Re-Evaluating: Michael Jackson

I was pondering recently: how much do I actually like Michael Jackson? It’s a more complex question than you may think, at least for me. One of my earliest memories is the premier of the Black or White video in 1991, so it’s like asking how much do I REALLY like oxygen? Or clouds? Or bricks? You don’t really think about it. They’ve just always been there, so you just accept them without question.

But, I spend more time complaining about Michael Jackson than I do oxygen, clouds or bricks. So, I was interested to see how highly I actually rate him and his work. I hear people say all the time about how Jackson was “the greatest” in whatever field. But I have questioned that for a long time.

I think most pop music connoisseurs would agree that the work he did with Quincy Jones between 1979-1987 is his masterstroke creatively. Off The Wall in particular, is an astonishing pop album. Thinking about it critically, it seems the reason these albums captured people’s imagination so was due to Jackson and Jones’ differing styles. Where Michael would push for modern grooves, Quincy would pull things back towards a more traditional sound. Therefore, their partnership created a happy medium between the two that appealed to a helluva lot of people, coupled with (mostly) great songs that weren’t trying to do anything but make you feel good.



But things start going wrong earlier than you think. The humungous success of Thriller meant that for the rest of his career, Jackson would basically make albums that followed the same format. Thriller itself feels calculated, but the albums feel even more calculated as time goes on. Sure, Bad is still a great pop LP, but most of the songs have their Thriller counterparts (Bad = Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ / Dirty Diana = Beat It / Just Good Friends = Girl Is Mine / Smooth Criminal = Thriller etc), and this is a trait that would continue. Each subsequent album “needed” a rock song with a famous guitar player (Black or White, Give In To Me, DS, Morphine, Whatever Happens), a duet (In The Closet, Scream), a slight novelty track (2000 Watts, HIStory, Ghosts) and, from Bad onwards, he added songs complaining about the press (Tabloid Junkie, Privacy, Why You Wanna Trip On Me?, Leave Me Alone) and songs about saving the world (Man In The Mirror, Heal The World, Earth Song, Cry, The Lost Children) to his limited pallet.

1991’s Dangerous is the first major example of Jackson throwing himself into current trends at the expense of writing great songs. The album for me is much like Jackson himself in that it was just always there, and I often list it amongst my favourite albums. And yet I don’t listen to it all that often. The first half of the album is obsessed with the then-current New Jack Swing craze. And while some of the songs work (Jam, Remember The Time) others definitely don’t (Can’t Let Her Get Away) and it all ends up sounding a bit samey. To cap it off, the first disc of the original vinyl ends with Heal The World, which is another one of Jackson’s excruciatingly bad habits; preachy “save the world”-type songs that offer too many easy answers and are encapsulated in a Disney-sounding production so that you can’t really take it seriously in the way that you can Prince’s Sign “O” The Times or Dylan’s 60s work.

All of which is a shame, because much of the second half of the album works a treat, from the straightforward pop/rock (Black Or White), to the beautiful (Will You Be There?) by way of the experimental (Who Is It?).

In the middle of the Dangerous promotional campaign, Jackson was first accused of child molestation. We’re not talking about Jackson’s private life or allegations here, but I feel this does mark an important moment in his creativity. You see, for all the faults of Dangerous, there was at least enough there that did work to counter-balance the things that didn’t quite work. The album he made following the accusations is where it all starts to go spectacularly wrong.

First of all, his general attitude starts to stink. Sure, he had marketed himself as “The King of Pop” before but I have no qualms with that. James Brown called himself all manner of incredibly flattering names, so it’s not like Jackson was the first one to do so. But Brown didn’t float a giant statue of himself down the River Thames. Brown didn’t perform at the BRIT Awards by walking Christ-like around the stage healing sick children. Brown didn’t spend the sleeve notes of his albums listing every single award he’d ever been given. This would be stomach churning anyway, but add that to the context that not a few months before this Jackson had received the worst publicity you could ever have via the child molestation accusations. From what I can gather about Jackson’s fan base, they get a kick out of those things. But, the point of publicity stunts and large TV performances is to win over people who are not necessarily your audience. Non-Michael Jackson fans always (rightly) point to these gaudy events as reasons they DON’T like Michael Jackson.



Then there’s the HIStory album itself. It’s waaaay to long, especially given that most of the album deals with the same subject (Jackson’s mistreatment by the press and authorities; Scream, They Don’t Care About Us, This Time Around, DS, Money, Tabloid Junkie, 2 Bad). There’s two covers on there for some reason (although, I would argue his cover of Charlie Chaplin’s Smile does at least serve a purpose, the inclusion of The Beatles’ Come Together seems to only be there to rub the fact that he owns the copyright in Paul McCartney’s face). The guest rapping that flowed pretty well on Dangerous (from the likes of Heavy D) now seems shoehorned in to meet a quota (worst example: The Notorious B.I.G. on This Time Around).

Furthermore, the album was always going to suffer in that it was packaged as a 2-cd set; a disc of the new material and a disc made up of Jackson’s first Sony Greatest Hits collection. I’m sure 99% of people would much rather listen to Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough than DS (possible 1% margin of error), which means the first disc gets way more listens than the second. It seems it was only there as a marketing ploy - people who wanted a Michael Jackson Greatest Hits CD could now easily get one, but they had to get this other album as well.

Seeing as the HIStory tour was Jackson’s last, it’s as good a time as any to talk about his capabilities as a live performer. Because by the HIStory tour, he was woeful. He lip synched every song on the tour, save for two. Not even re-recording the vocal tracks, he just lip synched to the original album versions, meaning that when performing a medley of songs from Off The Wall the 40 year old MJ is singing with 21 year old MJ’s voice. It is somewhat noticeable. The Dangerous tour fared a little better, though there was still way too much lip synching. I always heard people say the Bad Tour was 100% live. But a Bad Tour DVD was finally released in 2012. And guess what? Though the beginning of the show is live, towards the end he seems to think “fuck it, I can’t be arsed” and lip synchs again. Now, I get that people want to see him dance too, but how can you justify lip synching a ballad like the awful R. Kelly slush You Are Not Alone? The argument I hear is “he was a perfectionist, and he was out of breath”. Well, if he was a perfectionist he wouldn’t have gone out as the sub-par live act he was in the 90s.

Additionally, the format of his live shows became as stale as that of his albums. In fact, mores so. Never changing anything; Billie Jean is performed the exact same way it was in 1983; same hat, same gloves, same jacket. Beat It with the cherry picker, jacket, pretending to beat up a camera man, re-create the knife fight from the video. Shove a Jackson 5 medley in there. AC/DC shows can get pretty predictable, but…jeez…nowhere near this. Not only is the setlist the same, but so is the staging. Even sister Janet said in the early 90s that his tours are pretty similar (although I don’t think she meant it as a criticism necessarily). Apparently he “didn’t have time” to put something new together. Really? Because your last tour was four years ago, so you had no opportunity in those four years to even consider putting anything new together? A lot of acts who tour a lot more regularly manage to put something different together each time (check out Prince’s tours of the late 80s/early 90s for proof, each one was different and even at times challenging for the audience).

This montage was put together by someone on You Tube, presumably to highlight the awesomeness of Michael Jackson. To me, it highlights the laziness of Michael Jackson.



I genuinely believe that The Jacksons were a better live act than Michael was solo. Much looser, much more fun and much more musical than what Michael did on his own. Track down a copy of 1981's Jacksons Live album for proof/pudding.

Which brings us to the nadir of his entire career; Invincible. The dude doesn’t even sound like he’s trying. And then he was surprised when it didn’t sell 30 million copies. In fairness, it did sell close to 10 million, which is a lot in the market of the noughties, and even more for an artist in his 40s. But he blamed the record company for “low sales” and accused them of being racist. Given the circumstances, that's almost as bad as Mariah Carey blaming the reaction to her notorious flop movie/soundtrack Glitter on 9/11 that same year.

Because, good people of the interweb, I ask you a question of logistics; what company wants it’s projects to fail? This album cost over $20 million to make, surely they would want to make a profit on this? Since Dangerous, Jackson appeared to put more emphasis on rhythm tracks and a lot of the time forgot to write a decent melody to go with it. The dance songs on Invincible is the most obvious example of this, and the ballads are the most sickly yet. There are but two saving graces on the album, and both appear to have little to do with Jackson himself; Butterflies, a song written by British songwriter Marsha Ambrosius, and Whatever Happens, a song that borrows heavily from Santana’s mega successful Supernatural album, and features Carlos Santana himself (which suggests it has more to do with Santana than Jackson). The rest is an unmemorable mush. It’s not a conspiracy, Jackson fans; the album just sucked. It seems he expected to be huge based on his name alone. Well, people will only fall for that for so long.

And yet, I can’t argue with his earlier career. As stated above, the Quincy Jones-produced albums are mostly remarkable. The early Jackson 5 records at Motown are abundant with youthful fun and enjoyment. And, while inconsistent, the albums The Jacksons made after Motown are interesting as they show a transition from childhood to being mature, adult artists.

So…do I think he was “The Greatest” at anything? No. It appears that I don’t like Michael Jackson as much as my 8 year old self assumed I would. Despite what his fans insist, popularity does not equal greatness (see: the entire ITV schedule). You’re only as great as the people you work with. He worked with great people once upon a time, but he cut that out in the 90s to try and stay “relevant” rather than “great”. Why does EVERYTHING have to be a huge success? There have been many artists who have gone in directions that they knew wouldn’t be successful commercially, but felt it was necessary for their artistic growth, whilst still keeping their core audiences. Jackson never did this. Ever. If he had, he would likely be much more respected as a musician than he is today, both by critics and by me. Perhaps the reason the press were more interested in Jackson's personal life as time wore on was because it was just more interesting than the music he was making at the time.

Having said that, I’m still likely to buy the posthumous projects that are released, and continue to defend him. And if you start bad mouthing oxygen, bricks and clouds, I'll defend them too. Because they've been a subtle but large part of my life as far as I can remember.

RockDocs: Michael Jackson - The Life Of An Icon

David Gest knew Michael Jackson. You probably already knew that, because he tells you every time he is on TV. He’ll break out an anecdote or just casually mention a time he just happened to be around. He also knows Tito.

I saw Gests’ Legends of Soul tour earlier this year. Wasn’t the best of line-ups, but Doo Wop legend Little Anthony did his first ever UK performances and Dennis Edwards - the last surviving classic Temptations lead singer - also performed. It was kinda cool when Gest wasn’t on stage. I played a game to pass the time during his lame attempts at comedy. “Let’s See How Long It Takes Him To Mention Michael Jackson”. If you are wondering: it was 45 minutes. Longer than I expected.

Gests’ masterpiece of “I knew Michael Jackson”-ness is his 2011 documentary Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon. It got quite a large release, has deluxe packaging and runs for over 2 ½ hours. It’s gonna be epic, right?

No.



I literally JUST watched this (on Netflix, I didn’t buy it…I have standards). It is without a doubt the weirdest “official” documentary I have ever seen on musician. It comes across more as an E! True Hollywood Story-type thing. The biggest accomplishments of Jackson’s career are glossed over, whilst minor details are magnified analysed. Remember when the Jackson 5 did a disco-flavoured cover of the Supremes song Forever Came Today? Me neither. But Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier does (even though nobody mentions it was originally a Supremes song), and he would like to talk about it. At great length. How it was written, why it was written. Michael liked it too, and that’s why they recorded it. And the brothers all performed brilliantly on it. Oh, and by the way, Off The Wall was released in 1979.

Over an hour of the 2 ½ hour length are spent on the Jackson 5 years at Motown. It is very thorough, although it doesn’t quite talk to many people who were there - and Bobby Taylor who was one of the people who takes credit for the Jackson 5 seems to take way more credit than he really should. There are many clips of Jackson 5 performances (although none of the really famous ones), a lot of rare photographs that don’t seem to match the era they’re talking about; many photographs that are clearly Motown publicity pictures are used to illustrate the Jackson kids on the Chitlin circuit or at home in Gary, Indiana. Excuses are made for Jackson’s abusive father, Joseph, presumably because Gest is still a friend of the family and doesn’t want to upset anyone.

Then they leave Motown (an event which is for some reason soundtracked with Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me), and then there is NO music from Jackson, either solo or with his brothers. No album covers, no official publicity shots. You see, the film was released by Universal, who now own Motown. My guess is they couldn’t - or couldn’t be bothered to - get the licensing for Jackson’s Sony archives. So, for example, Off The Wall is dealt with in a matter of seconds, the monster success of Thriller is glossed over, and apparently the Bad, Dangerous, HIStory and Invincible albums just didn’t exist.

Instead, we get Gest telling us that he introduced Jackson to Petula Clark. And he introduced Jackson to Paul Anka. And that he and Jackson produced a show together at Madison Square Garden that was all HIS idea. And Jackson once went to a party at his house and threw peanuts at Gloria Gaynor. And that Liam Neeson was his neighbour (yeah, by that point, it seems he’s forgotten that this is a documentary on Michael Jackson and just started talking about himself). Then, for some reason, they interview Mickey Rooney.

The remaining hour or so of the film is spent dealing with some of the controversies in Jackson’s life, and completely ignores his output throughout the entire period. The molestation charges are dealt with surprisingly well, to be fair, if expectedly one-sided, and attention is drawn the skin disorder that you may or may not believe (judging by some of the testimonies here, it’s worth believing), Jackson’s marriages and his plastic surgery - which, again in fairness, isn’t excused as much as you might think.

But there’s interesting avenues that could have been explored, and are staring you in the face, but the question is never asked. For example, when talking about Jackson’s secret addiction to prescription medication, they hark back to Jackson’s infamous Pepsi commercial, where his hair caught fire and caused serious damage to his scalp, leading to several very painful procedures, and specify that Michael never believed he was abusing drugs because he was using prescribed medication. This is not long after talking about his marriage to Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie. Elvis, too, didn’t believe he had a drug problem, because he was using prescription drugs. Is that not an interesting parallel that is worth exploring about the dangers of extreme fame? No, apparently Whitney Houston wants to talk about Bubbles the Chimp sucking her toe in Michael’s kitchen.

There’s also some stuff that made me cringe a lot. Firstly, Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo seems to make a bit too much of a deal about the fact that Michael “definitely wasn’t gay”. Nobody seemed to have asked the question, there is no way of knowing that this is where we were going here. He just yells it out. Why? Who cares? It’s kind of offensive that you are offended that somebody would think he was. What the fuck is wrong with being gay?

Then there’s a horribly cheesy moment at the end where Gest is sitting on a couch with Jackson’s mother. I watched it from between my fingers.

Overall, it makes me wonder how Gest made it as a producer. If this is the best he can do for someone he claims was one of his closest friends, then he really must be shit. It seems more like a tribute to himself. He even shows footage that must have been a bitch to track down, of Jackson thanking him at some awards show that Gest himself was producing (and chose Jackson personally to win that particular award). It’s an exercise in David Gest masturbating, and it’s only a little bit more unsettling than what that would literally look like. All the talking heads appear to be his “showbiz friends” who have little-to-nothing to do with the Jackson story, but Gest knows them and they’ve heard of Michael Jackson…so, fuck it, put em in there! And why is it that a man who claims to be so close to the Jackson clan not get clearance to use more footage from the Jackson archive?

All of this makes it all the more ironic when a whole section of the film is taken to have a go at people for using Jackson for their own ends.

There is a fascinating documentary to be made about Michael Jackson. His life story is too interesting, too contradictory and too widespread not to document. This ain’t it.

Until this hypothetical professional film is made, I would recommend this. This is a 100% unofficial film that was posted on YouTube. It is four hours in length, but it is extremely well executed. It’s mainly chronological, although occasionally jumps back to the lead up to Jackson’s 2005 molestation trial and doesn’t shy away from asking the difficult questions, some of which aren‘t answered and none of which are glossed over. I watched it one day when I was unemployed a year or two ago. Unlike Gests’ film, it doesn’t spend the entire duration saying Jackson was “a gift from God” or “he was the greatest entertainer who ever lived” and a “musical genius”, which is great because Jackson was none of those things (how can you possibly gauge who is the greatest entertainer who ever lived? And surely the greatest entertainer who ever lived wouldn‘t lip synch so often?).

It is very compelling, though not always comfortable viewing, and I would recommend watching it at some point if you are wanting to see a good documentary on Jackson. Kudos to the person who took the time to make this.

POP WORLD: Slave 2 The Rhythm - Michael Jackson & Justin Bieber

The continued string of posthumous Michael Jackson releases continues. Later in the year, expect the unreleased Freddie Mercury collaborations, but until then you can make do with a post-production collaboration with the modern day Freddie Mercury, Justin Bieber.



Sorry, did I say “modern day Freddie Mercury”? I meant “modern day Leif Garrett”. You probably don’t know who Leif Garrett is, and you’d be wise to keep it that way.

The song is called Slave 2 The Rhythm, and it follows MJ’s latter day attempts to appear down wid da kidz at the expense of writing a decent song. In fairness, much of Jackson’s solo career did put commercial success over creative possibilities, which is why every album he did after Thriller pretty much followed the Thriller format (a funky song to open, a rock song, a few slow songs mixed in, a song that reflected whatever was popular at the time, a “save the world” type song from Bad onwards). However, at least up until 1991’s Dangerous he backed it up with great pop songs. This began to change on 1995’s HIStory album, where around 50% of the album was decent enough, but was hindered by a host of self-indulgent trite. By the time we get to 2001’s Invincible, you get the feeling that he’s really starting to phone it in. In fact, this song is apparently from the Invincible sessions…



Anyhow, the point I’m making is this; a lot of people accuse Jackson’s estate of exploiting his legacy for a fast buck. But, really, he’d started doing that himself.

And that brings us to this Justin Bieber “collaboration”. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jackson would have collaborated with Bieber anyway. He always featured the commercial golden boys of the era on his albums. It was likely his way of appearing more contemporary. And listening to Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo on Beat It, it’s often hard to argue with the results. But there’s something quite off-putting about this whole production.

The first problem is Bieber (who’d have thunk?). Is it just me, or is he trying to do a Michael Jackson impression here? At one point I thought it was Jackson singing when it was Bieber, it was only when Jackson’s superior vocals came in and blew Bieber completely off the mike that I realised my mistake and felt dirty as a result (although, when I did mistake Bieber for Jackson, I did think "Michael sounds like shit". It really shows how little character Bieber has in his vocals and how much MJ had, even on a bad day.

The second problem is the lyrics.

She dances at the break of dawn
And quickly cooks his food
She can’t be late, can’t take too long
The kids must get to school

She’s a slave to the rhythm
She’s a slave to the rhythm of
A rhythm of love, a rhythm of love

First of all, “food” and “school” don’t rhyme. Second of all, this is a very uninspired metaphor. Here we have two millionaires singing about the life of an ordinary woman who cooks and takes her kids to school. Why? Apparently, they had no time to consider why they were bothering to tell us this because they had to get to the chorus, which builds up to one of the most over-used phrases in the history of popular music. “Rhythm of love”. Wow. Talk about anti-climatic.

Eventually, over two minutes into the song, we’re finally given some conflict in the story;

She danced the night that they fell out
She swore she’d dance no more
But then she did, she did not quit
And she ran out the door

She danced through the night, in fear of her life
She danced to a beat of her own
She let out a cry, swallowed her pride
She knew she was needed back home

But I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel about this. Dudes, you’re telling a story. Is she abused by her husband? Is she suffering from postnatal depression? You say she wasn’t appreciated, but is that just how she feels, or is that the reality of the situation? How did they fall out? Was it his fault? Was it hers? Are you even talking about her husband? THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TELL A STORY. I need to be invested in the character before I give a shit that she tried to leave and then go back. For all I know, she’s just a whiny bitch going through a mid-life crisis and has started going out clubbing and wearing a mini skirt because she wants to be 21 again.

Musically, this is just another dull-as-fuck dance tune production, that actually sounds pretty similar to a 1997 remix of Jackson’s song HIStory that was released as a single to promote his Blood On The Dancefloor remix album.



But there’s no groove to it. MJ’s best dance songs all had GROOVES. They made me do the lame white guy dance. I couldn’t help it. All this makes me do is yearn for the DJ to throw on Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ or Get on the Floor instead. It’s really dreadful. It’s dull, it’s uninspired, it’s lazy. There’s no atmosphere. The Michael Jackson of 1982 wouldn’t have even considered recording this. If this song didn't have Michael Jackson's name attached to it, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would give a shit.

In all fairness, it was culled from an unfinished demo. I don’t want to blame Bieber too much, that would be a cop out and the demo version posted above doesn't exactly suggest Michael had anything special to begin with. It's an outtake from his worst album...consider that. It wasn't good enough for his worst album.

But, this is bad even for Bieber. For Michael, it’s truly woeful.

POINTLESS LISTS: Top 5 Badly Advised Music Movies

Status Quo have made a movie. No, really. I have no reason to make that up. Apparently it’s out. Not that anyone cares. I often make excuses for Status Quo, I just wish they’d stop making it so damn difficult for me.



I thought it was as good an excuse as any to look at other badly advised musicians in movies. It’s actually funny in itself how many of these are vanity projects that went awry. A couple of them are just knockabout hi-jinx. But, the best ones are the ones were somebody’s ego just wouldn’t let it go…


5. All of Elvis’ Movies (1960-1969)

Starring: Elvis Presley



Primarily the movies he made just after he left the army. I’ll give a pass to Jailhouse Rock and Kid Creole. They actually weren’t that bad. But not long after those, Elvis was drafted into the army for two years. When he finished his time his manager “Colonel” Parker pushed Elvis into making shitty, formulaic musical comedies.

Though, unlike some people on this list (I’m looking at YOU, Mariah Carey), Elvis had the charisma to pull this off. I’ve actually always viewed Elvis as charisma first, singer second. Because he was essentially a pretty white face to sell black music to mainstream America. But the sheer amount of these movies takes the novelty off it. There’s really no time to go into them…but, suffice to say, all of them were made on a miniscule budget. So, you can imagine what we’re talking about here.

In fairness, if viewed as merely a marketing ploy, then at least the first half of the decade had some decent soundtracks behind them (come on…Viva Las Vegas?). But even that major positive had worn down by the end of the decade, and Elvis wouldn’t have a decent song again until the release of Suspicious Minds in 1969. In fact, by 1967, Elvis was seen as a bit of a punch line, largely due to these ghastly films. At least Cliff Richard was always a bit of a joke, which makes Summer Holiday kinda funny in a way. With Elvis, it was a bit of a sad downfall.

4. Glitter (2001)

Starring: Mariah Carey



I hate Mariah Carey. Oh, sure…she’s a great vocalist. But, I think we need to draw a distinction between a vocalist and a singer; a vocalist can hit all the notes, but a singer makes you BELIEVE it. But I at least get who her music is made for, I get it’s purpose. I have no idea what the purpose of this is. Hell, I’m not even sure what the story is.

The whole thing is a mess. I actually don’t know where to start. It’s set in the 80s for no reason at all (seriously, I see no significant references to the 80s, and the music sounds like it’s from the early noughties). It’s a typical rags-to-riches story that implies being a famous singer is the only important thing in the whole world, but so incompetently put together that it actually beggar‘s belief. Every time you think they’ve planted a plot seed, it turns out the scene goes nowhere. As she gets successful, she begins to drift from her friends. This is solved three minutes later by a shopping spree. She’s told to show more flesh, and you think they’re moving into an area where she has to contemplate whether it’s worth compromising your integrity for fame. Instead she just wears a bikini.

Weirdly, the whole film is about [insert character’s name]’s career and her relationship with her boyfriend/producer (who, for some reason, is played by Max Beasley), and yet the big climax is her reuniting with the drunk mother who we saw for about 2 minutes whilst the opening credits rolled. What the actual fuck?

The movie tanked (obviously). Mariah - who has the emotional range of a spatula as an actress - has openly blamed this on the fact that the soundtrack album was released on September 11th 2001, and the movie ten days later. In actual fact, the movie and the music suck.


3. Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (1988)

Starring: Michael Jackson, Sean Lennon (for some reason)



The trailer says “nothing could prepare you for his movie”. You got that right, mister. This is basically the beginning of Michael Jackson’s self-important, egotistical, floating a statue of himself down the Thames period which basically lasted until the day he died. The film begins with a performance of Man In The Mirror, which ends with world leaders signing peace treaties. The implication seemingly being that Michael Jackson made this possible? What follows is twenty minutes of Jackson reminding you of how awesome he is. I’m not kidding. The first twenty minutes or so is just CLIPS of music videos, live performances, glorified slide shows, him collecting awards…etc…he almost starts to come across as having some kind of inferiority complex. “Please like me…please like me…I’ll do anything for you…JUST LOOOOOOOVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”.

Following those twenty minutes is the full video for the song Leave Me Alone. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Let me put that into context. He just went; “look at me, hey…over here…look how amazing my songs are…look how popular I am…look at how awesome my dancing is…look at me. Now, fuck off.”

Then there’s the main event of the movie. A short film starring Michael Jackson playing the incredibly complex role of…Michael Jackson. He’s playing catch in a park with three orphans and a dog, when the dog goes missing. Michael and the girl go off to find the dog, but instead stumble across Joe Pesci talking to some spiders and laying out an alarmingly detailed plan about how he’s going to sell drugs to kids. He sees Michael and sends his henchmen to find him. During a lengthy chase scene that comprises of the same two shots re-cut, Michael gets cornered. So, he decides to turn himself into a car (who hasn’t done that in our hour of need?) and drive to a secret club to meet the kids. The kids aren’t there. In a spur of the moment move, the club decided to turn itself into a mafia club from the 30s. Despite knowing that the kids are probably in danger, Michael decides to sing an extended version of his hit Smooth Criminal. Then the girl gets captured, but the other two kids aren’t (for some reason). So, they go to rescue the girl, and Michael turns himself into a killer robot, and finally a spaceship and flies away. He then comes back to perform some kind of weird Beatles tribute show, possibly to take advantage of the fact that he’s just bought the rights to The Beatles back catalogue. Fin.

This story MAKES NO SENSE. None of it is explained. WHY can he turn himself into cars, robots and spaceships? Also, why is it called Moonwalker? I know he moonwalks in it, but it could have just as easily been called;

Michael Jackson’s Tip Toe Stander
Michael Jackson’s Twirly Fucker
Michael Jackson’s Crotch Grabber

The game that tied in with the movie was cool, though. But in hindsight, a game where Michael Jackson walks around picking up kids might be in poor taste.



2. Graffiti Bridge (1990)

Starring: Prince, Morris Day, George Clinton, Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell



PRINCE is a musical genius. Seriously, there’s nothing the guy can’t do. Musically. Because he certainly can’t act, screenwrite or direct movies. And the proof is in two particular brands of pudding; 1986’s Under The Cherry Moon and this monstrosity.

Set in some kind of parallel universe were Prince is apparently twinned with Jesus Christ (and I thought Michael Jackson was the one with the Christ complex), an angel comes down to…uh…actually, I don’t know why the angel comes down. It’s not really made clear. She’s just there. And he fucks it. Regularly. Then she dies. Which is weird, because I was always under the impression that angels were either dead already or immortal.

The movie was supposed to be a sequel to 1984’s vastly superior Purple Rain (a movie so successful that pretty much every “pop star movie” now rips it off to a less successful extent…in fact Eminem’s 8 Mile is basically a remake), but other than Prince’s character The Kid talking to his dead dad and the presence of Morris Day (who couldn’t even save this piece of shit, no matter how ironically awesome he is), it has absolutely fuck all to do with it. This is so bad MADONNA turned it down. And if you’ve ever seen Madonna’s movies, you will know why that is so shocking.

Thankfully, unlike Under The Cherry Moon, the music is very much in the forefront rather than incidental. Although the music is nowhere near as strong as Under The Cherry Moon and especially Purple Rain, there’s still some pretty decent performances in it, as well as cameos from legends like George Clinton and Mavis Staples. Which is a nice distraction.


1. KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park (1978)

Starring: Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss (KISS)



Imagine The Beatles A Hard Days Night. Mix it up with Star Wars. Put KISS in it. What do you get? Crap.

This was released during KISS’ absolute commercial peak in 1978. They were everywhere in the USA of America. And they were looking for ways to capitalise on this. So, despite the fact that KISS can’t act, the management thought it would be just a downright cracking idea to put them in a movie about a man who runs a theme park trying to turn humans into cyborgs.

To be fair, if any band should have made a movie, it’s KISS. They just shouldn’t have made this one. The one thing they do right is keep up the pretence of KISS as superheroes. But, that’s all they did right. Guitarist Ace Frehley spends most of the movie saying “ACK!” and little else. Plus, he apparently couldn’t be arsed with the movie, and so is in most scenes replaced by his African American stunt double. Meanwhile, drummer Peter Criss’ dialogue was apparently so incomprehensible that they overdubbed his voice with some other miscellaneous dude’s.

Singer/guitarist Paul Stanley gives us an acting master class with the immortal line “you’re looking for someone…but it’s NOT KISS”. He also constantly pouts at the camera. Including mid-way through a fight scene. And bassist/singer Gene Simmons actually breathes fire. Well…I say he actually breathes fire…he breathes something that appears to have been taken out of a cheap anime. It’s so realistic that I almost didn’t not fall out of my chair.