Track-By-Track: O/B #32 (Guest post by Sam PV)
Today’s guest post comes from Sam PV, co-founder of London’s Pumping Velvet. Taking time out from his current run-down of 20 Disco Delights, Sam has kindly addressed this thorny subject: What does it feel like to listen to MJ today?
Feel free to leave your comments on the thread below - as I will - or reply by email.
How do you even begin to write about Michael Jackson in 2021? What more is there to be said about this titanic musical treasure and serial abuser of young boys that hasn’t already been said? In the wake of the 2019 Leaving Neverland documentary, which appeared to prove that Jackson’s relationships with children went beyond ‘weird’ and into sustained sexual abuse, the internet was ablaze with peak MJ discourse and we were left to wonder whether his indelible impact upon popular culture meant he was indeed too big to cancel. In the intervening years his consistently gargantuan streaming numbers appear to show people have continued to quietly listen to him. What is it about Michael and his music that has spared him the fate of Gary Glitter or R Kelly?
For the record, Michael is the second best Jackson and ‘P.Y.T.’ is his second best song. That Janet is the superior sibling, and that ‘Burn This Disco Out’ holds an unassailable position atop his mighty mountain of immaculately crafted pop songs, is an unchallengeable fact. I will accept no debate on this question. ‘P.Y.T.’ positively bounces along at a rushy 128 bpm with its spacious yet lush disco instrumentation and galloping percussion harking back to Off the Wall-era Michael, in contrast to Thriller’s other more densely arranged and future-facing R&B-indebted tracks. On Thriller’s release, ‘P.Y.T.’ was dismissed as glitzy fluff, but for me it’s this mercurial quality and sprightly joy that make it such a pleasure to listen and dance to. That and the fact that it has vocoders. Is there a song in this world that wouldn’t benefit from a little lithe vocoder action?
But how does it make me feel listening back to Michael’s music in the light of everything we know about him now? It’s a complicated mix of emotions. Overwhelmingly there is a deep rush of nostalgia, a portal back to the unadulterated joy of childhood where I would hurl myself around the living room with abandon to this magical music as I tried, and manifestly failed, to recreate his unparalleled dance moves. Undercutting all this, however, is a malevolent cloud of unease and the bitter taste of guilt when I consider the atrocious pain and horror Jackson inflicted upon his victims over the years.
Complex can often be a byword for not holding someone accountable. How often have we heard the phrase ‘complex legacy’ in relationship to someone who likely committed unspeakable crimes yet whose cultural contribution is so immense that we minimise and contextualise those crimes in a way we would never afford an ordinary person? It’s almost as if there is a series of calculations we undertake in deciding whether to cancel a cultural figure from our lives. Do we multiply how bad what they did was by how likely someone is to judge us for continuing to like them and then divide that by how much we enjoy their art in order to arrive at an answer? Despite what the holier than thou twitter brigade might want, there is no objectively correct answer and it most often is a deeply personal decision.
With Michael we have the added complexity that he was himself so clearly damaged. He was a victim of ferocious abuse from his father, whose insistence that Michael was an ugly little boy undeserving of his love would drive him to continuously mutilate his own face in an attempt to escape this tortured past and quite literally bleach away his victimhood. A classic yet tragic tale of a victim turned abuser.
Alongside that we must also acknowledge that structural oppressions are undoubtedly reflected in these discussions. Musicians and artists of colour are held to higher standards and judged more harshly than their white counterparts. Where is the movement to cancel David Bowie, Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page who all used their fame and power to commit statutory rape against underage girls? Led Zeppelin literally have lyrics that refer to Jimmy Page’s 13 year old ‘girlfriend’, who was kept locked in his hotel room while they were on tour lest she be discovered by the police, yet no one is questioning their cultural legacy.
All this isn’t to diminish or lessen Michael’s appalling crimes, but they are factors in assessing my relationship to him and his music. Where do we draw the line and what determines our boundaries? I feel queasy at the thought of ever listening to R Kelly’s music again yet I will quite happily bruk out to convicted murderer and notorious homophobe Vybz Kartel’s latest bashment banger. Is this consistent or logical? Probably not, but it’s just how I feel. And what happens when someone has died and no longer stands to gain financially from your continued enjoyment of their music? Sadly in the case of Michael those royalties go to his famously litigious estate, helping fund their unrestrained gaslighting and character assassination of his victims.
I don’t know if Joe would still play ‘P.Y.T.’ in a club today but I do know that, if he did, any distaste I felt would most probably be swept away in a tidal wave of joy at being able to dance to one of my most treasured songs. Ultimately you can’t separate the art from the artist. It’s impossible to detach Jackson’s problematic persona from his music and enjoy it simply as unadulterated pop genius. Michael made some of the most brilliant pop music the world will ever be graced with yet he was also in all likelihood a predatory paedophile. The former can’t excuse the latter. But no matter how tainted his legacy may be, can we still enjoy his music? The answer is up to you.
Michael Jackson - ‘P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)’ (Epic, 1982)
(Discogs)
Note: this is an entry in the Track-By-Track series for my mix for O/B.
Track-By-Track is a series that looks back at records you will have heard in my mixes, one by one in the order they were played. Who made them, and when? How did I come across them? And what do they make me feel?
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