the king of pop is dead…

michael jackson dies from heart attack(link)

sometimes you forget how important someone is in your life. i remember buying bad on cassette and playing it from end to end. in those days, you couldn’t load a bunch of songs onto a device and have everything ready at your fingertips. the closest thing to a playlist was the mixtape. the closest thing to skip was a tape player that would fast forward/rewind until there was a spot of silence in between tracks.

bad album made me want to become a musician. on car trips, that was the first cassette into the walkman. when a teacher of mine lost it, i replaced it with off the wall, but only because bad was sold out. i didn’t have much money growing up, and off the wall was an older album and disco. i was infuriated at the time, but i moved on. eventually, i found an appreciation for off the wall — it’s another album with great songs.

though his fame seemed to spiral down until he was, to some, a joke, his legacy could not be denied. thriller is the highest selling record of all time. the title track’s video scared a generation of kids and made an artform out of music videos. his influence still runs deep. all r&b dancers owe some respect to michael and so do generations of stars who’ve reaped the benefits of a man that broke the color barrier.

michael may be gone, but his music continues.

don’t stop ’til you get enough.