Work In Progress

I have to admit to Michael Jackson contemplation. While I liked some of his music and certainly had my share of opinions of his eccentricities, I never really paid that much attention to him. And now he is dead and I’ve been watching MTV’s marathon of his videos and listening to I Wonder Who’s Loving You a lot.

My mother remarked that when my cousin and musician Jeff Hanson passed away recently that she felt a smidge guilty that it was only then that she really paid attention to the beauty of his lyrics.

And I realized that there is logic to the dead artist cliché. Now that the machine/work in progress has finally stopped we can finally take a deep breath listen to Thriller with fresh critical ears without having to think about his nose job. Now that the artist is dead, the work can finally truly finished and can transcend. I think to be genius the work has to transcend the artist, move beyond the cult of personality. Death helps us forgive and forget art’s flawed human origins. Its no surprise that while there has been some musing on Jackson’s foibles, there has been so much more focus on “Damn this dude invented the moon-walk and Billie Jean”.

Rich from fourfour (one of my favorite pop-culture blogs) put it more eloquently:

[Jackson’s songs are]…scotchguarded with perfection, utmost examples of art that demands to be separated from its artist.(emphasis mine) And one of the most heartening phenomena I’ve observed in the population’s relationship to art has been its ability to do just that. I’d never give the public that much credit if I hadn’t observed countless examples of the unmitigated joy that results en masse when anything from Thriller is played at a party, no matter the attendees, no matter the occasion and still to this day.

MJ your work in progress is over and your comeback is now.