The Ministry Of Truth

Appropriate or not, perhaps the first thing I think of when I hear the name Michael Jackson is an unfortunate individual who followed me on air at a radio station in the late 1980s.

The odds were stacked against this chap – as thick as mince, no sense of humour and with multiple speech impediments, he spent much of his time in a world entirely of his own.

I once ended my programme one Friday evening in the summer of 1989 with the then current Jackson single Liberian Girl, which was – astonishingly – the ninth single to be taken from his 1987 album Bad.

I suspect my fellow presenter had no idea that there was a country called Liberia.  Even if he knew, he couldn’t pronounce it.

“Michael Jackson there,” he back-announced as he took over the desk, “and Librarian Girl.  I was at the library just this morning, as it happens, swapping some books and CDs…”

It took me nearly ten minutes to stop laughing.  Bladder control was only just maintained.

I had never really considered myself much of a Michael Jackson fan – there were too many ambiguities to the man for me ever to take him to my heart – but I have been surprised to learn since his death that my iTunes music library contains 23 of his solo tracks, three duets and 21 more songs with various combinations of his brothers.  In an iTunes library of 19,000 songs it’s not a lot, but there are only a handful of singers who appear on more than 47 songs in my collection.

That said, to anyone growing up through the Seventies and Eighties, Michael Jackson was an important – at times iconic – part of the musical landscape and I have never underestimated or under-appreciated the talent he brought to pop music and the part he played in its evolution.

We’ve witnessed this week a sad end to a sad life.  To quote Popdose’s ever-quotable Dw. Dunphy:

Over the years his personal and professional lives had crumbled under the weight of scandal, strangeness, and the possibility he really was a criminal, smooth or otherwise. He became the picture of Dorian Gray hanging on a wall in the dilapidated receiving room of the Neverland Ranch, his home and personal playground. In the real world his achievements faded like his skin color, his moves stiffened into a frozen visage of surgical masks, glasses and disguises, and coats hastily thrown over his head. His music came sporadically and was never again as exciting as it once was.

Indeed, for all its wall-to-wall coverage the mainstream media has failed to acknowledge in the past 48 hours just how irrelevant – creatively and musically, at least – Michael Jackson had been for a very long time.  Two days ago I would have said he had released no pop music of genuine brilliance in 22 years – since Bad (the album, not the limp single of the same name) saw the light of day in the summer of 1987.  Having subsequently become forcibly reacquainted with every nook and cranny of his back catalogue thanks to the BBC, I would now concede that a couple of tracks from November 1991’s Dangerous might justify bringing that figure down to 17½ years.

But even my abiding soft spot for his 1995 duet with Janet, Scream, can’t sustain a claim that Michael Jackson has mattered musically for almost two decades now.  To claim otherwise is revisionism, designed to distract attention from the freak show spectacle his life became.  None of that, however, should detract for one second from the truly sensational music that went before.

For 20 years from the moment the Jackson Five hijacked the airwaves in 1969 with the irresistible I Want You Back through to Bad’s Smooth Criminal and Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson was undisputed pop music dynamite.  In his solo prime Jackson leant heavily on the songwriting skills of Rod Temperton (who composed the songs Rock With You and Thriller, among others) and the production genius of Quincy Jones but the SMIPs were his alone – his squeal of inarticulacy during the introduction to Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough [0:15]; the cry of, ‘Just look over your shoulders, honey!”, aping Levi Stubbs at 3:03 of I’ll Be There; the call and response, “Baby!” with Jermaine during the third chorus of I Want You Back [2:19-2:22]…  That list could go on.

It is hard to recall it now, but there was a time when his vocal hiccups were an exciting and exotic flavouring to the dish, rather than a too-often-reheated affectation; when there was not a middle-aged man trudging around a stage fiddling with his genitals, but a lithe and sinewy young man whose dancing could genuinely delight and thrill.

The recording of Billie Jean is immense in every respect.  Bruce Swedien’s sound engineering is so crisp that it is possible to tell the record from half-a-bar of Ndugu Chancler’s drummed introduction alone – no drums in pop had ever sounded like that before; Louis Johnson’s bass had never rumbled along the bottom of a rhythmic valley so deep; Greg Phillinganes’ and Greg Smith’s synth lines throb beautifully; David Williams’ guitar sounds like he’d prised it forcibly from the hands of Nile Rodgers; Jerry Hey’s string stabs would have graced a Chic track every bit as much as a Hitchcock movie; and even Tom Scott’s (uncredited) flourishes with the ridiculed and ridiculous lyricon [at 1:13-1:14; 1:21-1:22; and 3:06-3:13] find a perfect home in this setting.

I have deliberately sought to banish from my head memories of my time as a boarder at a minor English public school in the early Eighties, but one thing that will stay with me forever is the excitement I felt first time I saw the video for Billie Jean on Top Of The Pops in early 1983 – a perfect union of sound and vision I will never, ever forget.

Retiring to bed this Thursday evening just passed I would never have imagined myself ever quoting the preposterous Sean Combs with approval, but his comment after the news of Jackson’s death broke overnight reminded me how I felt that Thursday evening in January 1983, sitting in my dressing gown before the television set in the assembly hall with 20 or so other boys:

Michael Jackson showed me that you can actually see the beat.

Billie Jean’s relentless beat can be seen – exquisitely embodied by a nimble-footed, 24-year-old man in a pink shirt, red bowtie and black leather suit gliding down an illuminated pathway – even if you’re hearing it on the radio or your iPod.

The very best pop music is united by an undeniable urgency.  Billie Jean has it by the bucketload.  Whatever emerges over the coming weeks, it’s how I’ll remember Michael Jackson – preserved in time at the height of his musical powers, insulated from all that would come – and it’s my first Perfect Pop Single.

To paraphrase Brian Micklethwait, during the last few weeks the ratio at this blog of things I really want to say to things that I am merely saying because of the self-imposed obligation to say something, however lame or inconsequential, has taken rather a turn in the wrong direction.

So until the start of September I am taking a break from regular blogging, as I did last summer.

This does not mean that I will for the next few weeks be forbidding myself from posting anything here, merely that I will not, for the time being, be posting something (almost) every day.  Unless, for the consecutive days in question, I just happen to feel like so doing.

The break I took last year renewed my enthusiasm for this place at a time when it was in the balance as to whether or not I would raze the Ministry to make way for new Subway and Starbucks franchises.  I hope this holiday has a similar restorative effect.

I leave you for now with some wise, wise words.  They come from the 6 July 1983 maiden speech in the House of Commons of one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair:

I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly. British democracy rests ultimately on the shared perception by all the people that they participate in the benefits of the common weal.

That worked out well, didn’t it…?

May your summers glisten with faint beads of perspiration.

He has a halo: we really do adore him
For he has a halo – can we touch him?

Tesco has… carried out research which reveals shoppers want more choice when it comes to buying their favourite fruit. Instead of buying a green or yellow banana, the retailer says, shoppers now want a variety of colours.

Forgive me if I’m being a fuckwit, but what other colours do bananas come in apart from (in order) green, yellow, brown and black?

(I keep thinking I’ll get bored of this and then I see something else that sends my blood pressure soaring and my spirits plummeting.)

Oh, this is good. This is very good.

The West Country locals are revolting.

Camborne councillor Stuart Cullimore has received a personal apology from the Liberal Democrat party after being called a “greasy-haired twat” in election material.

The words are contained in an election leaflet distributed by Anna Pascoe, who is a Liberal Democrat candidate in this Thursday’s Cornwall Council elections and a fellow town councillor.

Around 40 of the leaflets are believed to have been delivered in the Basset Road and Basset Street area of Camborne.

The leaflet states that Ms Pascoe “has always campaigned on behalf of the people she represents – rather than using her position as a personal platform (like greasy-haired twat Stuart Cullimore).”

Unparliamentary language, yes.

Fair comment, though, surely….?

(The Minister would like to congratulate Councillor Cullimore on his election.)

If you want to learn just how clueless and spineless Labour MPs are, read Allegra Stratton’s article “Why plot to oust Gordon Brown failed” in today’s Harry Potter Bugle. Seriously, how cluelessly fuckwitted are these people?

By Wednesday evening, the covert tactic unravelled as thousands of emails arrived. Apart from the odd one from genuinely sympathetic MPs, spoofs, foreign emails, and junk emails flowed in.

Who’d'a thunk that a Hotmail address leaked to a national newspaper might not be the best way to conduct these affairs? (Particularly when I am reliably informed that the rebels without a clue all have ENORMOUS penises and therefore have no need for lengthening potions and devices.)

Meanwhile, I can exclusively reveal that Roger Alton’s pulsating organ, The Independent, is both (a) clueless, and (b) dishonest.

It is true that the great bulk of the British public wants a change at the top – but nothing suggests that by this they mean a new leader of the Labour Party; no opinion polls have indicated that with Alan Johnson, or David Milliband, or (fill in gap) as leader of the party, its electoral chances would be transformed.
- Dominic Lawson, The Independent, 9 June 2009, page 27

Er…

Johnson would deny Tories outright victory
‘Independent’ poll reveals that new leader could transform Labour’s prospects
- The Independent, 9 June 2009, page 1

Once upon a time newspaper employed sub-editors, proofreaders and sense checkers to avoid this kind of idiotic and entirely preventable error.

Now, a work experience kid just changes the t’Internet version of the story and fails to say that they have done so:

It is true that the great bulk of the British public wants a change at the top – but little suggests that by this they mean a new leader of the Labour Party; only one opinion poll has indicated that with Alan Johnson, or David Miliband, or (fill in gap) as leader of the party, its electoral chances would be improved.
- Dominic Lawson, The Independent, 9 June 2009, online edition

Even bearing in mind Lawson’s usual pisspoor efforts, this is pathetic stuff.

And we can now firmly discount The Independent as an accurate, honest and impartial historical record.

If there’s one thing guaranteed to make me smile even when I’m feeling rough as a badger’s arse, it’s the sight of the piss being ripped out of Disgraced Former Europe Minister Keith Vaz in public by his colleagues.

Has a more oleaginous cock ever walked this Earth?

Everything I was going to post this afternoon has already been posted here.  Go there.  Read it.  Click the links.  You won’t be disappointed.  It’s very good.

I know that there are some who’d prefer things like egg-chucking at Griffin not to happen, and I can see that point of view. I just happen to think that seeing his fat smelly face looking frightened and upset is a wondrous thing. For sure, the way to defeat the fascists is to engage the working class into politics they can believe in, to work hard on real solutions to poverty and unemployment, and to fight at every turn to denounce the lies spouted by prejudiced idiots about immigration and multiculturalism. Yes yes, I know that. But making that vile fascist tit look stupid is a good thing. Satire is egg-chucking without the actual egg, and we need that too. We need all kinds of attacks on Griffin, making him look ridiculous in every sense, exposing his nastiness and making him into the national joke he is.