Friday 26 June 2009

The real 'king'

He's wasn't the messiah. He wasn't even the 'king'.

Michael Jackson was a
consummate entertainer with a great commercial sense for the MTV generation. And that's it.

Despite the whole 'king' thing, and the Graceland/Neverland echoes: comparisons with Elvis are entirely false. Elvis really did create a fusion of black and white musical genres that changed a generation and everything that came after. Jackson had some catchy tunes, some slick dance moves and took advantage of being in the right time and place when the music video revolution took off.

Despite the hideous Vegas years, the faux-karate and the deep-fried peanut butter sandwiches Elvis was never as damaged or as damaging as Jacko. He just had the predictable problems of a boy who went from abject poverty to superstardom. Nothing like the elephants in Jacko's corner that nobody is mentioning today - the dysmorphia that led him to re-create himself as a badly drawn manga-caricature ... or the paedophilia (allegedly of course).

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