Moonwalking

As a youngster in the early 1980s, I reveled in making fun of Michael Jackson, all the while secretly thrilling to the songs I heard on the radio or saw on one of the music video shows (I wouldn't have MTV until the end of the decade). I watched the Motown tribute show when he unleashed the moonwalk; enjoyed the epic silliness of the "Thriller" video; loved Eddie Van Halen's solo on "Beat It." 

What I didn't do was buy "Thriller," It wouldn't be until I was in college that I picked up a used vinyl copy of it. Of course, you really didn't need the album -- seven of the nine tracks were released as singles -- to experience the album. 

By then, the long decline had also begun. Still in his early 20s when "Thriller" was completed, Jackson tried to recapture that particular spark album after album, but never succeeding. Instead, he went from "Dangerous" to "Bad" to... well, further and further downward. The irony that he declared himself "The King of Pop" just as he was slipping was music royalty wasn't lost on any observer.

And his eccentricities -- likely hidden behind his workload ahead of this -- came more and more to the fore. Plenty has been written about those, both harmless and allegedly criminal. For a time, he was a punchline and still a vital musician. During the past decade and a half, he just became a punchline.

I don't know if the concerts he was preparing for would have repaired the damage, but they did show that Jackson still had his fans. After all, he sold out 50 concerts at London, which is just a mind-boggling number. Maybe this was a real comeback, driven by years of ugly allegations, financial ruin (how does a man who sold hundreds of millions of albums and controlled one of the most lucrative music portfolios fall so deep into debt?) and personal actions that threatened to dwarf his music.

Instead, Jackson's gone. And while I can't fathom what he became, I can still dust off my copy of "Thriller," and try to moonwalk back into the past.