The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

I remember where I was when Michael died.

I was in my kitchen making a birthday cake for one of my friends. I was sick to my stomach at the news. And it wasn’t how they were reporting it that made me feel ill to the gut, it was that they had to report it at all.

I couldn’t watch the news for more than the ten minutes it took to come across the wire and put me into shock. I shut off the TV and the radio. I avoided the internet news. If anyone talked about Michael, I didn’t want to hear it. I was absolutely in mourning, and could not understand why I felt so much loss.

When the infinitely wise television network decided to broadcast the memorial service, I could barely watch a tiny portion of it before I completely broke down, sobbing and snotty, with my mum consoling me in my room, sweat and tears streaming down my face … I remember it all so clearly - it was the hottest summer I could recall.

To this day, I still can’t watch much about Michael’s death, or the court case that came after. And I have never since taken the CDs out of storage to listen to them again. Perhaps it’s time.

And I know there are people who think this is crazy. There are some who wonder why the hell you would even care about someone who never even knew you existed. There are others who think your patronage of a musical artist, an artist of any kind, is equivalent to idolatry. And I’m not suggesting that, for some people, their love of musicians, actors, sports stars and other celebrities is not tantamount to idol worship, or maybe borderline obsession, but there is, I think, a larger grouping of people who have openly and fully welcomed the artist’s talent into their lives … when there truly is talent.

They ... we … don’t do this because we have nothing else to do or because we’re gullible, but because we for the most part have benefited in some way from what the artist’s talent has brought to the world table. Their body of work encompasses a time that we grew up in and for which we feel a great deal of nostalgia. If the artist truly did excel in her or his art, it influenced our world beyond measure and it aided our development because of this. A really talented artist uses her or his voice to give social commentary. And that social commentary is what defines a generation under the influence of that artist.

The artist, initially struggling to make it - unless a child prodigy like Michael, with years of musical experience from childhood - produces art that speaks primarily to the things the artist knows about. When that fails to sell records or bring in an audience, the artist is forced to focus on the things that sell for sure ... like love and sex. When they are able to finally make money with their talents, the art starts changing to a more personal experience. It becomes more reflective and is imbued with concern about the things that matter most to people: what’s wrong in our world, the problems of society, the ways in which we can make life better for all, especially those in need.

And the artist’s body of work starts taking on a new meaning, sometimes to the extent that the artist can no longer listen to the earlier work they produced … they respect it because it was the beginning of their journey, but they have now come so far from that point and they want to use the voice and platform they have to speak to the world in song about things that do more for that world. They start collaborating with other artists, they start producing other artists, and they fall out of grace with the big money machine that makes their industry and their careers ebb and flow like the tides. It’s popular music after all.

Prince Rogers Nelson, aka Prince, knew much about the battle with the music business capitalists. He even changed his name in the process of such battles … The Artist, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, The Artist Formerly Known As, and of course the symbol … in opposition of the big business effect on musical art, to make a statement on behalf of his art and that of other artists, and to this day there is some of his music you simply cannot find any version of online, for sale or otherwise. That in itself was a statement Prince made for his craft.

And yes, I know there were the experimental times Prince had. Some may take issue with his sexuality or seeming lack of sexuality. Some may say he was too raunchy, too explicit, even irresponsible. Even I, as liberal a thinker as I am, still take issue with some of Prince’s songs, but I understand their origins. And if you look back and then forward to the present day, you can see the trajectory of his artistic development unfold. The life of the artist becomes an open book from start to finish, always under scrutiny. All the things you may have thought were strange, helped to create important statements about life.

They made life extraordinary.

And that’s the real contribution to this world of artists like Michael Jackson and Prince … and Madonna (now the only remaining major pop icon of the 80s and 90s). They push the envelope sometimes in ways that make us deeply uncomfortable, but we are eventually compelled to address what it is about that push that concerns us. We become aware of things we didn’t even realise concern us. But you take the bad with the good, and, yes, if you care to, you can discard the bad and focus on the good about an artist, but you can never deny the unusual and oft unwelcomed power they are able to wield in the world, because they were so unusual to the world that they changed it.

You simply cannot change the world - I hope for the better - if you stay in a box or a bubble and be all and only what others would want or expect you to be. The reason why so many of us are free to do and say what we feel, not in a loose way but in an empowered way, is because someone dared to challenge the norms before us, showing us what could be done if we really wanted it to be done.

The world mourns the loss of another great musician - and Prince was masterful in ways Michael was not, even though Michael was dubbed the King of Pop. I’m inclined to believe that their musical genius, their constant fight with self for perfection and their compelling need to always be better and to do more, all the things that made them extraordinary, ultimately led to burnout. They both died as young men (within two months of their birthdays). And I guess we could never have truly envisioned Michael or Prince doing the moonwalk or rocking a guitar on stage aged 85, but somehow we still thought they would be around much longer than they were.

A part of that is because we’d always known them, they’d always been around and we’d become accustomed to them being around. But I think we also thought they would always be around because in some way they shaped our lives whether or not we realised it, and it created an attachment, and for them to no longer be around removes something from us. It takes away our view of the world in relative permanence … after all, we still can’t see our own selves not being around. And with these musical geniuses gone, not only does it leave the world without their incredible talents, but it reminds us that one day our lights will also go out.

All we can hope they did, Prince and the others, was influence the development of other artists who may one day at least compare to them and make life more beautiful to live with their art, and perhaps that, in our respective lives, we can do the same.

When it is all said and done, you and I both know there will never be another like Michael Jackson. There will never be another like Prince Rogers Nelson. And though not considered 80s pop music masters, they were masters in 80s R&B … Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, both musical artists who died early, and whose talents changed lives everywhere … there will never be others quite like them. Their gifts were transcendent. And now the removal of their ongoing gifts to us remind us of what could still be, but also of what does not last forever.

Life truly is a gift and an opportunity to give, so we should all give what we have while we can, no matter the cost, no matter how strange others think we are. Besides, it’s usually the average person who finds great difficulty understanding the extraordinary person. If you don’t mind being extraordinary, don’t seek to be understood, just give what you have to give. One day, the world will understand exactly where and why it fits.

Send email to nburrows@tribunemedia.net.