Michael Jackson

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  ‘I'm not sure I even understand this letter,’ Frank Dileo said to an associate after it was published in the magazine as a cover story. ‘If you read it carefully, it doesn't make sense. “They desire our blood, not our pain.” What the fuck does that mean?’

  The associate studied the letter again. ‘You know, it's not really about the letter,’ he told Frank. ‘It's what it says about Michael. He's losing it… the man is losing it. Can't you see that?’

  Frank began to shake his head in despair. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he exclaimed. ‘What have we done? What's going on with this kid? What the fuck is going on with this kid?’

  The White Man Won't Let Him…

  In January 1988, Michael was well on his way to his thirtieth birthday. Despite his best-selling records, his celebrity and his great fortune, he had recently begun to lament that he felt undervalued not only by the music industry, but by the public, as well. ‘They call Elvis the king,’ he complained to Frank Dileo. ‘Why don't they call me that?’

  One would think that, given all he had achieved, Michael would have been satisfied. He wasn't. Indeed, ever since he was a child, he had been taught that being number one was the most important thing he could do with his life. Because it was a goal he had worked toward for years, reaching it before his thirtieth birthday seemed anti-climactic. After all, what was left for a recording artist to do after selling more records than any person ever in the history of popular music?

  Michael never strategized his career in terms of artistic development. He couldn't imagine recording an album for any purpose other than for it to be the biggest and best, ever. He needed to have his work acknowledged in a huge way, or he simply was not going to be satisfied. Perhaps such determination can be traced back to his days as a youngster when The Jackson 5 competed on talent shows, when the only goal was to be the winner. That forum was Michael's original training ground.

  Maybe one of the reasons Michael was not respected by the public and music industry is because the masses sensed in him the lack of two essential qualities possessed by artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elvis Presley: humour and humanity. It had become increasingly difficult in recent years to relate to Michael as he stood onstage in his military outfit, accepting his many awards, whispering his thanks in an odd, highly pitched tone, and then taking off his sunglasses for a quick moment because his friend Katharine Hepburn told him to do so. It was as if he was from some other planet, not earth.

  While there was still something about Michael's humility that was engaging, especially considering his many gifts, there was still a nagging problem with his image. Certainly, his fans admired his prowess as a vocalist and his stylized genius as a dancer: he was – arguably, still is – the quintessential entertainer. While the public could identify with many other rock stars whose humanity and accessibility supersede their stardom, it was unable to identify with Michael. After all, who knows anyone like Michael Jackson?

  After, Thriller, Michael saw himself as bigger than The Beatles and more important than Elvis. ‘They call Bruce [Springsteen] the boss and he's really overrated,’ Michael complained. ‘He can't sing and he can't dance. And if Elvis is supposed to be the king, what about me?’

  The fact that Michael is black complicated matters. Promoter Don King had preyed on his insecurities in 1984 during the Victory tour by telling him, ‘You're the biggest star ever, but the white man will never let you be bigger than Elvis. Never. So, you can forget that.’ Michael was stung by Don's observation, so much so that he telephoned his attorney, John Branca, in the middle of the night and, without explanation, blurted out, ‘They'll never let me be bigger than Elvis.’

  When John asked what he was talking about, Michael answered, ‘The white man – because I'm black.’

  John reminded Michael that he had already outsold Elvis in record sales. He said that he believed Don had filled Michael's head with racist notions.

  However, for the next couple of days, Michael continued to complain about being victimized by his race until, finally, John became so upset he refused to speak to him. When Michael began leaving desperate messages on John's answering machine, begging him to return his call, John finally wrote him a letter. In it, he expressed how much he loved and admired him, and why he felt Michael should rise above the kind of racist thinking Don King propagated with his harebrained theory about Elvis and the white man. If Michael didn't get over Don's remarks, John wrote, he wasn't certain he would be able to continue representing him, that's how much such thinking hurt him. When Michael read the letter, he was moved. Though he promised to try to forget Don King's words, he never really did that. (Wisely, he also never mentioned the subject to John Branca, again.)

  By 1988, Michael seemed to have found a variation on the theme: he began complaining about feeling undervalued by white America, griping that he had an ‘image problem’. By this time, though, no one in Michael's camp had a clue how to solve such a problem; it was a little late now to start worrying about his nutty image. Even if Norman Winter or Michael Levine, the two publicists who'd worked with Michael to help create the ‘problem’, could fathom a way to promote him as an accessible human artist with goals that were artistic instead of just commercial, it would never work. No one would believe it; Michael simply wasn't that way and didn't even know how to act that way.

  Michael has always been myopic in his thinking about the music business: how many records are being bought by his fans? How long does it take to get to number one? How many tickets are sold? For Michael, commercialism is key, and he doesn't understand any artist who doesn't understand that. After all, Joseph dedicated himself to getting his kids out of Gary so that they could have a better life, not so they could make important contributions to the music industry. In his mind, Michael was still there with Joseph, trying to out-do the other acts at the Apollo. Any artist he perceived as being a threat to his dominance on the pop charts, was viewed with scepticism.

  For instance, Michael has never been a fan of Madonna, a woman who has managed to combine commerciality with artistic vision because, from the start, she has had something she wants to communicate with her music and, usually, a clear-eyed vision as to how to go about it. She gives interviews; she has a point of view. Other than lamenting about his lost childhood and his victimization at the hands of the media, Michael has never had much of a public viewpoint about anything. He's not what one would call articulate, not by any stretch of the imagination. He's a genius on stage, but in the public eye he's stilted. He is constrained by his insecurity, his bashfulness and his deep fear that he will be revealed as being less than what he would like to be for his public. It's understandable, considering his life, considering the way he was raised by Joseph to think so little of himself.

  ‘She just isn't that good,’ Michael told one associate of Madonna. ‘Let's face it. She can't sing. She's just an okay dancer. What does she do best? She knows how to market herself. That's about it.’

  In 1989, Madonna was named ‘Artist of the Decade’ by many newspaper and magazine polls. Warner Bros., her record label, even paid for an advertisement in one of the industry trade publications pronouncing Madonna ‘Artist of the Decade’. It was the kind of empty compliment record labels often give their artists in paid promotions, but Michael was incensed by it just the same. He telephoned John Branca and Frank Dileo and complained that Madonna didn't deserve such an award. ‘It makes me look bad. I'm the artist of the decade. Aren't I? Did she outsell Thriller?’ Michael asked, his vast insecurity coming forth. ‘No, she did not,’ he said.

  John who, lately, was in the business of problem-solving for Michael, suggested that he could approach MTV with the idea of a fictional award. Off the top of his head, John came up with something he called ‘The Video Vanguard Artist of the Decade’ award. That title sure sounded impressive to Michael; he was happy, again. ‘That'll teach the heifer,’ he said, speaking of Madonna.

  And so it came to pass that at the MTV Award
s in 1989, Michael was presented with the ‘Video Vanguard Artist of the Decade’ trophy. Peter Gabriel handed over the honour, certainly not the most meaningless award ever offered at such a festivity, but sad in that it was given to a fellow who really wanted people to know he deserved it. (To this day, the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award is presented to artists who excel in that medium, a testament not so much to Michael's amazing videos, but to John Branca's amazing ability to placate his client.)

  It's ironic, considering Michael's obsession with Elvis Presley, that John Branca represented the Presley estate. John once mentioned to Frank Dileo that Elvis used to give his trusted employees Cadillacs. He suggested to Frank that it was time for Michael to start taking care of his trusted associates in that same fashion, especially considering all of the bullets John had dodged on Michael's behalf over the years. John was only half-joking. Who wouldn't want a new car?

  ‘Hey, Johnny, that's a damn good idea,’ Frank said, seriously.

  Later, Frank had a talk with Michael. ‘Hey, Mike, listen up. You think you're as good as Elvis?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. Of course I do,’ Michael answered.

  ‘Well, you know what? Elvis used to give his people Cadillacs,’ Frank said. ‘You're a little cheap sometimes, Mike,’ Frank added with a grin. He nudged him, good-naturedly.

  ‘What do you mean cheap?’ Michael asked, defensively.

  ‘Well, hey, Mike, you got sort of a reputation. No big deal. Let's change the subject.’

  Frank had planted the seed.

  A few months later, when Michael and John Branca were in London negotiating the ATV acquisition, Michael said to him, ‘Branca, if you get me The Beatles catalogue, I'll buy you any car you want, just like Elvis would have done.’

  ‘Including a Rolls-Royce?’

  ‘You got it,’ Michael said.

  Of course, John Branca later brilliantly closed the deal… and Michael bought him that Rolls. The only problem was that he didn't buy one for Frank Dileo. Frank was on the phone to John as soon as Michael told him he had bought him a car.

  ‘He got you a fucking Rolls-Royce?’ Dileo asked, bewildered. ‘I can't believe this. It was my fucking idea, and you ended up with the Rolls!’ The two had a good laugh. Finally, Frank got a Rolls from Michael as well. Both guys had played Michael, no doubt about that. John deserved a vehicle, that much was clear, if only for clearing the way for Thriller to be released, both the album and the video. One has to wonder about Frank Dileo though, considering the undeniable damage he had done to Michael's image. However, in truth, he was doing exactly what Michael had asked him to do… so, yes… he probably deserved a Rolls-Royce, too.

  On 23 February 1988, Michael Jackson brought the Bad tour to the United States for the first time at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. By this time, the three single releases from Bad – ‘I Just Can't Stop Loving You’, ‘Bad’ and ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ – had all gone to number one. Michael was in good spirits, especially since Frank Dileo predicted that there would probably be two more number-one hits.

  Before the show, the Jackson crew unloaded eight truckloads of equipment, including seven hundred lights, one hundred speakers, a massive stage, two huge video screens, and eighty-five costumes. On the night of the concert, banks of floodlights rose from the stage bathing the audience in blinding white light before he appeared, frozen still onstage in a line of dancers. Dressed in a black toreador's outfit with buckles down the trouser seams, Michael exploded as a supernova of energy in motion to the strains of the opening number. ‘Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'’.

  There were startling and grandiose effects: bullet-like, multi-coloured laser beams, smoke bombs and explosions, all of which were effective and loud. There was also plenty of shtick: Michael disappearing from one side of the stage and reappearing on the other in a puff of smoke; Michael swinging out over the audience on a boom crane during ‘Beat It’. In terms of pure stagecraft and showmanship, it was impossible to fault Michael and his huge supporting cast, including four male dancers who took the place of Michael's brothers.

  In this show, Michael also became much more sexually suggestive. He grabbed his crotch at least five times during the opening number. His ungloved hand hovered around his groin during most of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, ‘Bad’ and ‘Beat It’. It was an odd gesture coming from someone like Michael, but the seventeen thousand mostly middle-class white fans seemed to love it; the audience was on its feet for the entire slick, demanding, two-hour performance. Every time Michael moonwalked across the stage the audience would cheer and Michael's face would light up. It was clear that he still enjoyed performing.

  ‘The word “superstar” became meaningless compared with the power and grace pouring from the stage,’ wrote Gregory Sandow, who reviewed the concert for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

  Vocally, Michael was in terrific shape; his voice teacher, Seth Riggs, travelled with him for much of the tour. ‘He's a high tenor with a three-and-a-half octave range,’ Riggs said. ‘He goes from basso low E up to G and A-flat above high C. A lot of people think it's a falsetto, but it's not. It's all connected, which is remarkable. During his vocal exercises he would put his arms up in the air and start spinning while holding a note. I asked him why he was doing that, and he said, “I may have to do it onstage, so I want to make sure it's possible.” I'd never seen anything like that before. I thought maybe I should stop him so he can concentrate on his voice now, and dance later. But I figured if he can do it, let him do it.’

  A good third of the show consisted of material Michael and his brothers had used in Kansas City four years earlier when the Victory tour opened, right down to some of the dialogue. This time, though, Michael performed ‘Thriller’ in his act – complete with werewolf mask and the kind of high school jacket he wore in the video – now that he no longer considered himself a Jehovah's Witness.

  When Katherine and Joseph saw the show, they were disturbed by it. ‘He should have his brothers with him,’ Joseph said, not letting go of that idea. ‘What the hell's the point in not having them? I don't get it. He's got a good show, but with his brothers it's a better show.’

  Katherine told Frank she thought Michael was better when he performed with his brothers. Frank laughed in her face. ‘You are crazy,’ he told her. Imagine, telling Michael's mother that she was crazy! Of course, she was offended. ‘I am not crazy,’ she shot back. ‘The show would have been better with the brothers, and that's that.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ Frank said before walking off.

  Just prior to going onstage in Kansas City, Michael was handed a copy of the Star, a tabloid, with the cover headline, ‘Michael Jackson Goes Ape. Now He's Talking with His Pet Chimp – In Monkey Language’. The story claimed that Michael was now obsessed with learning how to communicate with his pet monkey by making chimp sounds. ‘Did Frank plant this?’ Michael wanted to know. ‘Where'd they get these pictures of me and Bubbles?’

  Michael's aide shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Well, I don't like it,’ Michael said. ‘I don't want to see this. Don't show me this kind of stuff before I go onstage. What the hell's the matter with you?’

  Like many stories published about Michael, the tale of his fixation with Bubbles – a three-and-a-half-year-old chimp who had been released to Michael from a cancer lab in 1985 – was false. Michael enjoyed his ape, the way he enjoys all of his animals, but even though master and ape sometimes ate together at the dinner table – good enough material for a story in and of itself, one would think – he wasn't speaking chimp language to his pet, not that anyone knew, anyway. (Incidentally, contrary to some reports, there has only been one Bubbles – not a series of monkeys named Bubbles. Just the one.)

  Katherine had been after Frank for months to stop promoting her son as ‘Wacko-Jacko’. She later said, ‘I spoke to him about it on numerous occasions. I knew it was not a good idea, it was backfiring. But, there was nothing I could do about it.’

  Part
ly as a result of the bizarre image Michael had cultivated, it seemed that some of his public had begun turning against him. Rolling Stone's readers voted him the worst artist in nearly every category in its yearly poll. Still, he hoped for some redemption at the Grammy Awards on 2 March.

  He decided to perform on the telecast, the first time in five years he had entertained on television. ‘Michael wanted to erase all the negative publicity that had been trailing him and replace it with a positive image of him doing what he does best,’ said Bob Jones, vice president of communications for MJJ Productions. He wanted to prove to the world that he is serious about entertaining, that the very essence of him is a performer, not an eccentric. He did it, too. Anyone who saw his riveting performance that night would have to agree. He is an intensely competitive person; he wanted to leave an unforgettable impression of himself with the academy and with his audience.

  However, after truly inspiring, absorbing performances of ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ and ‘Man in the Mirror’, Michael then had to sit in the first row of Radio City Music Hall, in full televised view of millions, and suffer one humiliating defeat after another. Out of four nominations – Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Producer of the Year – he had no wins. The last time Michael appeared at the Grammys, with Thriller, he had received more awards (eight of them) than anyone else in the history of the event. This time, he got nothing. Most of all, he had craved the Grammy for Best Album for Bad. However, much to his dismay, U2 won it for The Joshua Tree.