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Some Kind Of God 13 Thursday Mar 2014 Posted by sylmortilla
Prince’s recent whirlwind tour of the UK had fans and critics alike describing the man as if he were some kind of God.
And with the idea of him and his art as being a conduit of some supernatural force, I am in absolute agreement. After all, I grew up studying Michael Jackson, God’s first port-of-call in the promulgation of positivity on Earth, a man who was bestowed with gifts that transformed him from superstar to superhuman, so I can easily recognise the genius that is the face of God manifesting itself. Michael himself described being on stage thusly,
“You are connected to a higher source and you just go with the moment and you become one with the spirit, and not to sound religious or anything but it is a very spiritual, very much like religion and, er, it’s a God-given gift and you just go with it, and I’m honoured to have been given it, and it’s fun to become one with the audience, it’s a oneness, you know.” (It’s this uniquely repeated experience of “oneness” with so many people, that I believe drove Michael’s political leanings, which I discussed a few weeks ago, here: www.sylmortilla.com/the-enigma-mirror).
Michael also took this awareness of God being present during moments of creativity into the recording studio with him. There was a clip recently released from a Brad Sundberg session, where Give In To Me is in its genesis, and Michael is heard telling the guitarist to just jam, as that’s where ideas come from. Prince is renowned for his jam sessions, and Michael had a genuine concern that God would give Prince the songs meant for him if he fell asleep; that the genie would bypass him if he were unconscious. As he said in conversation with Kenny Ortega, ”You don’t understand – if I’m not there to receive these ideas, God might give them to Prince.’”
Of course, the success to which each artist interpreted their communications from God is entirely subjective. But it’s interesting to try and imagine what Michael would have done with Purple Rain; or, indeed, what Prince would have done with Earth Song. Prince had his attempts at world-redeeming songs, but often under the very thin veil of the Jehovah’s Witness solution. Michael also, unsurprisingly, used the Jehovah’s Witness approach (especially as a member of The Jacksons), but also managed to utilise Biblical passages without sounding like he had just knocked on your door. Musically and commercially, Michael also had greater success with his ‘redeemer records’.
Perhaps there is some correlation between this and the levels of fame achieved by the respective artists. Michael Jackson was, is, and forever will be more famous than Prince (the litmus test for fame being the taking of a photograph of someone into a remote African village and asking the inhabitants if they recognise the person on the picture – not only is Michael recognised where Prince is not, he’s an actual king of an African village). At school, we used to play a game in which the question posed was whether one would prefer to be rich or famous. I can’t remember what I used to opt for, but it’s a good bet Michael would have chosen fame, whereas Prince would have chosen wealth (not to suggest that this was either of the artists’ primary motivation; for both of them, I believe their art and freedom of expression was paramount – as seen by both men protesting about their treatment by their respective record companies; plus, after all, all good art, which it irrefutably is, comes first and foremost from a house of honesty). In Michael’s song, Price of Fame, he lets us know that his father made him fully aware of the risks of the levels of fame Michael was shooting for. A risk nevertheless pursued by Michael, and eventually made manifest through infamy as a result of the molestation allegations. With the irony being Michael’s pursuit of fame being driven by a desire to spread his message of love and peace for the children of the world.
Prince, on the other hand, is notoriously precious over copyright infringement. Whereas Michael’s back catalogue is there for all to observe on YouTube (although, strangely enough, the only thing the Estate is vehemently opposed to is uploaded voice comparisons of the Cascio tracks – they’re taken down in minutes), Prince has an army of legal staff trawling the Internet, waving threats to sue at anyone seen crossing the copyright line.
The Michael Jackson Estate, converse to Michael’s attitude whilst he was alive (remember, Michael gave record-breaking amounts of his money away, including all proceeds from both the Victory and Dangerous Tours), is wholly dedicated to the pursuit of profit (to the extent of attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the IRS to the tune of three quarters of a billion dollars). In the entirety of Michael’s career, the one and only financial body that Michael Jackson explicitly complained about and campaigned against, was Sony. So, the Michael Jackson Estate have teamed up with Sony to release the forthcoming album exclusively on a Sony smartphone. And to promote this, they’ve used a remix of Michael’s song Slave To The Rhythm (such sickening irony in that choice of title), which sounds excruciatingly like… well… like something from a phone advert.
Yet further examples of the Michael Jackson Estate’s disregard of the priceless value of Michael’s legacy (seriously, how many times am I going to have to write that?) were revealed in the the leaking of three of Michael’s previously unheard demos, namely Hollywood Tonight, People Of The World and Days In Gloucestershire (it goes without saying there has been little effort to remove these from YouTube). The latter tune was a latterday composition, and evokes an image of a man in peaceful semi-retirement, lazily picking at grass whilst lying in a field blessed in British sunshine. There is a real, simple beauty to it. I was actually in Gloucestershire myself when I first heard the song, lying on the grass in some rare British sunshine, eyes closed, fantasising about Michael on stage at Glastonbury as he delicately delivered the song to an overawed crowd that stared, wide-eyed at him.
As if he were some kind of God.
http://sylmortilla.com/
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