Brutal truth

The brutal truth is that Jacko was essentially washed up before the age of 30. In Neil Tennant’s memorable phrase, his imperial period lasted from, roughly, ‘Blame It On The Boogie’ in 1978 to the ‘Thriller’ video in 1984. Three years after that came Bad, one of the most disappointing albums ever made. At the time we thought he had merely succumbed to the overwhelming pressure of producing a follow-up to the bestselling album of all time. But while Thriller had astonishing confidence, a sense that Jacko could do anything with pop music and make it his own, Bad sounded like a man following trends rather than inventing or exploiting them. After that, the rest was just filling in time.

Pop music is of course a collaborative medium. During his imperial years, Jacko happened to work with a brilliant writer and arranger in Rod Temperton and a producer of enormous experience in Quincy Jones. They needed him as much as he needed them: their Jacko-free work of the same era wasn’t of the same standard. But after Temperton and Jones drifted away, Jackson lost his ballast. If a hundred complete tracks were recorded for the Dangerous sessions, as was often said at the time, it’s because Jackson had no one left to say, stop that, it’s crap. Other than critics and the public, who in later years said little else. Maybe we killed him, with our expectations unfulfilled. What a grim, sad life. How lucky we all are not to have had to live it.