Madonna’s Michael Jackson tribute was beautiful
“I can’t understand why Madonna is slagged off as “desperate” and “bizarre” for starting her London show with a tribute to Michael Jackson” – Tony Parsons writes on The Mirror.
“If anyone is entitled to call herself a Jackson fan, it is Madonna.
They were born just 13 days apart in neighbouring states. Madonna was a Motown-obsessed little girl just as the Jackson 5 were breaking.
She was a struggling dancer in New York City just as Michael was boogieing into his golden period with Quincy Jones.
Infinitely more desperate were the comments by Barack Obama, who waited until a week after Michael’s death before hailing him as “one of our greatest entertainers”.
Obama rarely seems defensive but he was definitely a bit touchy when asked why he failed to issue a statement earlier. “Look, you’re the first person who’s actually asked me about it,” he snapped.
I sense ambivalence about Michael in the Oval Office. Obama may claim to “have all his stuff on my iPod” but in last year’s interview with Rolling Stone, Jackson never got a name-check.
Obama said that, growing up, he listened to Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Earth, Wind And Fire, while these days his tastes extend to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z.
In the same interview, he said that he likes a lot of hip-hop but worries about the influence of gun-toting, bitch-slapping rap lyrics on his children. My guess is that he also cast a wary eye over Michael Jackson with all his skin lightening, sexual ambivalence and sleepovers.
Fair enough. It’s just a shame that Obama is forced to make a tribute that he clearly doesn’t believe although the words he chose to describe Michael were almost exactly the same as Madonna. But her tribute was straight from the heart.
Desperate? I thought it was beautiful. Unlike all this wild talk about salvaging Michael’s 50-date London concerts by reforming the “Jackson 4”.
The Jackson 4? Now that’s what I call desperate.
From Mirror.co.uk.