Don't Stop Til You've Had Enough

I am 35 and therefore at the absolute prime age to have grown up listening to Michael Jackson. Only I didn't. Thriller came out when I was 8, but I honestly don't remember watching the iconic video until I was well into my 20s. What gives?

I was definitely a pop music fan as a child. I loved legit pop music like Cindy Lauper, Madonna and Duran Duran, as well as burn-your-records-and-never-admit-you-owned-it pop music like Menudo and New Kids on the Block. Certainly the King of Pop should've fallen into my music rotation somewhere. But my memories of liking Michael Jackson songs are kind of blank. Heck, I probably listened to Weird Al Yankovic's take off of Bad--Fat--more than the original.

It's not that my friends weren't Michael Jackson fans. I have a distinct memory of one of my childhood friends, John, winning highly coveted MJ tickets during a radio contest. John invited our mutual friend Brian to go with him to the out-of-town concert. Any normal preteen would've been raging with jealousy. I think my parents even offered to see if they could find any available tickets hoping to stave off what they thought was going to be my inevitable meltdown. But I wasn't interested. It was probably the first time in my life I did something to spare my parents a few dollars and a lot of aggravation.

So now in the wake of his death, I've been forced to come to terms with my lukewarm feelings about Michael Jackson. Yes, I appreciate his contribution to pop music and his artistry...I guess. Even his media-saturated, cover-story-of-every-magazine-I -read, if-TMZ-doesn't-stop-covering-it-I-may-permanently-delete-it-from-my-bookmarks death isn't enough to make me entirely change my mind. In the words of Michael Jackson himself, "I can't help it if I wanted to."