Pop is a very funny thing
june 30, 2009.
Were it not for the curious fact of what became of the small party that my daughter threw for her friends on the occasion of her 12th birthday, in the Bois de Vincennes last saturday, june 27th, I would hardly have seen reason to mention Michael Jackson's over-mediatised demise on this here site.
The soccer team sized bunch of kids that I accompanied (helping them carry bags with soft drinks, candy, pie and ice-cream) spontaneously turned their afternoon gathering into a full-blown Michael Jackson tribute, blasting nothing but Thriller, Bad, Billy Jean and other 1980s MJ-songs through the speakers of the iPod Dock that they had brought along, while dancing, shouting, singing, moonwalking in the streets. Pop indeed is a funny thing. Michael's Thriller may have been the music their parents danced to, but at the time they were born, the King of Pop's musical career already was way over its top.
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Some ten days earlier, on tuesday june 16th, I attended the presentation
in Amsterdam of Sound
Souvenirs, a collection of articles on audio technologies, memory
and cultural practices, edited by Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck as part
of their joint research project
(see the earlier
entry on a related symposium, november 2006 in Maastricht; more about
the book in a later entry).
Being partly something of a 'studio-man' at the time of Michael's rise to mega-fame
(early 1980s), I had
an obvious admiration for the Jackson sound, dense but clear and transparent
à la fois, the superb skill and craftmanship of his recordings
and - especially - for Quincy Jones'
hand in their realisation. But I did not have any particular 'sound souvenirs'
- in José van Dijck's sense -
linking my 'personal history' to Michael Jackson's pop ...
Though, come to think of it ... that is not completely true ... (what year again was it that ...)... Anyway. Be that as it may, I now do have that souvenir. For I will not lightly forget these pre-teen boys and girls dancing in line to Thriller in the Bois de Vincennes, the day (almost) that Jackson died, acting out and reflecting like mirrors a collective emotion that they picked up from their parents, friends and the media.
Pop is a very funny thing.
tags: pop, Michael Jackson
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