming. That and the subsequent controversy of his sexuality caused him to be dropped as well). Jackson’s image and facial features were homogenized as well. Plastic surgery had anglicized his face, while his excessive caution with the press made him seem like a cross between James Brown and Mister Rogers.
Growing up in public caused Jackson to value his privacy over most anything else. He had been famous since he was eight years old and this hyper-exposure led him to withdraw deeper into himself as he became a household name. His life was fundamentally different from the average person's and his eccentricities became harder and harder to comprehend. It seems as if reality didn't offer very much in the way of personal satisfaction to Jackson. Living in a state of suspended childhood, he desperately wanted to insulate himself from the harsh realities of ordinary life, but all the power and all the money in the world could not prevent life's painful moments. His fragile world existed somewhere between reality and fantasy, so the average fan had difficulty discerning fact from fiction. Does he really sleep in a hyperbaric chamber? What in the world could he possibly want with the Elephant Man's bones? Is he or isn't he guilty of the child molestation charges that were brought against him? Fans could only wonder. This is what "Billie Jean" is about. Underneath the topical tale of paternity, something gnaws at us. The words are about denial but can we trust the credibility of the singer? While he plainly states that "Billie Jean is not my lover...(and) the kid is not my son," we wonder if what we are hearing is the whole truth, a half-truth or a fabrication. By paralleling his public persona with the character in the song, Jackson created a remarkably complex pastiche of images. Just as he has with his own life, "Billie Jean" mixes fact and fantasy, reality and perception, into a mysterious blur.
Once a figure becomes as famous as Jackson, his credibility as a performer usually comes under fire. After all, how many performers who once hosted their own television variety show (as Jackson did with the Jackson 5) can still sing convincingly with some form of emotional resonance? Johnny Cash is one. But Donny Osmond? Sonny and Cher? Glen Campbell? We know that they aren't really baring their souls for us. They are performers who will sing a song, but they can no longer embody a song. To state the obvious, Jackson is different, not only from "normal" people (his word) but from his show-biz peers. Even though he has one of the most famous faces in the world, we really can sense autobiographical references in his best songwriting. By emphasizing the fantastic aspect of his private world, Jackson effectively removes the average fan's ability to see the wall between his stage image and his personal life. He is the guy in "Billie Jean". That is an amazing feat, if you think about it. He has caused his life to become so intertwined with his artistry that they blend and feed off one another. It is this fascinating situation that empowers "Billie Jean" to become much more than a simple story/song. Simultaneously, it is an illusion, a fantasy story, and an allusion to his own troubled life.
This is a remarkable talent but it is also ultimately sad because Jackson has trapped himself. He is trapped because his public image provides the fuel that feeds the characters in his songwriting. His art and his life have become inseparable. Fantasy is supposed to be a vent for us to temporarily escape the harshness of reality. Once the differentiation with reality is no longer apparent, then escape is no longer an option. For somebody who has succeeded at his most ambitious plans, this must be a painful and frustrating discovery. Even if he never recorded another song, Jackson's very life has become a performance for “normal” people to judge.
 
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