Quote:
Originally Posted by notofworks
You know, Pel, I think you know by now that I'm the president of the Pelthais Fan Club. I've learned more from you than the whole forum combined. But now we're gonna have to fight on that MJ thing. Come on! He was great, and I can't believe I'm saying, "Was."
Take the 5 minutes it needs and watch this. It's musical art at it's best.
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Music's like food. We all have a certain taste that we crave and only certain things really satisfy. There's no correct or incorrect choices, just a matter of preference and style.
I don't know that I'd ever heard that song before. I looked up the lyrics and read them as I went through the video a second time. The video work is outstanding; the crack of the slo-mo baseball bat in time along with the splash of rain drops - those were really nice touches. Are real artist was at work directing and influencing those things in the final edit.
But the whole "KGB" thing and "stranger in Moscow?" Dunno. I read the Wikipedia.org article on the timing of MJ's writing of this song. It was 1993, the Berlin wall was down, he was on tour in Moscow and scandalous accusations broke in the US media.
Is that why the city in the video was so obviously an American city, complete with AT&T pay phones? The "KGB" that was dogging him was not a Russian agency, but the American press and law enforcement. Ironically, Gorbachev had just dismantled the KGB and opened Russia to Westerners like MJ.
I know he had a profound influence on an entire generation, and that his influence reached its heights long before the allegations came out. So, most of his fans will remember with fondness the "pre-1993" MJ without the taint of scandal. Such nostalgia does give one's life a certain richness that I would be loathe to interfere with.
But for myself, that whole period of time falls into my "cultural black hole period." The music of the eighties and nineties, the movies, the television shows and just about everything else were taboo for me back then. I'm sort of like the "non-strangers" in Moscow. I opened up, like Gorbachev's Russia, to a whole panoply of arts and music - only to find myself almost immediately having to listen to the sordid details of scandal.
MJ is a bit of a stranger to me. I can see a real hand of genius was at work, but it was a work constructed for others. I must admire and critique outside in the rain, like a bewildered Moscovite at times.
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