Dismiss Michael Jackson For His Eccentricities? Maybe. Dismiss His Music? Think Again.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. I discovered that, yet again, on a drive home this afternoon, with the radio on:

“A-B-C, It’s easy as 1-2-3, as simple as do-re-mi, A-B-C, 1-2-3, baby, you and me girl,” the young Michael Jackson sang.

It’s a simple, even banal lyric, but as I listened I found I couldn’t resist punching my foot into the space next to the gas pedal. If I could have stood up and grooved to the music in my minivan without careening off the road, I would have.

Let me be clear: I’m a middle-aged man who listens, mostly, to the art music known as jazz. I don’t own a single album by Michael Jackson and have never seriously considered buying one. Through the years, as a reporter working in newsrooms around the country, I’ve read the bizarre stories about the king of pop and made the same jokes about him that every jaded journalist has. It’s clear he was, at the very least, a profoundly troubled person.

But since I have little way of knowing the details of Jackson’s personal life beyond what I read in the news, what I want to say here is that those who would, because of his strange behavior, diminish his accomplishments as a singer, dancer and entertainer miss a very big point:

He, quite possibly, brought more moments of pure happiness – the kind of happiness that has to do with the simple pleasures of being alive - to more people on this planet than any other human being alive today.

Think about it. His album “Thriller” is the bestseller of all time. 65 million copies sold worldwide. Seven of the songs were top 10 singles.

Why? Play the titletrack on your Ipod, computer or stereo. Try not to tap your foot or move your body in some way, somehow. Try not to. If you’re anything like me – which is to say, a living, breathing human being - you can’t help yourself.

Humans respond to rhythm. It’s the constant pulse of life that’s pumped, every second, by a living heart, the beat of the human engine driving blood to every corner of the body.

Yet there’s a tendency among some to dismiss the kind of pop music that makes us want to move our bodies in time to this rhythm. Not intellectual enough, not contemplative enough, not serious enough. Not – and let me be blunt – white enough.

What do I mean? Remember when MTV, in its early days, wouldn’t play Michael Jackson’s music videos? When it played only the pallid songs of white, one-hit wonders who’ve long since faded into obscurity? When it only started to air Jackson’s music after it became obvious that it was quite clearly the most popular music on the planet?

I could digress here and talk about how Jackson was a pioneer and a force for a more equitable world, but let’s save that for now; the point is, the racism that for a time kept Michael Jackson’s music off MTV was blasted away by the music itself, by the sheer force of its powerful, all-too human beat.

Dismiss Michael Jackson for his eccentricities, maybe. But dismiss his music as pop fluff? You might as well dismiss the impulse that drives young people everywhere, in the hours after sunset, to dance halls and nightclubs.

And so it was that on a drive home today I found myself listening to the voice of no more than a boy singing a simple, catchy lyric to an absolutely irresistible beat. And as I noted the tapping of my foot I also noticed a few tears streaming down my face, a surprising and embarrassing occurrence for a man who never bought a Michael Jackson album but who, many years ago, gathered up the hand of a pretty young woman and, in a moment of nervous anticipation, and to the strains of a song by Michael Jackson, asked that girl to dance.

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