I am a child of the 80′s.

I belong to Madonna and Michael Jackson’s music generation.  So since I learned about his death in an online forum I was really devastated.

Not that I cried my eyes out, or downed my sorrows on a bottle of beer, none of that sort.  Instead, I kept my sadness to myself, completely forgot about my work for an entire day to read every news updates on TMZ or CNN, and deeply immersed myself in searching online for and viewing videos of MJ’s performances.  Thank goodness for YouTube, I found myself  zapped back to memories of watching with much admiration and intensity MJ’s iconic performances on TV.

The Death of the King of Pop. Immensely saddening.  It feels like mourning the death of a childhood friend.  The odds of me meeting him in person was once in a billion, but like others who are affected by the news of his death, I found consolation in his music and his dance.  Watching again the videos of his concerts held in different parts of the world such as Germany, Malaysia, Russia and even Japan gave me an awesome realization that while many popular artists came after him, no one can ever take his place as the King of Pop. As someone who loves to dance  I totally admire younger dance and song artists of today like Britney, Justin, T., and Usher.  But I must say that none of them comes close to MJ’s trailblazing performances.  From that Motown 25 performance where he introduced his signature dance “moonwalk” to the world in 1983, to his perpetually sold-out world tour concerts for his album History, the power of his voice and the electrifying energy of his dance steps  would simply leave you in awe.   I don’t know if it was just me, but reading and uttering the phrase “King of Pop” after his death takes on a more revered tone.  I truly believe that he belongs up there with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

The Music. Ahhh, who would ever forget Thriller, the album that not only sold millions of copies around the world, but also paved the way for the MTV era and shaped pop music culture as we know it today.  My personal favorites are I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, You Are Not Alone, She’s Out of My Life, and Gone Too Soon.  I was one of those billions of people  around the world who would dance at the sound of Black and White, Remember The Time,  and Smooth Criminal.  Too bad, he didn’t make it to his much anticipated comeback next month in a series of sold-out concerts in London.

Here’s one of my favorite MJ performances.

His Legacy. My father worked as a a radio “announcer” (similar to today’s radio DJ’s)  when I was a child and I remember how he would often play every Sunday  his favorite Elvis Presley songs that were then in long playing albums or 45 vinyl records, along with the songs of great oldies such as Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, and many others.  My sisters and I would complain at the marathon of albums played one after another, but it was only when I was in my late 20′s and wondered why I had such affinity for oldies music that I realized that it was my father’s way of sharing with us the legacy of these singing legends of his time.  In fact, after my father’s death, one of the first things that I looked for was his collection of old music albums which he lovingly bought, collected and shared with us throughout his years of working in the radio industry.  But since I didn’t have a turntable to play it with, I chose to take some of his music CD collections of oldies music.  Now that the music legend of my lifetime has died, it’s now my turn to see to it that my children would come to know about the music and the moves of MJ.

The controversies. Not that I chose to be indifferent because I am such a huge fan, but as a mother of 4 kids I chose not to dwell on this anymore.  One question I would like to ask aloud though is that why would the parents of the alleged victims succumb to alleged pressures to settle out of court?  Of course, I am not in a position to question or even speculate on the reasons behind another parents’ decision, but I am in a position to believe that once you’ve set out to seek justice for any wrongdoing against your child it should be a fight to the finish.  These questions could go on and on and I think his death would revive motives to milk whatever is left to a pulp,  but I would rather remember the man through his awesome music and dance moves. And judging on news accounts of people mourning all over the world, it’s exactly how millions of  other would like to remember him. Maybe this is the kind of comeback that he needed, a final act where people selectively wipe out the bad, and opt to remember only the good things.

Setting New Blockbuster Hits. On a side note, it’s a amazing to read new accounts of sudden burst of renewed interest on anything about Michael Jackson, offline or online.  There are news reports of people flocking to record stores to grab CD or DVD’s of Michael’s albums and concerts.  And the same is happening online.  Michael Jackson dominating iTunes, Amazon and  YouTube, MJ’s death roils Wikipedia, Google thought MJ traffic was an attack and set a record on Yahoo for unique visitors in a single day with 16.4 million visitors,  and news sites swamped following Michael Jackson’s death.

MJ is a blockbuster phenomenon even in his death.

In an interview Michael was asked a question about death and he said that he would like to live forever.  I am speaking for myself but I am sure that I speak for many others,  yes MJ,  your music will forever live in our hearts.