When I think about Michael Jackson, I think about the fact that he was the first musician I can recall who really made me think about dance as an integrated element of pop music. I also think about Eddie Van Halen, and the blistering guitar solo from “Beat It”, and how inconceivable it is today that the pairing of two such disparate elements would take place because of the way music has become balkanized in the last few decades. And I think about the fact that there’s probably no figure in modern pop culture who more embodies the give-and-take duality of celebrity; who else had such a massive influence on our culture and gave us so much amazing entertainment? And who else was so flamboyanty crazy, so corrupted and corrupting, so damaged and so damaging? Who else so erased the racial divisions in our culture only to rebuild them in his personal life? He’ll forever be the Great Conundrum of American pop culture.
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