There were two Michael Jacksons. The first Michael Jackson, who lived from 1958 until about 1986 or so, was a legend - great dancer, great singer, and heck of a cool black dude, even if he was a bit weird and effeminate. Personality traits aside, “Off The Wall” and “Thriller” were musical masterpieces.
The second Michael Jackson was a white wannabe born in a polymer plant in 1987 and got weirder as time went on, eventually becoming the pedophile freak show he was at his death. FWIW “Bad” was an OK album, but it went downhill from there.
I prefer to remember the first MJ.
I concur. I think that he had some issues to start with but was able to “hold it together” before his recovery from the scalp burns, when he genuinely needed a lot of strong pain medication. After that, he seems to have slid much more quickly downhill. Poor son of a gun. I hope he’s not guilty of the child molestation stuff, but even if he isn’t, well. He opened himself up to the accusation.
As Dennis Miller once quipped (paraphrasing), If the BEST thing you can say about this is that a 44-year-old man prefers to sleep ASEXUALLY with pubescent boys, then even that’s a pretty sorry situation in itself.
Amen, second what you said, the “real” MJ whom I admired as a kid because he was my peer in age, ( I am 50, nearly a year behind him ) died a few short years after “Thriller”.