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In Stephen King's semi-autobiographical history of horror 'Danse Macabre', he describes how he was sitting in a movie theatre in Maine when the manager emerged to announce that the Russians had launched Sputnik. In the socio-political context it was bad news - and the way that we receive bad news does seem to lodge itself in our brains. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the news came by radio. By the time Kennedy was assassinated, it was television. Sky News was the first UK rolling news channel, it launched just 6 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall and from then on, rolling news became the first port of call for many trying to get instant access to breaking stories. The death of Princess Diana and 9/11 were both events which are burned in my memory as being a wallpaper of rolling news and opinions. While the headline remained the same, the stories were examined from myriad angles - every five minutes there was a new phone interview with a relative, or an acquaintance or spokesperson. So the answer to the question "Where were you when....?" became "Watching News 24" for the most part.
I was on Twitter when news started to filter through that Michael Jackson had died. Twitter is an interesting way to hear news, it almost comes as a stream of consciousness - jokes, queries, comments and links to sources flood through. I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility to suggest that it might be how I hear virtually ever major news story from now on - tweeters are not worried about jumping the gun with news stories as the BBC and CNN are. Stories hit Twitter instantaneously and then it's just a matter of re-tweeting, sending the chinese whispers while all about you people are replying "Source?".
Some friends of mine were surprised that I liked Michael Jackson because I never talk about him or his music. For me, Jackson was a minor obsession between the ages of 8 and 12, so no, I don't really talk about him anymore - just as I don't talk about Barbie dolls or Gummi Bears, but his music was still a big part of my life. The first gig I went to was Michael Jackson's Bad Tour at Aintree racecourse in Liverpool, on September 11th 1988. It was the biggest attended date of the European leg of the tour with 125,000 people watching the open air spectacle. Support came from Kim Wilde of all people, I remember a guy offering, nay insisting, that I sit on his shoulders to watch her. I went with my mum and dad, my 5 year old brother being paid off with the Ghostbusters Ecto 1 car because he was too small to come. By the end of the Bad World Tour, 4.4 million people had seen Michael Jackson live. This morning I put on the old tour tshirt, which swamped me in 1988 but which my mum and dad bought me all the same. I still have the tour programme and the ticket stub, and I remember someone (probably not Jackson himself) swinging across the stage on a rope wearing the red and black Thriller jumpsuit and a wolf mask.
Aintree Racecourse, Bad World Tour 1988
The first single I bought with my own money was Dirty Diana, it was a vinyl seven inch from Asda and it cost £1.32. Its b-side was an instrumental version of the song, which I used to sing to, copying his every cadence. When I was 14 and auditioning for the school musical, my teacher asked "Where did you get that voice from?" in response to the Jackson-esque vibrato I was singing with, and I answered "Dirty Diana". I got the part by the way, on the condition that I tone down the diva-ish soul voice and make it a little more musical theatre!
There's been the usual round of cynicism online this morning, let's face it, it hasn't been cool to like Michael Jackson for a good long while. I haven't bought a Michael Jackson record since HiStory in 1995, but what I'm mourning is the icon of my childhood, and a man who should be remembered for truly genre-changing accomplishments. His contribution to the areas of music video, choreography and live performance cannot be underestimated, and he is one of the most mind-blowingly successful artists in music history. All this from a boy born to a black working class family during the infancy of the civil rights movement, who went in showbusiness at the age of five, dancing and singing as a support act to strippers on the so-called 'Chitlin' Circuit' and was emotionally and physically abused throughout his formative years. To even survive that kind of life is an accomplishment, but that Michael Jackson went on to be an international megastar is nothing short of remarkable.
