There are a number of celebrities turning 50 this year or have already turned 50. In music you have from Anita Baker to Kenneth Brian "Babyface" Edmonds and of course ultimately the big three in order of their birthdays: Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson. It would be very easy to focus on the ups and downs of their respective careers from their peaks in the 1980s which is when I came of age from leaving middle school and entering high school and graduating high school in 1987 when they essentially peaked. Instead I’ll focus on what they meant to me during the 1980s in their glory years, I’ll begin with Michael Jackson who grew up before our very eyes beginning with his brothers and having ultimately the greatest career of a solo artist who started out in a band.
His music and videos got me into many arguments with my holier than thou mother and gave me many great conversations with my dad. It was the thing we could share talking about music and going to the Victory and BAD tours was the ultimate for me personally because for my generation he was the perfect combination from James Brown and Jackie Wilson to Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly with Sammy Davis Jr and Mikhail Baryshnikov all thrown in the greatest entertainer I’ve seen in my life time, having to make sure I got good grades to attend the Victory tour was how much seeing Michael meant to me and so I think of those times in viewing him rather than focus on how his life turned out many years after that.
While I wasn’t as big of a fan of Prince as I was of Michael, Prince was to me the better looking guy and the funkier artist. Well hell Prince is still the best looking even at 50, but I digress: when talking about an artist who could captivate on stage and produce his own work he was awesome back then. Risqué and bold and throwing caution to the wind, Prince while not great with videos more than made up for by being the ultimate showman. While his music beyond the 80s didn’t interest me, I’ll always enjoy remembering seeing Purple Rain for the first time and thinking how cool he was and the ending of the movie when he did Purple Rain after the turmoil of the home life he was dealing with still sends goose bumps up my spine. Lastly, and certainly not to be overlooked was the ultimate female performer who towered over everyone else. I have to admit when I first saw Madonna I thought she would be a one hit wonder a poor imitator of Teena Marie but she more than made up for it with some of greatest music videos ever.
Madonna wasn’t going to ever be confused with a legend like Aretha Franklin vocal wise but her gumption and raw talent of knowing how to work a crowd, be forever innovative, and market herself will be legendary for many years to come. Her videos like Michael were always an event not to be missed, waiting for the world premieres and always wondering what Madonna was going to do next was fun. Madonna proved if you have a vision and have the confidence then you can last and last. So today I celebrate all 3 of them, they set a bar so high that the artists that would come after them would be sub par at best and embarrassing at worst. I know that every generation think their generation was better but I truly feel like I got to see 3 of the greatest in history and something like them we will never see again.
1 comment:
Prince's movie 'Purple Rain' is one of my all time favorites even though other than When Doves Cry his music hasn't been amongst my favorite types, it's an opinion thing rather than a quality thing. I don't care much for Prince's attitude toward his fans though, from what I've heard about him.
Madge's music is okay, I've liked quite a few of her songs, but never enough to like a whole album's worth. I liked her in her movies though, even the old 'campy' ones. I especially liked her in "A League of their Own" and the title song of hers for the movie "used to be my playground" is great.
You know how I feel about the third old man--nuf said.
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