Inspired by VH-1's umpteenth career

Inspired by VH-1's umpteenth career retrospective of Michael Jackson's videos tonight, I dug up Bright Lights Film Journal's review of Michael's videos, which also features some tangential stuff about Janet. There are a pretty fair number of factual errors, but the analysis is pretty accurate.

As I am now 25 years old, I'm at a loss to find any value for my extensive knowledge of Michael Jackson's career. I find his transformation from biggest star in the world to walking punchline to be endlessly fascinating. Perhaps most impressive is that his talent has gone from entertaining through his music and dancing to being so bizarre that he's almost an inadvertent performance artist.

And of course it's really fun to hear just how bad his music can get. Maybe if Jeopardy ever has an all-Michael tournament I can go on and win...

I'm Anil Dash, and I've been blogging here since 1999, writing about how culture is made. Contact me at anil@dashes.com, at +1 646 833 8659, or at anildash on Twitter or IM. Find out more »

If you're new to the site, check out my Best Of and Most Popular things I've written in the past 10 years, or explore the full archives. Browse by month or year using the calendar below.

Powered by Hunch.com

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
  Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan
  Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb Feb
  Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar
  Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr
  May May May May May May May May May May
  Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun
Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul
Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug
Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep
Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct Oct
Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov
Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec