JOE JACKSON IS A DICK. NO, NOT THAT ONE.
If you’re reading this, you are a sexy genius with a packed social calendar, so I understand if you couldn’t shoe-horn Sunday’s Grammys broadcast into your life. I, however, only had to interrupt a ten-minute conversation with my watch in time for the opening number (Elton John’s duet with the daughter of Marilyn Manson and Cher). It was the first of many atrocities, but none more grotesque and exploitative than the, ahem, tribute to Michael Jackson. Let’s not examine it too closely, lest our brains be scorched by the searing retarditude of having MJ’s children take the stage and hail their own father as a genius and special soul too strange for our world. Yeah. We fucking get it.
Long story short, it seems that father Joe Jackson’s fingerprints are all over this. I mean, these kids throughout childhood appeared in public with faces obscured by masks, veils, and promotional duffle bags — and that’s when they were allowed off their father’s nightmarish amusement park which Ray Bradbury was hired to design. So it’s, uh, weird that suddenly the two tweens, dressed like a member of Arch Enemy and a female Austin Powers respectively (thanks Brandon), were thrust into the public eye with a missive scripted by Joe that essentially orders the listening public to buy MJ records. Yeah, people, really, it’s time we ended our indifference to this unheralded genius by buying his little-known records. Maybe this Michael Jackson guy deserves a listen.
Ugh. But seriously, this is one of those instances that makes you envy England. They had The Beatles; the U.S. response was The Monkees. England is the birthplace of Metal; America is the birthplace of rap-metal. Our Joe Jackson is commonly credited with the destruction of pop music’s would-be savior; their Joe Jackson writes snappy, poignant pop tunes that make for great metal songs. Cheers to Anthrax for spotting Jackson’s metal potential (and informing me), though by that point the band had exceeded their ration of covers released as singles.* Never mind that “Got The Time” (above) wouldn’t even be their final borrowed hit (“Bring The Noise”), and is not their best (“Anti-Social” by a mile). What we’ve learned is that if we are to listen to somebody parrot the words of a person named Joe Jackson, it should be Anthrax hyper-charging the work of the English Joe Jackson. Not two minors from a parallel dimension unwittingly praising their Sharon Osbourne-esque grandpa to a roomful of people who know firsthand that he’s Satan’s ass-wiper. Huh, that conclusion seems pretty obvious, actually. This could’ve been shorter by three paragraphs. Don’t get mad – I wasted my time, too! Cheers!
– ADF
*One, maximum.
Anso DF is a former music journalist who would be happy to help out Decibel with their copy-editing if they want. (I kid!)
