Where were you people when he was alive?! My money says you were either in elementary school dancing to crappy boy bands (all of which owe Michael Jackson their entire livelihood) or were to busy not giving enough of a crap to go out and buy a copy of "Thriller" or something. Yes, he'd dead. Yes, he was good. No, the impulsive purchase of a hastily thrown-together compilation album at Target does not constitute life-long fanhood.
Discovering new music is great; everyone should do it all the time. But the whole "OMG hes dead i gotta go buy a cd nao cuz im sad and everyone else iz doin it :(((" attitude just gets on my nerves. You either liked him before he died or you didn't. There is no middle ground, and no, I'm not a Sith. I was usually neutral when I played KOTOR, but that's beside the point.
The day after he died, I was in Target for an eye appointment or something, I don't remember exactly. I got bored and went over to electronics to make sure they had an adequate supply of Radiohead and Frank Zappa- you know, the basics- and while I was there, I found not one, but TWO(!) Michael Jackson compilations. They were the last in the store. I could be awesome and leave them for that guy, or be awesome and buy them both, laughing all the way home. However, I chose to not care about greatest hits albums and just went over to check out the vidya games- mostly to see if the Orange Box was finally cheap, which it was- and saw this thirtysomething couple standing in the middle of the big aisle between the books and the make-up. The wife was panicking about how there weren't any Michael Jackson CD's left in the whole store and the husband was assuring her that somehow, some way, they'd pull through this tragedy of not having a CD to buy. I thought to myself about the CD's I'd seen. Should I tell them? Or should I go back and snipe them? Finally, after two or three minutes of not really doing anything but checking prices on "Empire at War: Forces of Corruption" and the first Halo, I heard a bizarre squealing sound off to my right. I looked over to see that same couple going nuts; they'd found the Michael Jackson CD! Their lives were complete! This was, in fact, the best of all possible worlds after all!
Of course, now I laugh my head off every time I go to any electronics section anywhere, because the Michael Jackson compilation fad has come to an end. I was in Wal-Mart the other day and they had like 5000 copies of "Essential Michael Jackson" sitting unwanted on the shelves. Actually, it was kinda sad, since they had a 25 square foot area of shelving set aside as the Michael Jackson section and no one was even looking at it. Even death is a fad, and even memories can oversaturate the market. Oh, well. At least "Thriller" was a good video.
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