Revisiting old pieces #1 MJ vs Prince - Would the Real "King Of Pop" please stand up..

read an interesting blog from Mike Scott of the Waterboys in which he argues that Michael Jackson's status as "King Of Pop" was a fleeting one, that the mantle was confered on him for "Thriller, but it then passed to a purple type person for that period of time from "Purple Rain" to Love sexy....
And I quote "
"But then Prince trumped him in 1984, releasing Purple Rain – album, single and movie – and displaying equally outrageous dance moves and singing. He boasted a prodigious armoury of musical and arrangement skills – not least the most soulful lead-guitar playing since Hendrix – and a sly, sexy, mischievous humour that made Jackson, by contrast, look tense and two-dimensional.Prince 's name replaced Jackson's as that most synonymous with brilliance and sharpness, and he occupied the throne till 1988, when Lovesexy failed to maintain the standard of his previous four albums."
So, was the title merely a PR contractual obligation as Scott alleges?
It's an interesting arguement and certainly more interesting than the deification of Jackson that most of the media succumbed to.
Don't get me wrong, yes , he made some excellent music, sold a shed load of albums, but a sense of perspective is needed.
A lot of the journalists that are now writing that Jackson is the nearest thing to a latter day saint are trying to equate their youthful passions to the media monster that Jackson allowed himself to be portrayed as.. It is easier to celebrate the good than attempt to put the less good into context, and the easiest route is the road most travelled - "A true entertainer etc" but this is from the same pen that formulated "whacko Jacko" and all the negative connotations that this moniker brought with it.

As for "The King Of Pop" , it was interesting that this title was self proclaimed ( or via a PR dept) for MJ in the mid 90's - story is that , in order to get an interview, you had to refer to him by that moniker.... no credit, no story.....
And I too am deeply sceptical about these big bold general labels.
Labels are there to make it easy for people to put things in places - the simpler the label, the less thought needed. once something is named, it becomes manageable and the verbal shorthand takes over...
The colour Red is what it is because the consensus of reality has agreed it, the same as the building that you are educated in is a school, whether it's a wooden building in a forest that holds 10 or a stone edifice in the middle of a city where 1000's pass through the doors each day.
At the end of the day, fans will proclaim the merits of their champions, lazy journalism will launch cheap shots at whoever it needs to sell papers, the media is a multi limbed polymorphous beast that will feed on itself when there is nothing new to say.
And, remember the Fisher King- The King is dead, but long live the king.
King of Pop.... apt title - dynastic title foisted upon one due to an accident of birth, that being all that separates him from the common The KoP is a manufactured label for someone who was, as the article succinctly stated , air brushed, polished and honed to the point of androgynous perfection.
Whereas Prince was a low down n dirty one man funk machine.
He might not have shifted the units, but the units he shifted opened people's eyes to what true talent could achieve.

and, remember, a King is there by an accident of birth, "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" got that title by... well, working. so , I say long live the memories of a true "king, Mr James Brown...
It's not that I don't like MJ's music, it was the soundtrack to my youth too, but you can only choose to take so many books on your journey through life, and his particular genre is now back in the distance, lost behind the hills of fondly remembered exuberance, in the valley of innocence, consigned to the vault of college and dodgy haircuts, marlboro red top, CND and politically correct missives on why soul was good but Rock was bad ( NME , 1980 to today....)
a nice place to revisit, the past, but I wouldn't want to live there...
too much good stuff here in the present!