Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Michael Jackson Will Never, Ever Happen Again


When I first heard that Michael Jackson had died, I was neither shocked, surprised nor sad. Having grown up in a world where Jackson the entertainer was constantly overshadowed by Jacko the tabloid fodder, I merely viewed his death as a surprisingly quiet and toothless end to a career that would be completely unbelievable if it weren't true.

Within minutes after the initial report, as Facebook news feeds and Twitter pages became breeding grounds for speculation and/or curious expressions of grief, I remained ambivalent about the passing. This was a man who, to me, died sometime following the release of Thriller. But at 50? It all seemed like a little much--nothing about him in the last 10 years suggested that the man who had just died had anything in common with then pop music demigod responsible for "P.Y.T."

But for that afternoon--and this has only been amplified in the days (weeks!?) since--it seemed like the entire world had stopped what they were doing, turned to the person next to them and said "Michael Jackson died?"

Even for my generation, who I would assume spends just as much time discussing the appropriateness of his relationships with children as listening to his music, nothing about the death seemed right. Here was the most electrifying performer in the world turned sensation media trainwreck, and he's just going to die at 50 of a heart attack. Figures as big and controversial and loved and villified as Michael Jackson shouldn't pass without redemption or at the very least some final judgement. He was a man whose eccentricity and general curiousness was forced down our throats for so long--I once watched Fox News cover his motorcade from Neverland Ranch to an LA court house in its entirety--and for him to die unexpectedly and without explanation? We deserved answers.

And now, it seems, we have them. They're not what we expected or even answers to the questions we've been asking about him since his nose started shrinking and his skin began turning white. The truth is that, for better or worse, none of that mattered anyway. Michael Jackson belonged to the entire world--his career spanned too many generation and was too diverse to just be dismissed as a youth phenomenon. Kids who grew up with the Jackson 5 grew up to have kids of their own who grew up listening to Thriller. He spanned LPs and cassettes and CDs and music videos--and now as a post-mortem nostalgia act, he's conquered the internet and MP3 downloads as well. He was the platonic ideal of an entertainer--his entire existence was surreal and impossible. We've forgiven his transgressions because if Michael Jackson--this towering, inconceivable public figure--dies as a shamed, drug-addled pedophile, it reflects on all of us. We made him into what he was, and we will ultimately decide how he will be remembered. America's greatest export is its culture, and Michael was its ambassador. Just as Elvis was before him, Michael will be remembered as an amalgam of his great accomplishments. These last 15 years were merely his "fat Elvis" period. No one has ever dominated media the way Michael Jackson did and now, no one ever will again.

Save for possibly Barack Obama, there is no person on earth who could die tomorrow and shock the world in the way that MJs death did. He became the biggest star in the post-Elvis, post John Lennon world and we have yet to create anyone bigger. In this decade, the ways in which we consume media have changed radically; the internet allows us access to even the most obscure, esoteric and highly-specialized areas of interest. No single figure will ever again galvanize the entire world in the way that Michael did because we are each so fanatically involved with our own subcultures. We'll all mourn another entertainer, but we'll never mourn together.

For Jackson to die in the last year of this decade is fitting. In the last 10 years we've seen the decline and near death of the traditional media that made Michael Jackson the superstar in the first place--we're living in a new world now, and the coming decade will radically change our notions of what a pop star is and should be, but no matter what that turns out to be, I guarantee you that Michael Jackson will never, ever happen again.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That - 2006



Casual discussions of what constitutes "canonical" music often become hamstrung by the shallow perception that "big" = "important". Sometimes it's easy to see through the bullshit; no one will ever mistake Muse for a band of historical importance, despite the fact that they deal exclusively in clunky, grandiose monstrosities that make U2 seem positively subtle in comparison.

Things become more complicated when a band of real importance enters the fold. Ask 100 people what the best Led Zeppelin song is and I guarantee no fewer than 70 of them will say "Stairway to Heaven." Now, this is naturally due in part to a lack of knowledge of the entire Zeppelin category, but after serving 25+ years as staples of classic rock radio, it can be presumed that anyone willing to offer his/her opinion would be working with a knowledge of no fewer than 10 or so Zeppelin songs. No doubt, half of these songs are much better than "Stairway to Heaven."

Now, it's hardly their worst song and certainly not their most obnoxiously self-indulgent (hello, "Carouselabra"), but it when it comes to their most radio-friendly songs, "Stairway" (the kind of people who love this song always call it this) is the one that begs, pleads "take me seriously--pay no mind to the fact that I'm singing about hobbits and shit--guitar solo!"

So people are like, "Okay, I'll forgive the fact that the first 3 and a half minutes of this song are sort of boring. This guitar solo is super-badass, so badass in fact, that i'm going to revise my earlier opinion and say the first half of this song isn't boring and that these lyrics about bustles in hedgerows and may queens or whateverthefuck are actually really deep and meaningful. Yeah!"

When you combine this with the fact that virtually any person to pick up a guitar in the last 20 years can play at least a couple recognizable bars of this song, you've got a ridiculous song that becomes important because it seems (and sounds) important.

I don't think it's all that great.

Now take "Communication Breakdown." Nothing about it sounds important, it's just over 2 minutes long and the majority of people wouldn't be able to place it by name alone. But you're crazy if you don't believe an album of say, 8 "Communication Breakdown"'s with a "Dazed and Confused" or two thrown in wouldn't be one of the most perfect rock records ever created.

Especially compared to their later work, "Communication Breakdown" sounds absolutely effortless--the efforts of a bunch of dudes who just straight up didn't give a fuck. That's rock and roll. But i'm not here to canonize "Communication Breakdown"--nobody will every canonize "Communication Breakdown." I'm way out of my element here. I'm here to canonize Phoenix, a band that, for a completely different set of reasons, doesn't give a fuck.

Phoenix has the dubious distinction of being what I like to call a "privileged band"--a band full of people who, in the vein of the Strokes or Vampire Weekend, never had to work a day in their lives and shockingly were still able to write and perform catchy pop songs. Oh, but they lack "authenticity." This is a big deal to 14 year olds everywhere.

The question is, what exactly is "authenticity" in this scenairio? Phoenix and the Strokes aren't attempting to stand for anything, and Vampire Weekend stand for, I guess, boat shoes and cardigans and grammar? I'll take issue with Vampire Weekend here, simply because:
1. They've got maybe one good song.
2. Music doesn't really need to stand up for boat shoes and cardigans--that's what the J. Crew catalog is for.

I hate to oversimplify here, or sound like someone from a vh1 reality show, but when it comes down to priviliged bands and the notion of authenticity, the haters are just jealous. Who wouldn't be? Rich guys get laid. Guys in bands get laid. Rich guys in bands are basically superhuman.

Is this not the ideal situation to create great pop songs? Who better to create sunny, effortless music than a bunch of guys without problems? There isn't a moment on It's Never Been Like That that sounds even the least bit labored. It's a record that you can listen to from beginning to end, then listen to again without pause. Not because it's complicated enough to require carefull analysis, but because it's so simple you don't have to think about it at all. You could probably play this album for the duration of a party without hearing a complaint. Seeing as though parties are the domain of hit singles, what does that say about this album?

And that brings up the most peculiar aspect of It's Never Been Like That and maybe even the reason it's so effective as an album in the first place: it lacks a "hit single." "One Time Too Many" is handily the best song on the record, but not in a way as to overshadow the rest of it. Some albums are peaks and valleys--this one is a high plateau with a peak. It's a hit album, not a hit single.

Granted, it wasn't actually either--but it should have been.

It's refreshing to hear a band that doesn't feel compelled to attempt grand, artistic statements and instead chooses to simply be the best pop band they can possibly be. Musicians who challenge themselves and their listeners with ambitious records are absolutley necessary, but great, ambitious albums are just as rare as perfect pop albums. It's Never Been Like That certainly falls into the latter category, so why not celebrate it?