ANYBODY AS HIM

Pensieri e parole da Achenblog, il blog del WP a cura di Joel Achenbach

Michael Jackson
What a sad moment. Michael Jackson may not have been perfect, but he was part of the soundtrack of our lives the last 40 years. At his best, he was the best. Not long ago I showed my kids a YouTube video of Michael Jackson demonstrating the moonwalk, circa 1983. Like that talent scout said of Fred Astaire: "Can dance a little."
My kids never knew Jackson at his peak, when he was the most popular entertainer on the planet, and millions of copies of "Thriller" flew out of the record stores. It wasn't as good an album as "Off the Wall," which got heavy rotation at the dance parties at my college, but when "Thriller" came out, music videos were the rage, and everything came together to propel MJ to the highest level of the business -- what you might call the Elvissphere.
What a rough life, though. He never knew a normal childhood. His personal travails, legal problems involving accusations of child molestation, plastic surgery obsessions and other eccentricities turned him into a punch line.
So maybe some people forgot over the years just how great he was. He was amazing at the age of 10, when he was singing "ABC." But he was even better in his early 20s, when he had Quincy Jones producing him in "Off the Wall" and "Thriller."
He lived to be 50 years old. But maybe he was always really 10. He never seemed to know how to live life as an adult. For now, we'll put all that aside, and think of him at the height of his power -- singing and dancing so well he seemed to defy the laws of physics. I'm pretty sure there's never been anyone else like him.