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Jacksonismo: Michael Jackson como síntoma
Como nos advierte Mark Fisher, este libro nació de la convicción de que la muerte de Michael Jackson debía ser abordada por algo más que tributos fáciles o biografías abultadas. Sus autores –una selección de críticos culturales y musicales entre los que se encuentran Ian Penman, Simon Reynolds, Barney Hoskyns y Seteven Shaviro- coinciden en que su obra y su vida son un síntoma que requiere ser interpretado, y que su muerte, ocurrida justo después de la última crisis financiera y de la elección de Barack Obama como presidente de los Estados Unidos, marcó el final de una era que él más que nadie había ayudado a definir.
Muñecos, zombies, colosos, cyborgs, objetos fetiche y personajes de fantasía como Peter Pan o Mickey Mouse, que obsesionaron por completo a Michael Jackson, habitan estos ensayos no sólo como testimonio del encantamiento y la hechicería con la que impregnó toda su obra, o como presagio de los desastres personales que erosionaron su carrera, sino ante todo como jeroglíficos en cuya superficie se refleja la trama que conecta a Jackson son la expansión del mundo neoliberal, globalizado y hipermediatizado en el que vivimos hoy. Ese proceso, que comenzó en la década del ochenta y que implicó la mercantilización de todos los aspectos de la vida, encontró en el Rey del Pop –la mercancía más absoluta y universal- a su mayor promulgador. Su cuerpo –cuerpo postracial, posthumano y andrógino- encarnó la voluntad de dominación planetaria del capital, su capacidad implacable de abstraerlo todo y al mismo tiempo investirlo con una fuera libidinal irresistible. Tan irresistible como las performances con las que Jackson nos encandiló a lo largo de nuestras vidas, y frente a las cuales los autores de este libro se rinden una y otra vez como si se tratara de un fascinante, perturbador y completamente inasible misterio.
Muñecos, zombies, colosos, cyborgs, objetos fetiche y personajes de fantasía como Peter Pan o Mickey Mouse, que obsesionaron por completo a Michael Jackson, habitan estos ensayos no sólo como testimonio del encantamiento y la hechicería con la que impregnó toda su obra, o como presagio de los desastres personales que erosionaron su carrera, sino ante todo como jeroglíficos en cuya superficie se refleja la trama que conecta a Jackson son la expansión del mundo neoliberal, globalizado y hipermediatizado en el que vivimos hoy. Ese proceso, que comenzó en la década del ochenta y que implicó la mercantilización de todos los aspectos de la vida, encontró en el Rey del Pop –la mercancía más absoluta y universal- a su mayor promulgador. Su cuerpo –cuerpo postracial, posthumano y andrógino- encarnó la voluntad de dominación planetaria del capital, su capacidad implacable de abstraerlo todo y al mismo tiempo investirlo con una fuera libidinal irresistible. Tan irresistible como las performances con las que Jackson nos encandiló a lo largo de nuestras vidas, y frente a las cuales los autores de este libro se rinden una y otra vez como si se tratara de un fascinante, perturbador y completamente inasible misterio.
249 pages, Paperback
First published December 16, 2009
11 people are currently reading
604 people want to read
About the author
Mark Fisher
86 books1,975 followersMark Fisher (1968 – 2017) was a co-founder of Zero Books and Repeater Books. His blog, k-punk, defined critical writing for a generation. He wrote three books, Capitalist Realism, Ghosts of My Life and The Weird and the Eerie, and was a Visiting Fellow in the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 1, 2013
If you have read my previous reviews, you might have noticed that I have a predilection for all things reflections, as well as for all things Michael Jackson. Therefore it should not come as a surprise that this book caught my attention. After all, it does describe itself as a book to be “appreciated by anyone who loved Jackson’s records and wants to understand the times he defined.”
Seriously, who has been listening in on my phone calls?
Slight X-Phile paranoia aside, The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson is a series of essays about the man, the artist, the legend and the victim that was Michael Jackson. It’s a great way to keep one’s feet on earth, both for those who tend to deify the man, as well as for those who tend to cast him as a corporate devil (neither of which he is). These essays by twenty-three thinkers from the music industry portray many of Michael Jacksons’ sides, thus appealing to many audiences: from the young, die-hard fan to the older music critic, from the music lover puzzled by the phenomenal success of songs he considers catchy at best to the one still awed by the magic of Michael Jackson’s performances, the point of views expressed in this book are varied, making all the richer.
Caught in our day-to-day lives and using music as a background soundtrack, we often forget all it can represent. After all, music can’t be separated from the social environment in which it was created, and Michael Jackson’s music was one of the things that was influenced by as well as influenced the 1980s and 1990s (albeit for very different reasons). This book provides a look at the greater social environment in which Michael Jackson’s music was born, evolved and, ultimately and quite unfortunately, died. Because Michael Jackson isn’t only about the music: “The contributors to the book do not always agree about Jackson’s music, but they all agree that Jackson was a symptom that needs to be reckoned with and analyzed” (Mark Fisher).
The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson is also a lesson in music appreciation, as its essays are a tribute of sorts to the fading art of music journalism. To be honest, I had never quite understood the importance of music journalism; like many others of my generation, music is what carries me through the many emotions of being a teenager and then a young adult. In a world of chaos and confusion, music tends to be my one constant. But, of course, music is a lot more than that. While for the veterans and professionals alike, Demise includes parts that they will consider obvious analysis as well as details and explanations they are quite familiar with, for those of us like myself who are just fans, it’s a great way to learn to appreciate music –- and particularly, Michael Jackson’s music –- in a totally different way.
Michael Jackson’s demise, according to Mark Fisher, started way before we tend to pinpoint its beginnings at. Some would point out the more advanced surgeries, the increasing eccentricities or the two child molestation charges (especially the second one), but Mark Fisher thinks it has to do with the release of Thriller. And if you think about it, it makes sense –- Thriller came out at a period in history that is never again going to happen, when mass marketing was starting and was still controlled by the very few, and international superstardom was easily accessible to anyone with enough talent and drive –- which Michael Jackson certainly did.
But the other reason Mark Fisher tells us that Michael Jackson’s Thriller marked the beginning of his demise is that with the hypercommodification of the artist through as phenomenal and influential a creation as Thriller, brought to life at a time that was basically a perfect setting for its propagation and dominance with little to no competition, the je-ne-sais-quoi that defined Jacksonism, which culminated with Off the Wall — and which Michael Jackson was shaped by -– died.
After all, as David Stubbs explains, “Thriller marked huge changes in the interfaces between pop, rock, R&B and MTV. If it marked another of the successive deaths that constitute Michael Jackson’s career (as shrewdly lampooned in the satirical US website The Onion’s mock-obituary, ‘Final Piece of Michael Jackson Dies’), then perhaps the album also marks, coincidentally, the death of soul itself. Who, after all, has really made a great, first-hand, stylistically unselfconscious soul record in the last twenty-five years? Has that been possible in the post-Thriller climate?” So many artists today were deeply influenced and are defined by Michael Jackson; “The whole ultra choreographed ‘X Factor’ world we now live in -– from Prince to Madonna to Britney to Beyoncé -– surely [started there]” (Barney Hoskyns). And it wasn’t just because of the special effects and over the top performances; it was because of what Michael Jackson represented: “The utopia of Michael Jackson, the universality of his music, had to do precisely with its challenge to this history of race in America,” as “everybody (…) intuitively understood that Michael Jackson raised ‘the possibility of living in a new way,’ at least as much as Elvis, The Beatles, or The Sex Pistols ever did” (Stephen Shaviro).
Thriller set the bar high for other artists, it’s true, but the one person for whom the bar was not only set, but was the source of a lifelong drive to surpass, was Michael Jackson himself. And the fact that he didn’t surpass his own self left behind the imaginary smell of failure, since despite their inability to surpass Thriller, Michael Jackson’s subsequent albums were quite successful: “The facts are: Bad sold 30 million copies, Dangerous sold 32 million, and even his poorly received last studio album, Invincible, apparently sold 12 million and that’s not even mentioning 1997’s Blood on the Dance Floor, the biggest selling remix album ever, with 6 million sales” (Paul Lester).
Where else could Michael Jackson therefore go, if not down into a sense of self-dissatisfaction? And so it seems tragically logical that he was destined to become more and more “wacko” to recapture something of that thrill of Thriller (cheap pun, I know).
This contributed to the further hypercommodification of Michael Jackson, a topic brilliantly tackled in Jeremy Gilbert’s essay, “The Real Abstraction of Michael Jackson,” which is in my opinion the most striking essay of the bunch. In it, Jeremy Gilbert reflects on what transforms a celebrity from a “real” person into deities: “One of the things that we mean when we say that an object or person is ‘real’ is that there is at least some limit to the number of times we can see its image reproduced on a daily or a local basis.” Seeing Michael Jackson everywhere, be it on the “Thriller” video clip that was constantly played on MTV, on subsequent, larger than life video clips such as “Remember the Time” and “Black or White,” in the various items linked to Michael Jackson (red leather jackets, fedoras, armbands) as well as on the promotional imagery for his various albums -– particularly for Dangerous (which included a 40 foot tall statue of Michael Jackson floating down the Thames), turned him from a mere talented artist to a deity of sorts. “To put this more simply, I was struck very powerfully by the sense that one of the things that we mean when we say that an object or person is ‘real’ is that there is at least some limit to the number of times we can see its image reproduced on a daily or a local basis; that there are only so many identical life-sized cardboard cut-outs of a person that can appear in public places before that person actually loses the quality of being real. The actuality of Michael Jackson seemed to have been not merely distorted, but overwhelmed, drowned in a sea of its own images” (Jeremy Gilbert).
Consequently, Michael Jackson, despite his natural talent and his uncanny ability to dazzle (or rather, because of them), became only about the dazzle. In his pursuit to dazzle, he often put himself to the side. “With Bad and its equally horrible successors Dangerous (1991), HIStory (1995) and Invisible (2001), he seemed to be second guessing what the public wanted instead of listening to his own instincts. More to the point, he’d lost touch with everything that was organically great about Michael Jackson” (Barney Hoskyns). Which is all the more ironic, as Michael Jackson was, potentially, the one artist who could have released just about anything he wanted and it would have easily sold in the millions, and yet he felt compelled to dilute his essence in creating something he thought would sell in the millions.
Perhaps this is why Michael Jackson seemed so burdened in the last years of his life. It was not only that he was broken by the child molestation accusations, but also that he never quite managed to dazzle us as much as he did with Thriller, and this weighed heavily on him. For a man who, as a child, was told that his worth was related to his ability to dazzle, it created a perfect storm for a breakdown. The battle between singing and performing as an expression of his inherent talent versus singing and performing only to dazzle, was a constant one throughout the second half of his life, and “you could sense his discomfort at having to pretend to be something he wasn’t. And yet, as the public probed him for signs of the opposite over the next few years, the more he felt pressured into proclaiming his manly vitality — hence, Bad followed by Dangerous followed by Invincible -– when really he was growing progressively weak” (Paul Lester). He had to be Michael Jackson the performer, which might have helped stifle Michael Jackson, the human.
When put in the context of this social reality, Michael Jackson’s song lyrics -– even those songs that are meant to be purely inspirational –- take on a whole other layer of meaning (check out Domonic Fox’s analysis of “Earth Song,” for example). It also helps understand, at least partly, Michael Jackson’s obsession with plastic surgery, which might have been an attempt to become someone that anyone could identify with –- the black man, the white woman, the black woman, the white woman -– Michael’s successive surgeries tried (unsuccessfully) to mould all of those characteristics into one persona, only to have it backfire: “You can be as raunchy as you want to be as long as you remain even closer to the pre-established stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Michael Jackson’s refusal or inability to do so is the least understood aspect of his persona” (Stephen Shaviro).
All of which seems to make Michael Jackson’s demise rather inevitable, and “later Michael Jackson, with his myriad conceits and eccentricities and physical disintegration, tells a more eloquent and tragic story about contemporary superstardom” (David Stubbs). Michael constant struggle to surpass himself and dazzle us à la Thriller was impossible, since today’s world, with YouTube and blogs, has become one of endless babble and little stories, “without great unifying narratives, and without global superstars or leaders. Jackson’s career should be a reminder to us not only that capitalism is cunning, deadly and very, very good at what it does, but also that things can always change (…) The final fate of Michael Jackson -– decrepit, deranged and broke -– stands as a warning to later generations, that even the biggest start the world has ever known cannot withstand the demands of capital alone” (Jean-François Lyotard).
No review could possibly cover the entirety of the concepts, themes and reflections this book engenders. The above reflections were only based on a minimal part of the book. I have a whole other document of notes that I took while reading The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson. And I must warn you: it might give you an irresistible urge to purchase even more books about music journalism and Jacksonism.
And who knows; perhaps Michael Jackson’s legacy could be the most unexpected of all: that an entire generation who grew up with his music, in their attempt to understand how his promising career crashed like it did, will learn to appreciate music for more than a mere background soundtrack that blocks out the world around them, becoming instead another way to understand that confusing and chaotic world, thus helping them gain a certain measure of control on it and helping to advance human civilization.
Wouldn’t that be a legacy worthy of the King of Pop?
(First published on Blogcritics and http://saharsreviews.wordpress.com)
Seriously, who has been listening in on my phone calls?
Slight X-Phile paranoia aside, The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson is a series of essays about the man, the artist, the legend and the victim that was Michael Jackson. It’s a great way to keep one’s feet on earth, both for those who tend to deify the man, as well as for those who tend to cast him as a corporate devil (neither of which he is). These essays by twenty-three thinkers from the music industry portray many of Michael Jacksons’ sides, thus appealing to many audiences: from the young, die-hard fan to the older music critic, from the music lover puzzled by the phenomenal success of songs he considers catchy at best to the one still awed by the magic of Michael Jackson’s performances, the point of views expressed in this book are varied, making all the richer.
Caught in our day-to-day lives and using music as a background soundtrack, we often forget all it can represent. After all, music can’t be separated from the social environment in which it was created, and Michael Jackson’s music was one of the things that was influenced by as well as influenced the 1980s and 1990s (albeit for very different reasons). This book provides a look at the greater social environment in which Michael Jackson’s music was born, evolved and, ultimately and quite unfortunately, died. Because Michael Jackson isn’t only about the music: “The contributors to the book do not always agree about Jackson’s music, but they all agree that Jackson was a symptom that needs to be reckoned with and analyzed” (Mark Fisher).
The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson is also a lesson in music appreciation, as its essays are a tribute of sorts to the fading art of music journalism. To be honest, I had never quite understood the importance of music journalism; like many others of my generation, music is what carries me through the many emotions of being a teenager and then a young adult. In a world of chaos and confusion, music tends to be my one constant. But, of course, music is a lot more than that. While for the veterans and professionals alike, Demise includes parts that they will consider obvious analysis as well as details and explanations they are quite familiar with, for those of us like myself who are just fans, it’s a great way to learn to appreciate music –- and particularly, Michael Jackson’s music –- in a totally different way.
Michael Jackson’s demise, according to Mark Fisher, started way before we tend to pinpoint its beginnings at. Some would point out the more advanced surgeries, the increasing eccentricities or the two child molestation charges (especially the second one), but Mark Fisher thinks it has to do with the release of Thriller. And if you think about it, it makes sense –- Thriller came out at a period in history that is never again going to happen, when mass marketing was starting and was still controlled by the very few, and international superstardom was easily accessible to anyone with enough talent and drive –- which Michael Jackson certainly did.
But the other reason Mark Fisher tells us that Michael Jackson’s Thriller marked the beginning of his demise is that with the hypercommodification of the artist through as phenomenal and influential a creation as Thriller, brought to life at a time that was basically a perfect setting for its propagation and dominance with little to no competition, the je-ne-sais-quoi that defined Jacksonism, which culminated with Off the Wall — and which Michael Jackson was shaped by -– died.
After all, as David Stubbs explains, “Thriller marked huge changes in the interfaces between pop, rock, R&B and MTV. If it marked another of the successive deaths that constitute Michael Jackson’s career (as shrewdly lampooned in the satirical US website The Onion’s mock-obituary, ‘Final Piece of Michael Jackson Dies’), then perhaps the album also marks, coincidentally, the death of soul itself. Who, after all, has really made a great, first-hand, stylistically unselfconscious soul record in the last twenty-five years? Has that been possible in the post-Thriller climate?” So many artists today were deeply influenced and are defined by Michael Jackson; “The whole ultra choreographed ‘X Factor’ world we now live in -– from Prince to Madonna to Britney to Beyoncé -– surely [started there]” (Barney Hoskyns). And it wasn’t just because of the special effects and over the top performances; it was because of what Michael Jackson represented: “The utopia of Michael Jackson, the universality of his music, had to do precisely with its challenge to this history of race in America,” as “everybody (…) intuitively understood that Michael Jackson raised ‘the possibility of living in a new way,’ at least as much as Elvis, The Beatles, or The Sex Pistols ever did” (Stephen Shaviro).
Thriller set the bar high for other artists, it’s true, but the one person for whom the bar was not only set, but was the source of a lifelong drive to surpass, was Michael Jackson himself. And the fact that he didn’t surpass his own self left behind the imaginary smell of failure, since despite their inability to surpass Thriller, Michael Jackson’s subsequent albums were quite successful: “The facts are: Bad sold 30 million copies, Dangerous sold 32 million, and even his poorly received last studio album, Invincible, apparently sold 12 million and that’s not even mentioning 1997’s Blood on the Dance Floor, the biggest selling remix album ever, with 6 million sales” (Paul Lester).
Where else could Michael Jackson therefore go, if not down into a sense of self-dissatisfaction? And so it seems tragically logical that he was destined to become more and more “wacko” to recapture something of that thrill of Thriller (cheap pun, I know).
This contributed to the further hypercommodification of Michael Jackson, a topic brilliantly tackled in Jeremy Gilbert’s essay, “The Real Abstraction of Michael Jackson,” which is in my opinion the most striking essay of the bunch. In it, Jeremy Gilbert reflects on what transforms a celebrity from a “real” person into deities: “One of the things that we mean when we say that an object or person is ‘real’ is that there is at least some limit to the number of times we can see its image reproduced on a daily or a local basis.” Seeing Michael Jackson everywhere, be it on the “Thriller” video clip that was constantly played on MTV, on subsequent, larger than life video clips such as “Remember the Time” and “Black or White,” in the various items linked to Michael Jackson (red leather jackets, fedoras, armbands) as well as on the promotional imagery for his various albums -– particularly for Dangerous (which included a 40 foot tall statue of Michael Jackson floating down the Thames), turned him from a mere talented artist to a deity of sorts. “To put this more simply, I was struck very powerfully by the sense that one of the things that we mean when we say that an object or person is ‘real’ is that there is at least some limit to the number of times we can see its image reproduced on a daily or a local basis; that there are only so many identical life-sized cardboard cut-outs of a person that can appear in public places before that person actually loses the quality of being real. The actuality of Michael Jackson seemed to have been not merely distorted, but overwhelmed, drowned in a sea of its own images” (Jeremy Gilbert).
Consequently, Michael Jackson, despite his natural talent and his uncanny ability to dazzle (or rather, because of them), became only about the dazzle. In his pursuit to dazzle, he often put himself to the side. “With Bad and its equally horrible successors Dangerous (1991), HIStory (1995) and Invisible (2001), he seemed to be second guessing what the public wanted instead of listening to his own instincts. More to the point, he’d lost touch with everything that was organically great about Michael Jackson” (Barney Hoskyns). Which is all the more ironic, as Michael Jackson was, potentially, the one artist who could have released just about anything he wanted and it would have easily sold in the millions, and yet he felt compelled to dilute his essence in creating something he thought would sell in the millions.
Perhaps this is why Michael Jackson seemed so burdened in the last years of his life. It was not only that he was broken by the child molestation accusations, but also that he never quite managed to dazzle us as much as he did with Thriller, and this weighed heavily on him. For a man who, as a child, was told that his worth was related to his ability to dazzle, it created a perfect storm for a breakdown. The battle between singing and performing as an expression of his inherent talent versus singing and performing only to dazzle, was a constant one throughout the second half of his life, and “you could sense his discomfort at having to pretend to be something he wasn’t. And yet, as the public probed him for signs of the opposite over the next few years, the more he felt pressured into proclaiming his manly vitality — hence, Bad followed by Dangerous followed by Invincible -– when really he was growing progressively weak” (Paul Lester). He had to be Michael Jackson the performer, which might have helped stifle Michael Jackson, the human.
When put in the context of this social reality, Michael Jackson’s song lyrics -– even those songs that are meant to be purely inspirational –- take on a whole other layer of meaning (check out Domonic Fox’s analysis of “Earth Song,” for example). It also helps understand, at least partly, Michael Jackson’s obsession with plastic surgery, which might have been an attempt to become someone that anyone could identify with –- the black man, the white woman, the black woman, the white woman -– Michael’s successive surgeries tried (unsuccessfully) to mould all of those characteristics into one persona, only to have it backfire: “You can be as raunchy as you want to be as long as you remain even closer to the pre-established stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Michael Jackson’s refusal or inability to do so is the least understood aspect of his persona” (Stephen Shaviro).
All of which seems to make Michael Jackson’s demise rather inevitable, and “later Michael Jackson, with his myriad conceits and eccentricities and physical disintegration, tells a more eloquent and tragic story about contemporary superstardom” (David Stubbs). Michael constant struggle to surpass himself and dazzle us à la Thriller was impossible, since today’s world, with YouTube and blogs, has become one of endless babble and little stories, “without great unifying narratives, and without global superstars or leaders. Jackson’s career should be a reminder to us not only that capitalism is cunning, deadly and very, very good at what it does, but also that things can always change (…) The final fate of Michael Jackson -– decrepit, deranged and broke -– stands as a warning to later generations, that even the biggest start the world has ever known cannot withstand the demands of capital alone” (Jean-François Lyotard).
No review could possibly cover the entirety of the concepts, themes and reflections this book engenders. The above reflections were only based on a minimal part of the book. I have a whole other document of notes that I took while reading The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson. And I must warn you: it might give you an irresistible urge to purchase even more books about music journalism and Jacksonism.
And who knows; perhaps Michael Jackson’s legacy could be the most unexpected of all: that an entire generation who grew up with his music, in their attempt to understand how his promising career crashed like it did, will learn to appreciate music for more than a mere background soundtrack that blocks out the world around them, becoming instead another way to understand that confusing and chaotic world, thus helping them gain a certain measure of control on it and helping to advance human civilization.
Wouldn’t that be a legacy worthy of the King of Pop?
(First published on Blogcritics and http://saharsreviews.wordpress.com)
November 12, 2015
Libro un tanto irregular, con algunos ensayos muy interesantes y algunas ideas muy reveladoras, pero con otros repetitivos o basados en argumentos de poco peso o poco creíbles. Este libro os puede interesar si os gusta leer crítica cultural echa desde un punto de vista sociológico o psicológico; o si queréis cargaros de argumentos sobre la mercantilización de la cultura por parte del neoliberalismo; o si simplemente tenéis morbo por saber cuántas interpretaciones estrambóticas diferentes se pueden hacer sobre los cambios de color de piel de Michael Jackson. Si lo que queréis es aprender sobre la música de MJ o sobre los fenómenos socio-culturales que subyacen tras su evolución musical, tened cuidado, Jacksonismo os puede decepcionar. Reseña completa:
http://www.libros-prohibidos.com/mark...
http://www.libros-prohibidos.com/mark...
March 15, 2023
Some OK essays here, but despite attempts at profundity, I didn't get much more than a basic core message from most: Off the Wall = masterpiece, Thriller = flawed masterpiece, and it all went downhill after that as Michael became an embodiment/symbol/victim of America's predatory capitalism and racial issues. Agreed, but it surprised me none of these music journos rated Bad at all. The centrepiece of the book is a bizarre creative writing exercise - a series of imagined episodes from MJ's daily life. Bizarre in the sense of what is it doing here?
November 24, 2021
Excellent compilation of essays and writings, including a piece of creative writing, about Michael Jackson, 'the King of Pop', whose life metamorphosed through many different personas, expressions and indeed faces. These mainly British writers, united under the Zero publishing house and directed by the late Mark Fisher, who penned the first essay, all use their considerable writing talents to open up MJ to a critical, historical, post-modern light.
What emerges is not pretty, rarely redemptive and sometimes damning. Yet his legend, his extraordinary achievement in terms of musical contribution, the epic trajectory of his life, and his sheer popularity amongst so many in the world, endure, despite and sometimes because of his utter singularity and increasing weirdness through the years.
There is no unequivocal judgment on the allegations of paedophilia. Most of the writers err on the side of 'not sure', with one thinking that most people thought 'probably'. Would it be weirder if he actually were not a paedophile? Make him less easy to group in with other 'fallen' stars such as Saville, Harris and Glitter. Childhood is a fundamental theme for one whose star rose early in his life, with his prepubescent and adolescent perfection immortalised in pictures, videos and songs - when he really was black, part of a musical dynasty and family, when he was still human in a natural sense, and before his wounds twisted around to distort his appearance through surgical interventions.
For one who was beaten in his early years by his ambitious and demanding father, he veered between different images of psyche - the picture-perfect child-star, disco supremo, the psychotic protagonist of Thriller, 'bad', 'dangerous', 'invincible' and the messianic author of 'Earth Song', towering over the planet in a critical state, as Jarvis Cocker mocked his po-faced seriousness by wafting away a fake fart at the Brit awards.
Rising rapidly through different levels of fame, to create a new standard for the neo-liberal age, cheekily marrying for a few years the daughter of the King of Rock and Roll, and epitomising the MTV age with a pan-global appeal, which attempted to transcend 'black and white', different continents and his own familial roots. He poured the rewards of this phenomenal success into the realised fantasy of Neverland, which he filled with kitsch, indulgence and impossible standards, wanting flowers cut before they wilted, leading some staff to make allusions to the Hitler-like quality of the control he applied to his domain. His project to float massive statues of himself down different rivers in cities round the world, including the Thames, led at least one of the essayists to compare him to a Soviet dictator, attempting to fill a gap left empty by the collapse of the USSR. And his world-saviour tendencies, including his statement that he could have redeemed Hitler, sit alongside his world-denying tendencies, including his famous surgical masks and oxygen-tanks. No-one has filled his shoes in a musical and cultural sense of being THE supreme and untouchable icon, but one writer suggests that Obama's presidency eclipsed Jackson's status, and thus was the inevitable background for his death.
Jackson rode the crest of the Reagan-era of capitalism, enjoyed the spoils of consumerism and achieved a rare singularity, though neither his first name (Jordan, Keaton, etc), nor his surname (too many famous Jacksons), will ever be unique in their association with or evocation of him, in the way Marilyn is to Monroe. He remains a variant of a few particular, overlapping contexts, from the mid sixties to the late noughties, and like Elvis, his artistic decline and distortion played out for years, until his eventual death, in June 2009.
Somewhat like Bowie, or the Beatles, we may not be abject fans, devoted obsessives, as some are, but so many people have a soft-spot for at least one or two MJ songs. The consensus in the book is that his later work, after Bad, was not comparable to the dazzling peaks of his earlier genius. Although he still commanded vast sales figures and audience numbers - 50 planned consecutive concerts at the 02 arena, as part of the This is It tour in late 2009 - riding the huge momentum of his earlier achievements and the cult of personality which had accrued around his name and work.
This means that, along the various grotesques and eccentricities which his life threw up in later years, as well as unanswered questions, which may or may not be explained by the out of court settlements, his life transmutes from one of music splendour, to tragic attempts in the realm of extreme fame and wealth, to capture the public's heart, or indeed repel them, in a perverse and still attention-grabbing way. One of the outstanding details of his later years and indeed his death, was his dependency on painkillers, to cope with psychic pain which fame and negative publicity seemed to intensify, and which his lifestyle choices failed to remedy. The book thus has the air of a collective psychoanalytic exercise, targeting in from various perspectives and styles, with the writers clearly torn by immense enjoyment of the rich subject material, and the utter freakish tragedy towards which his life snowballed, which they are attempting to explain and document.
Read it. More is said than just about MJ and it fulfils Zero's remit to occupy the space between academic and more populist writing, with some 'household names' from the stables of Melody Maker, like David Stubbs, making appearances here. The over-riding question that permeates the book, is does all this mean anything more than what it is - does the context(s) explain what happened to him (his father, unresolved racism in US society, the accelerating and objectifying cult of the celebrity in the MTV/CD age of neo-liberal capitalism) and what does it say about us that we are witnesses, celebrants and tempted to be condemners of such a person as MJ? These questions have to hang, only partially answered, but 'the Resistible demise of Michael Jackson' lets them have a full run to explore the legend that is, was, and probably will always be - MJ.
What emerges is not pretty, rarely redemptive and sometimes damning. Yet his legend, his extraordinary achievement in terms of musical contribution, the epic trajectory of his life, and his sheer popularity amongst so many in the world, endure, despite and sometimes because of his utter singularity and increasing weirdness through the years.
There is no unequivocal judgment on the allegations of paedophilia. Most of the writers err on the side of 'not sure', with one thinking that most people thought 'probably'. Would it be weirder if he actually were not a paedophile? Make him less easy to group in with other 'fallen' stars such as Saville, Harris and Glitter. Childhood is a fundamental theme for one whose star rose early in his life, with his prepubescent and adolescent perfection immortalised in pictures, videos and songs - when he really was black, part of a musical dynasty and family, when he was still human in a natural sense, and before his wounds twisted around to distort his appearance through surgical interventions.
For one who was beaten in his early years by his ambitious and demanding father, he veered between different images of psyche - the picture-perfect child-star, disco supremo, the psychotic protagonist of Thriller, 'bad', 'dangerous', 'invincible' and the messianic author of 'Earth Song', towering over the planet in a critical state, as Jarvis Cocker mocked his po-faced seriousness by wafting away a fake fart at the Brit awards.
Rising rapidly through different levels of fame, to create a new standard for the neo-liberal age, cheekily marrying for a few years the daughter of the King of Rock and Roll, and epitomising the MTV age with a pan-global appeal, which attempted to transcend 'black and white', different continents and his own familial roots. He poured the rewards of this phenomenal success into the realised fantasy of Neverland, which he filled with kitsch, indulgence and impossible standards, wanting flowers cut before they wilted, leading some staff to make allusions to the Hitler-like quality of the control he applied to his domain. His project to float massive statues of himself down different rivers in cities round the world, including the Thames, led at least one of the essayists to compare him to a Soviet dictator, attempting to fill a gap left empty by the collapse of the USSR. And his world-saviour tendencies, including his statement that he could have redeemed Hitler, sit alongside his world-denying tendencies, including his famous surgical masks and oxygen-tanks. No-one has filled his shoes in a musical and cultural sense of being THE supreme and untouchable icon, but one writer suggests that Obama's presidency eclipsed Jackson's status, and thus was the inevitable background for his death.
Jackson rode the crest of the Reagan-era of capitalism, enjoyed the spoils of consumerism and achieved a rare singularity, though neither his first name (Jordan, Keaton, etc), nor his surname (too many famous Jacksons), will ever be unique in their association with or evocation of him, in the way Marilyn is to Monroe. He remains a variant of a few particular, overlapping contexts, from the mid sixties to the late noughties, and like Elvis, his artistic decline and distortion played out for years, until his eventual death, in June 2009.
Somewhat like Bowie, or the Beatles, we may not be abject fans, devoted obsessives, as some are, but so many people have a soft-spot for at least one or two MJ songs. The consensus in the book is that his later work, after Bad, was not comparable to the dazzling peaks of his earlier genius. Although he still commanded vast sales figures and audience numbers - 50 planned consecutive concerts at the 02 arena, as part of the This is It tour in late 2009 - riding the huge momentum of his earlier achievements and the cult of personality which had accrued around his name and work.
This means that, along the various grotesques and eccentricities which his life threw up in later years, as well as unanswered questions, which may or may not be explained by the out of court settlements, his life transmutes from one of music splendour, to tragic attempts in the realm of extreme fame and wealth, to capture the public's heart, or indeed repel them, in a perverse and still attention-grabbing way. One of the outstanding details of his later years and indeed his death, was his dependency on painkillers, to cope with psychic pain which fame and negative publicity seemed to intensify, and which his lifestyle choices failed to remedy. The book thus has the air of a collective psychoanalytic exercise, targeting in from various perspectives and styles, with the writers clearly torn by immense enjoyment of the rich subject material, and the utter freakish tragedy towards which his life snowballed, which they are attempting to explain and document.
Read it. More is said than just about MJ and it fulfils Zero's remit to occupy the space between academic and more populist writing, with some 'household names' from the stables of Melody Maker, like David Stubbs, making appearances here. The over-riding question that permeates the book, is does all this mean anything more than what it is - does the context(s) explain what happened to him (his father, unresolved racism in US society, the accelerating and objectifying cult of the celebrity in the MTV/CD age of neo-liberal capitalism) and what does it say about us that we are witnesses, celebrants and tempted to be condemners of such a person as MJ? These questions have to hang, only partially answered, but 'the Resistible demise of Michael Jackson' lets them have a full run to explore the legend that is, was, and probably will always be - MJ.
January 4, 2022
Fantastic essays by Barney Hoskyns, Steven Shaviro and Jeremy Gilbert are unfortunately the exceptions in what is a largely mundane reiteration of the same old tropes about Jackson's 'rise' and 'fall', most of which is based on little more research than watching a couple of the better-known music videos. It's odd, too, that almost all the contributors are male, English and/or based in London, although as inheritors of imperial privilege it might say something about their willingness to indulge in what is at times an appalling exhumation of a dead African-American body.
November 18, 2014
"Sin duda, su legado [el de Michael Jackson] no es la música sino todos esos chicos para quienes hoy los medios [de comunicación] son la vida, el aliento, una segunda naturaleza. (...) Las nuevas generaciones ahora operan así. Sexo=medios, amistad=medios, música=medios. Vida=medios."
Fui y soy un eventual oyente de Michael Jackson. No me sé la coreo de "Thriller" pero te canto "Smooth criminal" con alegría y creo que "Scream" es uno de los mejores videos de los '90. La vida privada de Jackson siempre me pareció una pesadilla en la que uno entra y no sabe cómo salir, sobre todo porque Jackson no te lo permitía (el Jackson de la década del 2000 tenia un aire a Freddy Krugger, encima). Y siempre me dieron mucha más lástima sus hijos que los pibes a los que (supuestamente) violó. La justicia dictaminó dos veces que no les hizo nada, pero ya sabemos de sobre que entre la justicia y la verdad hay años luz de distancia.
En ese limbo me puse a leer este libro.
Qué no es "Jacksonismo":
-No es una biografía de Jackson. Esto ya lo sabía.
-No es un análisis de la música de Jackson. Esto me lo imaginaba, pero en el fondo me esperaba que alguien me contara al menos alguna anécdota.
-No es un racconto de los escándalos mediáticos de Jackson. Esta fue la sorpresa más grande; yo creía que iba a haber más sobre su piel blanca y la no-cara de Jackson.
-No es un libro a favor de Jackson. De hecho, el único articulo en el que hablan bien de Jackson es uno que habla sobre su influencia en la cultura de la India en la década del '90.
Qué sí es Jacksonismo:
Es un libro que habla sobre nosotros, sobre mi/nuestra generación, la que nació a fines de los '70-comienzos de los '80. Es un libro sobre el neoliberalismo, sobre el capitalismo salvaje, sobre vivir en una sociedad donde ya es verdad aceptada que el socialismo y el comunismo son dos ideas idiotas e imposibles que sólo se le ocurren a hippies sucios. Es un libro sobre qué nos define.
Por supuesto, no estoy diciendo (ni nadie en el libro lo dice) que seamos Michael Jackson. Casi todos los ensayos hablan sobre símbolos, sobre representaciones, sobre paralelismos cargados de significado.
Pero Jackson sí era el ejemplo extremo, absurdo y literal de todos los vicios de nuestra generación: el individualismo, el materialismo, la búsqueda constante de pertenecer, la desesperación por dejar de ser uno mismo. Busquen cualquier característica de los '90, y vas a ver que podés agarrar a Jackson como ejemplo de eso. Y no hablo de las cosas básicas como las drogas o las cirugías estéticas.
Por ejemplo: "Beat it". Esta es una de las canciones que más se nombra a lo largo de los ensayos, porque hace algo que nadie había hecho hasta el momento (y que hoy por hoy nos parece lo más básico del mundo): en un tema disco, género exclusivo de los negros, hay un riff de guitarra de rock, género exclusivo de los blancos. No es sólo la idea de Jackson fundó la fórmula "dance + rock = pop" que sigue funcionando incluso hoy (desde Katy Perry hasta Imagine Dragons, no hay ni un artista pop que no aplique a esa fórmula). "Beat it" va más allá: le da a los negros música de blancos, y viceversa. Motown fue, es y siempre va a ser un nombre ligado a la raza negra; Jackson dijo fuck you y les dio Motown a todos los blancos. Y hoy no habría Amy Winehouse si Jackson no hubiera hecho eso.
La mezcla de género/raza se extiende a otro aspecto, con el que Jackson rompió las bolas escribiendo hasta morir: somos todos uno, no hay blancos o negros, somos todos iguales, bla bla bla. Podés situarte en el contexto del neoliberalismo, agregale una pizca de publicidades de Pepsi con Jackson y Jordan, y el resultado es que "somos todos iguales, así que todos podemos comprar estas Nike, tomar esta Pepsi y comprar estos discos, porque SOMOS TODOS IGUALES". Jackson insistó con que somos todos iguales, no hay diferencias entre las razas (miren el final de "Black or white"; incluso hoy asombra lo bien hecha que está esa escena), y él quiso ser la prueba viviente de eso: pasó de ser negro a blanco porque, hey, no hay razas. A tal punto que él dejó de ser blanco también. En los últimos años ya era más que blanco. Era un color no-humano de una persona que parecía no-viva.
Y es que Jackson no era humano y no estaba vivo. El padre le quitó la vida a trompadas durante su infancia, y él la trató de recuperar durante toda su adultez. Por algo vivía en un parque de diversiones, tenía un zoológico en el patio, compraba juguetes y su mejor amigo era Mackauly Caulkin. Su casa era el sueño de todo chico de siete años.
(No me quiero meter en si violó a esos dos nenes o no. El libro no trata de eso.)
Y Jackson como Peter Pan es algo que hoy vemos todo el tiempo. Las madres que se visten como sus hijas. Los cuarentones que salen con borregas de 20 años. Personas que acuden al bisturí para sacarse años, lustros, décadas de su cara, para negar su edad. Cada vez más ves a padres y madres de familia que salen a reventar la noche todas las semanas como si fueran adolescentes. Bailando Michael Jackson.
Pero Jackson estaba aún por encima de eso. Miren el video de "Scream". Jackson está en una nave espacial, por encima de todos los terrícolas. Está el solo con su otro yo, con su hermana Janet. Jackson está ENCIMA de todos nosotros, alejado, allá arriba. Hace lo que quiere (rompe jarrones, posee obras de arte carísimas y las mira con aburrimiento), y lo hace porque puede. Hay una escena que nadie rescata en el libro, pero no le había prestado atención: en un momento van a a sala de "observación", en la que Jackson mira a su único prójimo, a Janet, encerrada en una habitación volviéndose loca. Incluso ver a su hermana es a través de un vidrio, como si fuera un animal en un zoológico.
Hoy por hoy, cada vez más nuestra generación (y las que vinieron después de la nuestra) se comportan así: nuestro primer trato con el otro, nuestro trato acaso más íntimo con el otro, es a través de un vidrio, el del monitor. Jackson lo hizo primero, en 1995.
De hecho, Jackson llevó tan al extremo el individualismo y el no-contacto con el prójimo (como llevó al extremo todo en su vida), que incluso sus hijos nacieron sin necesidad de relaciones sexuales; sus hijos, criaturas de un mundo en el que no existen las razas y por eso son blancos.
Jackson también quiso curar el mundo porque nosotros somos los niños y ellos no se preocupan por nosotros (jeje, tres canciones en una sola oración, soy un grosso). En el neoliberalismo de Pepsi y Nike, la solución a los problemas del mundo es... denunciarlos y caridad. Hoy hay ONG para todos, pero soluciones no hay ninguna. Y Jackson hizo eso: en vez de promulgar algún tipo de denuncia efectiva, mejor calmemos nuestra culpa y cantemos "We are the world". Y hoy vemos eso en TODOS lados. En vez de solucionar el problema habitacional, firmamos por internet algún tipo de petitorio. Jackson lo hizo primero, hace veinte años.
Sé que nadie llegó hasta acá, nadie lee una review tan larga. Nuestra generación lo quiere todo, pero fundamentalmente lo quiere YA. La inmediatez es una característica de nuestro tiempo. Nadie quiere problemas ("sin vueltas, cero mambos"), ni propios ni ajenos.
Hay un video en YouTube de Jackson yendo de compras en Las Vegas. Mírenlo. Jackson hizo del "sin vueltas, cero mambos" veinte años antes que nosotros. Y así le fue.
Hay un par de ensayos que realmente no sé qué querían decir; algunos autores abarcan mucho y no hacen foco en una idea y por eso el texto termina haciendo agua. Algunos otros hacen uso y abuso de terminología rara y sentís que te estás perdiendo alguna idea interesante (ejemplo: uno de los ensayos se llama "Maniobras de unheimlich y metonimias muertas en vida de Michael Jackson". WTF). Pero las más de las veces vas a encontrarte con alguna idea que te sacude la estantería, principalmente porque son reflexiones sobre cosas con las que viviste treinta años de tu vida y jamás pensaste sobre eso.
Otra cosa criticable: todos los ensayos (en esto sí han sido unánimes) dicen que después del disco "Thriller", Jackson no hizo nada memorable en cuanto a calidad musical. Tírense de un puente: "HIStory" es un discazo de puta madre.
Fui y soy un eventual oyente de Michael Jackson. No me sé la coreo de "Thriller" pero te canto "Smooth criminal" con alegría y creo que "Scream" es uno de los mejores videos de los '90. La vida privada de Jackson siempre me pareció una pesadilla en la que uno entra y no sabe cómo salir, sobre todo porque Jackson no te lo permitía (el Jackson de la década del 2000 tenia un aire a Freddy Krugger, encima). Y siempre me dieron mucha más lástima sus hijos que los pibes a los que (supuestamente) violó. La justicia dictaminó dos veces que no les hizo nada, pero ya sabemos de sobre que entre la justicia y la verdad hay años luz de distancia.
En ese limbo me puse a leer este libro.
Qué no es "Jacksonismo":
-No es una biografía de Jackson. Esto ya lo sabía.
-No es un análisis de la música de Jackson. Esto me lo imaginaba, pero en el fondo me esperaba que alguien me contara al menos alguna anécdota.
-No es un racconto de los escándalos mediáticos de Jackson. Esta fue la sorpresa más grande; yo creía que iba a haber más sobre su piel blanca y la no-cara de Jackson.
-No es un libro a favor de Jackson. De hecho, el único articulo en el que hablan bien de Jackson es uno que habla sobre su influencia en la cultura de la India en la década del '90.
Qué sí es Jacksonismo:
Es un libro que habla sobre nosotros, sobre mi/nuestra generación, la que nació a fines de los '70-comienzos de los '80. Es un libro sobre el neoliberalismo, sobre el capitalismo salvaje, sobre vivir en una sociedad donde ya es verdad aceptada que el socialismo y el comunismo son dos ideas idiotas e imposibles que sólo se le ocurren a hippies sucios. Es un libro sobre qué nos define.
Por supuesto, no estoy diciendo (ni nadie en el libro lo dice) que seamos Michael Jackson. Casi todos los ensayos hablan sobre símbolos, sobre representaciones, sobre paralelismos cargados de significado.
Pero Jackson sí era el ejemplo extremo, absurdo y literal de todos los vicios de nuestra generación: el individualismo, el materialismo, la búsqueda constante de pertenecer, la desesperación por dejar de ser uno mismo. Busquen cualquier característica de los '90, y vas a ver que podés agarrar a Jackson como ejemplo de eso. Y no hablo de las cosas básicas como las drogas o las cirugías estéticas.
Por ejemplo: "Beat it". Esta es una de las canciones que más se nombra a lo largo de los ensayos, porque hace algo que nadie había hecho hasta el momento (y que hoy por hoy nos parece lo más básico del mundo): en un tema disco, género exclusivo de los negros, hay un riff de guitarra de rock, género exclusivo de los blancos. No es sólo la idea de Jackson fundó la fórmula "dance + rock = pop" que sigue funcionando incluso hoy (desde Katy Perry hasta Imagine Dragons, no hay ni un artista pop que no aplique a esa fórmula). "Beat it" va más allá: le da a los negros música de blancos, y viceversa. Motown fue, es y siempre va a ser un nombre ligado a la raza negra; Jackson dijo fuck you y les dio Motown a todos los blancos. Y hoy no habría Amy Winehouse si Jackson no hubiera hecho eso.
La mezcla de género/raza se extiende a otro aspecto, con el que Jackson rompió las bolas escribiendo hasta morir: somos todos uno, no hay blancos o negros, somos todos iguales, bla bla bla. Podés situarte en el contexto del neoliberalismo, agregale una pizca de publicidades de Pepsi con Jackson y Jordan, y el resultado es que "somos todos iguales, así que todos podemos comprar estas Nike, tomar esta Pepsi y comprar estos discos, porque SOMOS TODOS IGUALES". Jackson insistó con que somos todos iguales, no hay diferencias entre las razas (miren el final de "Black or white"; incluso hoy asombra lo bien hecha que está esa escena), y él quiso ser la prueba viviente de eso: pasó de ser negro a blanco porque, hey, no hay razas. A tal punto que él dejó de ser blanco también. En los últimos años ya era más que blanco. Era un color no-humano de una persona que parecía no-viva.
Y es que Jackson no era humano y no estaba vivo. El padre le quitó la vida a trompadas durante su infancia, y él la trató de recuperar durante toda su adultez. Por algo vivía en un parque de diversiones, tenía un zoológico en el patio, compraba juguetes y su mejor amigo era Mackauly Caulkin. Su casa era el sueño de todo chico de siete años.
(No me quiero meter en si violó a esos dos nenes o no. El libro no trata de eso.)
Y Jackson como Peter Pan es algo que hoy vemos todo el tiempo. Las madres que se visten como sus hijas. Los cuarentones que salen con borregas de 20 años. Personas que acuden al bisturí para sacarse años, lustros, décadas de su cara, para negar su edad. Cada vez más ves a padres y madres de familia que salen a reventar la noche todas las semanas como si fueran adolescentes. Bailando Michael Jackson.
Pero Jackson estaba aún por encima de eso. Miren el video de "Scream". Jackson está en una nave espacial, por encima de todos los terrícolas. Está el solo con su otro yo, con su hermana Janet. Jackson está ENCIMA de todos nosotros, alejado, allá arriba. Hace lo que quiere (rompe jarrones, posee obras de arte carísimas y las mira con aburrimiento), y lo hace porque puede. Hay una escena que nadie rescata en el libro, pero no le había prestado atención: en un momento van a a sala de "observación", en la que Jackson mira a su único prójimo, a Janet, encerrada en una habitación volviéndose loca. Incluso ver a su hermana es a través de un vidrio, como si fuera un animal en un zoológico.
Hoy por hoy, cada vez más nuestra generación (y las que vinieron después de la nuestra) se comportan así: nuestro primer trato con el otro, nuestro trato acaso más íntimo con el otro, es a través de un vidrio, el del monitor. Jackson lo hizo primero, en 1995.
De hecho, Jackson llevó tan al extremo el individualismo y el no-contacto con el prójimo (como llevó al extremo todo en su vida), que incluso sus hijos nacieron sin necesidad de relaciones sexuales; sus hijos, criaturas de un mundo en el que no existen las razas y por eso son blancos.
Jackson también quiso curar el mundo porque nosotros somos los niños y ellos no se preocupan por nosotros (jeje, tres canciones en una sola oración, soy un grosso). En el neoliberalismo de Pepsi y Nike, la solución a los problemas del mundo es... denunciarlos y caridad. Hoy hay ONG para todos, pero soluciones no hay ninguna. Y Jackson hizo eso: en vez de promulgar algún tipo de denuncia efectiva, mejor calmemos nuestra culpa y cantemos "We are the world". Y hoy vemos eso en TODOS lados. En vez de solucionar el problema habitacional, firmamos por internet algún tipo de petitorio. Jackson lo hizo primero, hace veinte años.
Sé que nadie llegó hasta acá, nadie lee una review tan larga. Nuestra generación lo quiere todo, pero fundamentalmente lo quiere YA. La inmediatez es una característica de nuestro tiempo. Nadie quiere problemas ("sin vueltas, cero mambos"), ni propios ni ajenos.
Hay un video en YouTube de Jackson yendo de compras en Las Vegas. Mírenlo. Jackson hizo del "sin vueltas, cero mambos" veinte años antes que nosotros. Y así le fue.
Hay un par de ensayos que realmente no sé qué querían decir; algunos autores abarcan mucho y no hacen foco en una idea y por eso el texto termina haciendo agua. Algunos otros hacen uso y abuso de terminología rara y sentís que te estás perdiendo alguna idea interesante (ejemplo: uno de los ensayos se llama "Maniobras de unheimlich y metonimias muertas en vida de Michael Jackson". WTF). Pero las más de las veces vas a encontrarte con alguna idea que te sacude la estantería, principalmente porque son reflexiones sobre cosas con las que viviste treinta años de tu vida y jamás pensaste sobre eso.
Otra cosa criticable: todos los ensayos (en esto sí han sido unánimes) dicen que después del disco "Thriller", Jackson no hizo nada memorable en cuanto a calidad musical. Tírense de un puente: "HIStory" es un discazo de puta madre.
January 1, 2025
No shortage of sharp, incisive, witty, but also loving and mournful reflections on the life, career, and legacy of Michael Jackson. The collection's only substantial shortcoming (and it is really a substantial one) is that 23 of the 25 essays collected here are authored by men, the vast majority of whom are also white. This disappointing homogeneity becomes palpable after roughly the halfway point mostly in the ways these authors largely tend to write about their subject in similar ways, using largely identical vocabularies, registers, and critical perspectives. It's a myopic view on how identity relates to cultural critique that has (ironically) tarnished Mark Fisher's own posthumous legacy as a generational intellectual.
May 11, 2010
It's funny how so many essays can be built around the same events. The best we clear and thought out, the worst exploratory and elongated; this is in no way endemic to my attention span. Worth the time, the 300 pages go by quickly.
Alex Williams summarizes it best: “Beneath the name ‘Michael Jackson’ lies a limitless media architecture, and infestation and corrosion of a most peculiar form of space. We enter the maze of Jackson ’s body, his corporeal body leading out onto his incorporeal body, his scars and his neuroses, feeding into the network of story-line/lies stretching all around him in a spider’s web, and we are lost in an enchanted revulsion at the possibilities of contemporary capitalism itself. This form of space, produced by capitalism’s ability to relentlessly abstract whilst simultaneously investing such structures with intense libidinal force is not just restricted to the tabloid media. For the same form of hyper-libidinized, yet abjectly abstract, architecture underpins the configurations of international finance, whose recent catastrophic collapse and the aftermath ironically coincided with the death of Jackson . The error, after all, was to believe that it was simply he who was trapped within the mirror maze, rather than ourselves”(266).
Alex Williams summarizes it best: “Beneath the name ‘Michael Jackson’ lies a limitless media architecture, and infestation and corrosion of a most peculiar form of space. We enter the maze of Jackson ’s body, his corporeal body leading out onto his incorporeal body, his scars and his neuroses, feeding into the network of story-line/lies stretching all around him in a spider’s web, and we are lost in an enchanted revulsion at the possibilities of contemporary capitalism itself. This form of space, produced by capitalism’s ability to relentlessly abstract whilst simultaneously investing such structures with intense libidinal force is not just restricted to the tabloid media. For the same form of hyper-libidinized, yet abjectly abstract, architecture underpins the configurations of international finance, whose recent catastrophic collapse and the aftermath ironically coincided with the death of Jackson . The error, after all, was to believe that it was simply he who was trapped within the mirror maze, rather than ourselves”(266).
August 23, 2025
muy entretenidos los ensayos
February 18, 2023
Me pareció original, tiene una narrativa fácil y dinámica. Aunque los puntos que destaca de él, como figura del espectáculo que fue, no creo que hayan sido los más fuertes e interesantes.
November 15, 2010
Meh. I was way too excited, and it was way too disappointing.
July 19, 2018
Lo sentí como un libro más de crítica que halagos al artista.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews