As a zoomer who can scarcely remember a time when Michael Jackson was alive, these articles cover an era I have a hard time viewing as anything other than purely mythical. I haven't been able to shake the feeling lately, either, that history ended sometime around 1972 -- And that's in spite of the fact that most history classes I've taken covered vaguely up to the '90s. It's funny. You'd think being decades younger would have shifted my historical framing, but the 'Youth' described in this article just flatten into the ancients before them, and that niche remains empty in my mind.
There’s also a basic fact of music (of acoustics, really) that has exerted a fascinating influence on male vocalists throughout history: the tune cannot really sit low in the texture except as a novelty. It basically has to sit high. But the adult male voice is naturally low. Somehow the charismatic male singer must find a way to sing high - the higher the better - while retaining some version of masculine sex appeal.
Born in 1976, and the further away we get from the 1900s, the more obsessed I am with it! Loved reading this. Felt like taking a ride in a little roadster, hugging unexpected curves in a way that feels good and natural.
Have you ever listened to the episode of Revisionist History on Sammy Davis Jr.? It’s very sad, but would love to know if you agree with Gladwell’s take on how Davis Jr. navigates racism.
As a 75 year old boomer who remembers Little Richard and Brenda Lee breaking onto the charts, (as well as the British invasion), I have to say, this is the best music writing I've encountered. P.S. I love the Welsh. I've had some great times in Cardiff, Skewen, Swansea and Aberystwyth (sp?) Recommending your substack to all my friends.
I was driving this morning and, needing a break from the high theory podcasts I'd been listening to, went to my 400+ song all-purpose playlist, randomized. The third song that came on was MJ's "The Way You Make Me Feel." I was caught up, yet again, in unabashed admiration. The way its production bops back and forth between funk and new wave, the way Jackson delivers his lyrics somehow with both extreme enunciation and a very peculiar affectation that you only catch if you are really paying attention, the sleek satin of the faux-string keyboards and the sharp staccato of horns ... I could go on and on. Fortuitously encountering this post today, I see in a different way how the song is also straddling, or weaving across, a strange kind of gap between the sexually suggestive and the wholesome. Music does weird things to a person, and the more you are caught up in it, the riskier things get -- crossing and recrossing genre and gender, "influences" and color lines and what have you, MJ infamously being no exception. "Mary" "herself," and her writing, is obviously a minor jewel in this mix-&-match crown of high weirdness, and I wish her as long and strange a trip as "she" can take, if it means more of the likes of this.
As a zoomer who can scarcely remember a time when Michael Jackson was alive, these articles cover an era I have a hard time viewing as anything other than purely mythical. I haven't been able to shake the feeling lately, either, that history ended sometime around 1972 -- And that's in spite of the fact that most history classes I've taken covered vaguely up to the '90s. It's funny. You'd think being decades younger would have shifted my historical framing, but the 'Youth' described in this article just flatten into the ancients before them, and that niche remains empty in my mind.
https://x.com/RomanTymchyshyn/status/1947124347719893411?t=ElRQGXBUVG97BEYElUoH0Q&s=19
.
https://x.com/RomanTymchyshyn/status/1947427539166851381?t=ElRQGXBUVG97BEYElUoH0Q&s=19
There’s also a basic fact of music (of acoustics, really) that has exerted a fascinating influence on male vocalists throughout history: the tune cannot really sit low in the texture except as a novelty. It basically has to sit high. But the adult male voice is naturally low. Somehow the charismatic male singer must find a way to sing high - the higher the better - while retaining some version of masculine sex appeal.
Born in 1976, and the further away we get from the 1900s, the more obsessed I am with it! Loved reading this. Felt like taking a ride in a little roadster, hugging unexpected curves in a way that feels good and natural.
Have you ever listened to the episode of Revisionist History on Sammy Davis Jr.? It’s very sad, but would love to know if you agree with Gladwell’s take on how Davis Jr. navigates racism.
As a 75 year old boomer who remembers Little Richard and Brenda Lee breaking onto the charts, (as well as the British invasion), I have to say, this is the best music writing I've encountered. P.S. I love the Welsh. I've had some great times in Cardiff, Skewen, Swansea and Aberystwyth (sp?) Recommending your substack to all my friends.
I was driving this morning and, needing a break from the high theory podcasts I'd been listening to, went to my 400+ song all-purpose playlist, randomized. The third song that came on was MJ's "The Way You Make Me Feel." I was caught up, yet again, in unabashed admiration. The way its production bops back and forth between funk and new wave, the way Jackson delivers his lyrics somehow with both extreme enunciation and a very peculiar affectation that you only catch if you are really paying attention, the sleek satin of the faux-string keyboards and the sharp staccato of horns ... I could go on and on. Fortuitously encountering this post today, I see in a different way how the song is also straddling, or weaving across, a strange kind of gap between the sexually suggestive and the wholesome. Music does weird things to a person, and the more you are caught up in it, the riskier things get -- crossing and recrossing genre and gender, "influences" and color lines and what have you, MJ infamously being no exception. "Mary" "herself," and her writing, is obviously a minor jewel in this mix-&-match crown of high weirdness, and I wish her as long and strange a trip as "she" can take, if it means more of the likes of this.