Media and people of the world – this image is not ok. It’s the most horrific front cover picture I’ve ever seen, and it adorns the latest issue of OK! magazine. OK! paid $500K for the  exclusive rights to what is essentially (colleagues and friends have commented the same to me…because it’s true) a picture of a dead Michael Jackson.

Even notwithstanding my post on Friday about MJ and how I have to remember that at one point in my life he was a hero to me, I think any decent thinking reader of the media can only react with disgust and abhorrence to the fact that (a) any money was paid for this picture, and (b) it adorns the front cover of the same magazine which published the ‘Memorial Issue’ of Jade Goody (with same black colouring) before Miss Goody had even passed away.

Add to this the considerarion of…well, how the hell can this be a tribute issue when the front cover is a ghoulish capture of not even the last moments of Jackson’s death, paraded before the world as some sort of journalistic scoop? It can’t. OK! may well throw their hands in the air and say, ‘The public has a right to see this’, ‘it’s newsworthy’ or ‘ we played it by the book and obtained the picture legitimately’, but I must respond to anything of this kind with the simple words, ‘Where is your decency?’

To be honest, this is about the most I can write for this particular post, because knowing that this picture is on a magazine in many, many shops close to where I’m sitting right now, I feel a little queasy, also saddened that OK! think this is a fine front cover, and – for the second time – wholly horrified by that particular magazine’s tributes.

I’m saddened that he died: For a large part of my younger years, Jackson was my musical idol. My first albums were his, and one of the first that I bought was Dangerous on cassette. My parent’s generation had The Beatles and to an extent Elvis as pop gods on entering the world. My generation really probably had Michael Jackson and…well, maybe some Queen, but I digress.

I wanted the moonwalk, I wanted the red ‘Thriller Jacket’, I wanted his hat, and without really understanding what it meant and what his life was like, I wanted to be Michael Jackson: the coolest dancer on the planet, the man who made ‘Bad’ good and the man who was 100% guaranteed to supply an unbeatable pop tune. The man who made the best music video of all time in Thriller, and the man who millions around the world adored.

Of course, I grew up, I found other artists, I read the media coverage of his life, I disassociated myself from a person who seemed so distant from the one I knew (but knew how much?). But at the same time, as clear as polished crystal, I could instantly recall sitting mesmerised with my cousin watching a Michael Jackson video (one we both owned) and just gawping at his life to that point. He was a hero.

What really brought this all home to me today was the clips that were circulating of just incredible performances from throughout his lifetime. The man was a genius at his peak, sheer genius. And yes, he had a lot of issues, some very public, and was accused of committing things (I know not the truth in any of that) which made me sick to my stomach if reported factually. But I would and still will argue all day that he was untouchable as a musical icon. That his ‘Wacko’ media status while not undeserved (he did many bizarre things, well documented), was unknowably fair bearing in mind how little 99.9% of people actually knew the real Michael Jackson.  I will argue unrepentent and say that some of those clips I saw again today are some of the best performance I have ever seen, by any musical artists anywhere. Ever. 

So, I am saddened by his death. Not surprised (and for why we shouldn’t be, Ross Burton has written an excellent piece), but saddened. But what tells the tale of how highly his music was regarded (though some no doubt disassociated with it for obvious reasons), is the now reported skyrocket in his album sales. The massive hits on YouTube of him with and without The Jackson Five, and the massive outpouring of grief also. Yes, there have been the inveitable jokes, which, because they are in bad taste, and I feel them unnecessary, I haven’t found funny. But I just want to focus in the first of my Friday Digests on the genius of his work. And though that may have been lost for some time under a growing mound of issues – even if his upcoming O2 Arena residency would have provided ‘his best shows yet’ – that genius did exist, and I for one won’t, in fact can’t,  ever forget it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

R.I.P MJ.