We Love You, MJ. Rest Easy
Having been born in 1981, I spent all of my life with Michael Jackson. I grew up listening to the Thriller album (it was actually one of the first albums that I owned. On cassette, no less.) Between my mother and myself, I'm pretty sure that 98% of MJ's music, from the Jackson 5 days until now, is in my house. So when he passed away last Thursday, my heart ached. I felt an incredible loss deep inside me. I felt distraught at the fact that my children will have to learn about him the way I learned about Bob Marley: through records and videos. I will never see him perform live. And believe me, at a live performance, i was going to be "that girl". Yep. The one that they need to call security for. You would have seen me on public television, kicking and screaming as they tried to pry me off MJ's leg.
Last Thursday marked, not only the death of a great musician and performer, but it also marked the end of an era. An era when music was real. Thought out. Processed and planned. A time when singers relied on their own voices and not an auto tuner. A time when lyrics told stories. A time when music made you have to listen to it with your eyes closed. Music wasn't just sound. It was an experience.
If in my lifetime I can produce just one single song that had as much depth, emotion and life as any Michael Jackson song, I will have accomplished a helluva lot. If in my lifetime I can move a mere fraction of the hearts that MJ moved, I will have moved thousands. If I can change anyone's life with music the way he changed mine, I'll die happy.
Michael Jackson was a huge strand of the world's musical DNA. I'll miss him.
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