I had to write about Michael Jackson. The constant media coverage surrounding his death, and the resurgence of his music has forced me into reflection about how big of an musical influence his art has played in my own life. During my early childhood, my brother and I would come together and pretend host our own television show called, “The Chad & Cory Show”. I still remember sitting ourselves up in front of the bathroom mirror after our nightly baths and we would interview Michael Jackson; using our “My Pet Monster” as the stand in for the King of Pop. We would begin our little show with the same line each time:Chad: “Hi! My name is Chad.”
Cory: “And my name is Cory.”
Together: “And this is the Chad & Cory Show.”
We would ask Michael what it was like filming “Thriller” and “Beat It” while we took turns replying to our own questions, attempting to do so in our best Michael Jackson voice, which usually failed in comparison to his actual voice. We would also jump up and down on my mother’s bed to the cassette tape of “Thriller”. This however, was my mother’s Michael Jackson. I wouldn’t become a true fan of his work until I after I discovered his music again at the age of sixteen.
In 1995, Michael Jackson released “HIStory: Past, Present, and Future, Book 1” and I instantly threw myself into his music. This would be the first album that I owned that I connected with completely and truly represented the type of teenager I had become. Night after night, I would constantly listen to the tracks and knew that I had something that was just my own. The pressures of high school, my parents, and my friends would all melt away when I turned on the notes of his album and drifted away in the lyrics of his music.
I think one of the main reasons why I connected to this album so much was because I knew at the time, that I was so different from everyone else around me. I was always able to make friends and I have always been very easy going but there’s only been a few individuals in my entire life that I have really connected with and it was HIStory that allowed me to realize that it was okay to be different. This album taught me that I was going to go through periods of isolation and it would be okay as long as I had faith in myself and that there would be individuals that would be there for me even if I didn’t realize it.
For most of us, being a teenager holds a whole set of difficult situations and problems that we have to deal with, lacking the emotional maturity, the ability to think things through, and our constant insistence in establishing our independence, all have an influence on the choices that we make. If only I could open the door to my former self and show him the all new complexities of adulthood and the whole new range of issues and complications that come with it. We all continue to grow and change but what we sometimes fail to recognize is that our problems also grow and change with us. This multi-layered dimension of human emotion and life can only be dealt with by creative art and music. For me in particular, it’s music that guides me through everything and I’ve come to realize that Michael Jackson played a huge part in giving me a tool to use, a tool that would allow me to cope with my surroundings and situations.
There on out, I would cling to albums that represented some part of my life or simply represented my emotional state at the time. HIStory was the first album of this sort, and because of this album, I knew I would always be able to rely on music to guide me through the good and difficult times of my journeys. Several months later I would be feeling isolated and alone and there would be days where I would just want to scream. It would be HIStory that would lead me to another album; and because of that, I would simply leave my teenage years with a Jagged Little Pill.
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