In “Can This Career be Saved?”, a long-running and real-life musical farce, the lead character is a has-been pop legend whose primary characteristic is his unfathomable strangeness. But he also happens to be one of the wealthiest people in the world, so his self-regard is indulged, his crumbling superstardom propped up by his investors and sycophants, his multiple comebacks each hyped and hailed as a sign of renewal.
Michael Jackson would surely object to that characterization of his recent career, but perhaps he should take pride in it. The role of the out-of-touch superstar who craves to remain vital is Jackson’s greatest creation of the ’90s, certainly more compelling, theatrical and memorable than any of his recent music. Like Garth Brooks and Madonna, Jackson has become expert at creating “Events” to hype his latest career makeover. But unlike Brooks and Madonna, he has ceased to become a major force on the pop charts, and that makes his exertions look all the more desperate to most of the outside world.
This weekend, the creepiness continues with the singer throwing yet another pageant in his honor, “Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration, the Solo Years” on Friday and Monday at Madison Square Garden in New York, as a prelude to yet another comeback album, “Invincible,” due Oct. 30.
The guest list of performers is glitzy — old confidante Elizabeth Taylor will be there, and so will Whitney Houston, Destiny’s Child, Ricky Martin, Jill Scott, Usher, Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick, Gloria Estefan and Ray Charles, among others. The original Jackson 5 will reunite for the first time in 20 years, and Jackson will perform his first mainland concert in 11 years — though this sounds less like a performance than a coronation. But for what, exactly?
The ongoing Hugeness of Michael, apparently.
“He has his own style and way of producing that reminds one of a Ziegfeld spectacular,” Jackson says in press release touting the qualifications of the shows’ producer, David Gest. “He only does things in a big way. . . .”
He might as well have been talking about himself. Despite the hype, the performances have been slow to sell (at $45-$2,500 per ticket), and Jackson is pulling out all the stops to make sure the media covers the event, albeit on his terms: Most reporters will be allowed to view the concert only via an edited closed-circuit television broadcast. Though the concerts are ostensibly live events, Jackson is treating them more like an elaborate video, which CBS will air in the forthcoming months as a two-hour special, perhaps to coincide with the release of “Invincible,” Jackson’s first album in six years.
Getting heavy air time
A new single, “You Rock My World,” is already making the rounds at radio, and it strains for attention, with a gratuitous dialogue between Jackson and comedian Chris Tucker introducing a midtempo groove fashioned by Rodney Jerkins, whose production work with Jennifer Lopez and Houston has made him a mainstay on the pop charts in recent years.
Though it’s far from the best work produced by either Jackson or Jerkins, “You Rock My World” is being played 20 to 30 times a week at WBBM-FM 96.3 in Chicago, one of the key top-40 stations in the nation. That makes it one of the station’s 20 most-played songs.
“People want him back,” says music director Erik Bradley. “I’ve heard the album and it’s excellent. There’s a song R. Kelly is involved with called `Cry,’ and it’s an absolute `10.’ . . . I think it’s really important to put perceptions aside; it’s a great record from one of the most influential artists in history.”
Jackson’s influence isn’t in question; his last great album, “Thriller” (1982), is one of the biggest-sellers ever released, and it became the template for the multiformat crossover albums that dominated the ’80s marketplace. But that album’s success may have been the worst thing that ever happened to Jackson; in many ways he has spent the last 19 years trying to top its monumental sales figures, with increasingly calculated music-making and marketing strategies.
A marketing ploy
Remember the 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey, who allowed Jackson to portray himself as the Ultimate Victim, a “lonely, sad” creature who claimed he cried every day as a teenager and whose increasingly bleached skin tone is the result not of some bizarre surgical makeover but a rare disease? Or how about in 1995, when he turned his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley into another promotional opportunity, a one-hour prime-time interview with the couple by ABC journalist Diane Sawyer? Jackson denied having sex with boys (the year before, he settled a lawsuit, for a reported $10 million to $20 million, that charged he had molested a 13-year-old boy). And he confirmed having sex with his wife. A year later he divorced Presley, then announced that he was going to be a father, and soon after married the mother — who was not Presley, but his dermatology nurse. If only he had put as much effort into re-energizing his music. His stock as a commercial force has continued to fall since the release of “Thriller,” though he remains a best-selling artist around the world. But the Jackson who once seemed so exuberant in the Jackson 5, and so spectacularly at ease inside his body while moonwalking through the early ’80s, now sounds like he’s riding trends instead of creating them.
Bordering on camp
Though the music sounds tired, his efforts to promote it verge on camp. During his last comeback try, in 1995, to hype the “HIStory: Past, Present and Future — Book I” double-CD, $4 million was spent on a video aired for record-company personnel and journalists at suitably prestigious venues around the country, including the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. The video depicted Jackson as a silver-clad parade marshal (amazing that no psychologist has yet written a book about Jackson’s fetish for uniforms) leading a European army through a cheering throng, then unveiling a skyscraper-size statue of himself as a regal war hero. At this moment, presumably, the awe-struck audience at the Adler was supposed to genuflect or at least applaud, but only titters of embarrassment were audible.
Jackson’s insufferable self-regard didn’t stop there. “HIStory” came stuffed with a 52-page booklet, full of ripe testimonials from the ever-faithful Taylor, as well as Steven Spielberg, the late Jackie Onassis and countless other Hollywood celebrities. Despite the fawning, the album never ignited the public; record-company representatives had boasted of breaking eight or nine singles off the album, yet the second single, “Childhood,” never even cracked the top 40.
Reclaiming his relevance
It remains to be seen if “Invincible” will suffer a similar fate. But one thing remains certain: Jackson will get yet another chance to reclaim his relevance. Chuck Taylor, senior editor of Billboard magazine, calls the record an “event” that radio programmers can’t afford to ignore, particularly because it includes contributions from Jerkins, Kelly and the late rapper the Notorious B.I.G. “Even if the name Michael Jackson doesn’t stir the same excitement as it did 10 years ago,” Taylor says, “he’s certainly associating himself with people who are doing so now.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement, but a valid assessment in a culture where many young listeners — the ones who will determine whether “Invincible” is a hit — weren’t even born when “Thriller” reigned. Pop is no longer Jackson’s province; he’s Boo Radley in the house of Usher, an interloper in the mansion of R. Kelly, an elder statesman watching a parade of hits by Nelly, ‘N Sync and Destiny’s Child pass him by. Somebody should gently break it to Jackson that as a 43-year-old performer trying to appeal to a marketplace of teenagers, the odds are against a blockbuster album.
Somebody should also tell him that it’s never too late to make great art. It would be nice if Jackson dialed down on the hype and concentrated on the very thing that made him so irresistible to so many two decades ago: The music. Quincy Jones, who collaborated with Jackson on some of his earliest hits, including “Thriller,” will appear at Madison Square Garden and undoubtedly will recall old times with his one-time protege. Perhaps he also will impart some of the advice he shared in a 1995 interview with the Tribune.
The muse was missing
In Jones’ view, Jackson was toiling over his albums for years because he no longer was serving his muse, but the mass public. With “Invincible” incubating for more than two years and tens of millions over budget, Jones’ cautionary words still apply:
“I ain’t gonna sit around in the studio three years to make an album with Michael,” Jones said. “I would not look forward to spending three years in the studio with anybody. Caruso. Bessie Smith. `Lady Day.’ Heck, we cut `Thriller’ in two months. . . . Paralysis through analysis. You make up your mind on the tunes you’re going to do and you do it. Everybody wants to sell millions of records, but the idea of trying to pick out what people are going to like and buy is garbage.”
