Lost in Translation: What Exactly Did We Learn from the Greats

in Music by tigger500 — July 28, 2009 at 12:26 am | 6 comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of popular music in the weeks since Michael Jackson died, trying to wrap my head around why we are where we are and how we got here.

We have all watched the news and read the articles about how much of a huge impact Mike had on an entire generation of artists. It has been repeated ad nauseum.

And yet, while I see it, it feels like something is missing.

Michael Jackson, Thriller era

I can hear Off The Wall repeated over and over in Ne-Yo’s three albums, but though the song structures are very very similar (damn near ripped off wholesale), the feeling I get when listening is just different.

I can listen to Lloyd, Chris Brown, Mario, J. Holiday and hear elements of Mike’s phrasing, but none of his nuance or preternatural ability to wring pure emotion and joy out of a lyric.

And it’s not just Mike.

Early Britney videos ripped off whole sections of Janet’s choreography and video persona, but never managed to convey that pure sense of joy in discovering one’s sensual self and youthful determination to challenge popular assumptions that Janet had. And Britney’s recent makeover into Madonna hasn’t yielded any sense that she’s holding a mirror up to her audience and daring them to see the best and worst of themselves in her music the way Madonna did.

This all begs the question:

What exactly did my generation and the millennial generation hear when they were listening to Mike and Janet and Madonna, and to a much lesser extent, Prince?

My sense is that younger generations think the power these artists wield lies, not in their artistry, what their music was designed to convey or what their personas were designed to portray, but in the trappings. In the spectacle that was built up around their art.  In a sense, to an entire generation Mike is nothing but the Moonwalk, Janet is nothing but a slut with some dude’s hands on her breasts, and Madonna is a vain provacateur. 

This has never felt right.

In our quest as critics to decipher how Mike, Janet and Madonna rose to heights that no one else had before, I think we failed to adequately assess and appreciate the strength of the music. The art. Even, to a lesser extent, the artistry of their videos.

Madonna performing Like A Virgin

This irony of this fact is greatest, I think, with Madonna, who is probably the most interrogated, discussed, and thought provoking artist ever.  And yet, you don’t get any sense that these young women, like Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga, late-era Britney, listened to a single word that Madonna wrote.  Or compared what she was singing with what she was doing in the videos. 

Madonna was a provocateur, but her music always seemed to be saying something. To be reflecting, to some degree, the values and mores and idiosyncracies of American culture.

But Lady Gaga just seems to enjoy being a visual conundrum, missing the sense of irony that made Madonna’s visual persona, at its best, so beguiling and complex. And Gwen has got Madonna’s propensity to rip off minority cultures down, but it feels truly violent and paternalistic because she does it earnestly, failing to capture Madonna’s (albeit inconsistent) ability to be completely conscious of her whiteness.

Janet Jackson’s early success was tied to her dogged desire to destroy America’s idea of what a young  Black female pop artist was supposed to be. It may be hard to imagine, but there wasn’t anything like Janet before Janet. Here was a woman who declared her independence (Control), turned around and made a message /dance record (Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation, 1814), discovered that she was hot and invited you to discover it with her (janet.), and then let you see just how painful and sad being a Jackson truly is (The Velvet Rope).   Her artistic points of reference were Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell.

I don’t think any of these young ladies performing in Janet’s shadow now would even know that. 

Because there is none of that audacity, none of that lyrical nuance or conceptual daring in any of the young women who are biting Jan’s style. Ciara came close with her brillliant Like A Boy song and video and Aaliyah would probably have been able to do that had she not died so young, but none of these other young women seem to understand that what made Janet unique was that she always felt like a real person even though she was Janet Jackson.

Rhythm Nation remains a peerless pop oddity; a shining example of one woman’s attempt to make sense of the world she lives in. No other female artist like her has done anything like it, before or since.

That’s sad.

But it is no different from the countless young men who think they will be the next Michael. In a way, that no one gets the soul of Mike is precisely what makes him so singular. Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, J. Holiday, Mario, and the like can ape his phrasing, his vocal tics, even some of his dancing flair, but they only make it abundantly clear that who and what Mike was was intrinsic to him and him alone. He seemed to do what he did for the sheer love of it.  These new jacks seem to just want to be like Mike.

That’s clearly an oversimplification, but the point I’m trying to make is that Michael Jackson had his influences and you knew what they were, but you didn’t immediately see it when he performed or sang. He didn’t take Fred Astaire’s dance style wholesale.  And his voice, especially post-Off The Wall, seemed to spring fully formed from his imagination and exist outside of any vocal lineage. Even the Moonwalk, which was popularized by street dancers on Soul Train years before, didn’t look like its forebearer.

But you see all of Mike in these young cats, even Usher, who is the closest thing this generation has to a Mike-like, Janet-like, Madonna-like, pop star.  None of them is vocally anywhere near Mike and though their dancing is good and well-rehearsed, it feels workmanlike and you find yourself wondering who choreographed it. 

You never wondered who did Mike’s choreography.  Didn’t occur to you.

Something got lost in translation for us or we weren’t listening or watching closely.

Janet performing Control

None of these artists heard in Billie Jean or Smooth Criminal an artist who wanted to fuck with your assumptions, they just heard catchy songs and loved the cool videos.  None of them heard The Knowledge or Rhythm Nation and thought that dance music could also be deep and, in doing so, wouldn’t detract from the urge to dance.  And none of them seem to get that Madonna’s blond ambition was about deconstructing the myth of pure white womanhood.

All of this isn’t to say that there isn’t good music in these artists or in my generation.  Usher and Aaliyah (at least who she was starting to be) are the closest thing to full-bodied, artistic geniuses in the Mike/Jan/Madonna tradition, but it may be too soon to truly tell.  Ne-Yo is worth listening to because when you do, you realize that at least he understands how to write a melody.

But the point is: it doesn’t feel like any of these new jacks have learned to take a damn chance.  It doesn’t feel like any of these artists I’ve mentioned are really interested in shocking their audience.  They don’t seem at all concerned with making a statement, or reflecting their times (other than by riding the latest trend), or commenting at all on what is going on in the world.  They confuse outselling their peers with achieving greatness artistically.  And we aren’t challenging them as a record buying public or as critics. 

But maybe we aren’t supposed to ask for more.  Maybe we got our fill with Mike, Janet and Madonna.  I don’t know.  I don’t think I have. 

Have you?

Related posts:

1. MTV 2009 VMA’s…now with more Janet Jackson
2. Is Kanye West is the new King of Pop? Kanye West thinks so
3. Album Review: Queen Latifah’s Persona
4. Good Morning Forbes
5. Michael Jackson’s last performance

Tags: aaliyah billie jean black popular music blond ambition britney spears Chris Brown ciara gwen stefani janet janet jackson Lady GaGa like a boy lloyd madonna material girl Michael Jackson moonwalk ne-yo off the wall pop music popular music rhythm nation smooth criminal the velvet rope control thriller usher

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Author: Tyler

I am treacherous, imperial, impermanent, impetuous. I rock like an archeologist, draw a picture like a forensic artist, perform like a dramatist. I'm fabulously wicked, miraculous, rustic, majestic, ridiculous.