I’d written most of this week’s column before I’d heard yesterday that self-anointed King of Pop, Michael Jackson, had died yesterday at 50 years old. I’ve read and watched a bit of the coverage going on and can’t help but think back to when Princess Diana died in terms of the outpouring of reflection, reminiscence, sentiment and emotion. I was 10 years old when Thriller came out, and it was one of the first albums my older brother and I owned - we listened to it way too many times. I’m sorry to admit it, but I never bought parachute pants (I’ve just never been that cool), I never mastered the moonwalk, and I never danced around with a single glove. Despite everything else (and I do mean ‘everything’) Jackson was a songwriter, musician, and performer the likes of which we shall never see again.
Glide Magazine’s Hidden Track section has a great piece today with a number of examples of jazz, rock, and jam bands from Phish to Miles Davis to Santana that have covered Jackson’s work.
As a memory researcher, I find it amazing that we can engage in mental time travel, merely with the trigger of something like a photo or a song. Seeing images from the Thriller video brings me back to when I was ten or eleven watching MTV in my best friend’s living room – I can practically smell my friend’s shaggy golden retriever basking in the sun as we stared in amazement at the video’s special effects. So what will I (try to) remember Michael Jackson for? Here’s a few things that come to mind, but the list is by no means exhaustive: Michael Jackson wrote ‘We Are the World’ with Lionel Richie, he collaborated with Paul McCartney and Quincy Jones, or
As Dave Chappelle said, “He wrote Thriller. THRILLER.”
He was the Scarecrow in the movie adaptation of ‘The Wiz,’ and he taught me that human beings can move their bodies in almost unimaginable ways (no, he didn’t teach me personally – sheesh). Most of all, I have the utmost admiration for all that Michael Jackson did to bridge divides between people through projects such as the ‘Heal the World,’ ‘We Are the World,’ being a voice for HIV/AIDS in America. Rest in peace Michael.
On a lighter note, last week I wrote about expectations in music and made some comparisons about how our memory and experience fuels both our expectations and our appreciation of art and music. To some degree, music appreciation is all about taste. Some people love old school hip hop, whereas others might prefer radio friendly country music. Similarly, I suspect that many jazz enthusiasts probably have little appreciation for or understanding of a lot of punk and scream or noise rock. However, as I mentioned last week there’s the idea of openness to new and different genres than one may otherwise be comfortable with. To me, it’s largely about letting go of, or at least managing, one’s expectations. A lot of people go to the same restaurants, order the same dishes, and are perfectly content with that – there’s no risk and the reward is predictable. Others like to try new things, risking a bad meal with the potential for discovering something new and amazing.
I like to think of pop music as similar to fast food, or perhaps to those family feedbag restaurants like Fridays, Applebees, or Bennigans. What you’re getting has been vetted and tested to be widely acceptable and although individual tastes may vary, it’s as widely appealing as possible.
Another analogy for pop music that I’ve lately been using comes from psychology – specifically from research on our perceptions of physical beauty and attractiveness. A number of studies have shown that what makes someone’s face physically attractive, at least in a scientific sense, is being as average as possible. However, by ‘average’ I don’t mean plain, but rather in the statistical or mathematical sense where features and spacing between those features is all in the middle. Nose not too big or too small, eyes not too far apart or to close together, and so on. Similarly, a lot of the most popular music doesn’t push the boundaries and seems to be an amalgam of acceptable traits – not too long or too short, standard verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus format – anything that doesn’t make the listener think about changing the station. To stretch the analogy a bit further, it’s often those with mostly ‘average’ facial features and one deviant feature (nose a bit too big, eyes too far apart, etc) who we consider to be truly beautiful – almost as if they’re more human and more interesting or accessible as a result of the defining characteristic. Similarly, I think that a lot of the ‘great’ or ‘break out’ pop music has stuck to most of the formulaic tendencies of such radio-friendly tunes but has made some significant deviation from that formula keeping the general framework palatable and familiar while doing something different enough to make people take notice. In that sense, pop music and science have a great deal in common – both take existing ideas and build on them in relatively small increments to generate something a little different that’s interesting and hopefully somewhat novel.
If you extend the metaphor to philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts – after all of these small modifications and tweaks to existing models, a whole new approach can come about that has a lasting impact on what’s being done after the acceptance of the new approach. Kuhn’s definition of paradigms was restricted just to science, but others have since adopted it to all sorts of other areas. Examples of this include Elvis Pressley and white boys making rock and roll, Jimi Hendrix changing the concept of how to use/play the electric guitar, David Byrne and Brian Eno’s 1981 album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ as a new model for electronic music, Nirvana and the widespread birth of grunge rock, or Sublime’s genre-bending combination of punk, ska, reggae, and rock. Okay, these may not exactly fit the definition of paradigm shifts (perhaps the rock and roll or Jimi examples are better analogies) but the general idea is that pop music is popular because it conforms to our expectations until someone comes along and throws those expectations out the window in a new way that changes all the rules.
Next week I’ll be covering the Rothbury Festival in western Michigan, but I’ll try to get a little post up on Friday, and hopefully something that’s relevant to the festival season.
MOTB Festival(s) of the Week:This week was a real toss up of sorts –
the Detroit Windsor International Film Festival is going on around Wayne State University, and the College for Creative Studies and the rest of the Cultural Center, not to mention downtown Windsor as well.
Click here for more info It should be a great time for cinema lovers of various stripes.
For metal heads and music lovers out there, the
Stars and Stripes Festival in Mt. Clemens goes on from Friday through Sunday featuring Uncle Kracker, Ratt, Night Ranger, Morris Day and the Time (really?), Dokken (yes, that’s rockin’ with Dokken), and Edgar Winter (I might go just to hear him play his amazing song ‘Frankenstein’ in person). Rock out with your cock out or at least hang out with your wang out.
Shows this weekend:
Friday - 6/26
Melissa Etheridge @ MotorCity Casino Hotel
Leon Russell @ Magic Bag
Warhorses, Mr. Gnome & Lions @ Small's – CD Release Prty
Jay Reatard @ Magic Stick
Millions of Brazilians, Oatmeal @ Factory
Saturday - 6/27
Uncle Kracker @ the Stars & Stripes Festival in Mt. Clemens
Dr. John @ the Magic Bag
Charlie Wilson @ Chene Park
Sunday - 6/28
Rock the Bells @ DTE w/the Roots, NAS, Damien ‘Jr. Gong’ Marley, Busta Rhymes, & more
Greg Cartwright @ Alley Deck
The Offspring & Dropkick Murphys @ Freedom Hill
Monday - 6/29
POP, LOCK, AND HOP DANCE PARTY
