Jackson a transcendent figure, for better and worse

Published 10:54 pm Thursday, June 25, 2009

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson was not of this world. He always seemed to defy gravity, as a dancer whose signature move was so incomprehensibly graceful that it earned the extraterrestrial title “the Moonwalk,” a singer whose tenor was high but strong, a rhythmic instrument that went as sweet and tender as a clarinet on the long notes — and as a man whose physical presence was first androgynous and then seemingly cyborgian, forcing his astounded public to puzzle over their assumptions about race, gender and age.

He was the boy who knew too much, bursting upon the pop scene in the 1970s as the neon-bright center of his family group the Jackson 5, singing songs that communicated emotions that should have been beyond the grasp of a prepubescent boy. For the cameras, he danced in a newsboy cap to childlike rhymes — ABC, easy as 123 — but the children and teenagers who were his primary audience loved him because his voice went beyond the guilelessness of playground games.

The fidelity he communicated in “I’ll Be There,” the brokenheartedness in “Maybe Tomorrow,” the longing in “Never Can Say Goodbye” — these were emotions children weren’t supposed to have, but did, and Jackson gave them voice.

Then he became a man and the biggest star in the pop universe. He kept transcending. The sound he developed with producer Quincy Jones was based in funk and old-school soul but added elements of jazz, disco and Beatle-esque rock in a smooth mix that created new possibilities for crossover pop.

It took shape with 1979’s “Off the Wall” but was fully formed on “Thriller,” the 1982 masterwork that utterly changed mainstream pop, breaking down the lines between black and white music, fluff and serious art, sounds meant for the dance floor and for the headphones.

Baby boomers have “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Pet Sounds,” but for subsequent generations “Thriller” remains pop’s ultimate artistic endeavor. Jackson not only crafted a sound that is still being imitated by every young star who wants to claim territory in R&B; he explored serious themes — obsessive love in “Billie Jean,” street violence in the “West Side Story” homage “Beat It,” the scourge of gossip in “Wanna Be Startin’ Something.”

Even the title track, an old-fashioned horror tale seemingly meant for kids, held something more ominous. In the groundbreaking video, director Jon Landis transformed Jackson into a monster, an early metaphor for the struggles with identity that would later dominate the singer’s life.

* Powers is the Times’ pop music critic.