Mood:
lyricalTopic: "Video Thriller"(5)
Frodo knows the very day, and the very moment, when he transitioned from "young" to "middle age." Today he is joined by a generation. The bad news for Frodo is that he now seems to be one step ahead of al those whose youth ended with the death of the "King of Pop."
Michael Jackson did not make records, he made videos. He took the art form of the twentieth century one step further than his predecessors, and he choreographed character and movement. Two generations earlier Gene Kelly sang "Singin' in the Rain," while his primary competitor, Fred Astaire, twirled Ginger in a top hat. A quarter-century later it was Elvis Presley grinding his hips while Pat Boone made April love (and Frodo choke). The evolution of the truly American art form in this simple paragraph says volumes about the days after World War II, and those which preceded the fall of Saigon. It goes without saying that technological change chronicles the end of the creativeness of Michael Jackson, as it also did for "The King of Rock and Roll."
Frodo probably has "Thriller" on a Beta videotape, somewhere in his basement.
Frodo does not intend to praise Michael Jackson, he will only watch as he is buried. The good, as well as the evil, that men do lives after them, but it will be the music that survives. Frodo can only judge the art, and it was magnificent.
Exit, moonwalk, stage left.
