My first memory of Michael Jackson was some awards show I saw, it was probably the Grammies...I don't remember. The point is - I was mesmorized!
This was 1983, I was 9 and had just moved to Sandy, Utah from San Francisco and still doing my best to make some friends. I clearly remember the morning after the awards show - I was leaning against the brick wall of my school and I whispered to the girl standing next to me, "Michael Jackson is so great. Did you see him last night?" I whispered it because I worried that she wouldn't feel the same and the last thing I needed to do was go down a notch on the wrong side of the popularity scale.
Her name was Linda and luckily she felt the same. We became quick friends. In fact, she had a video of the making of the Thriller video which we probably watched 80 times over the next few months. (BTW, We stopped being friends a few years later. I went to her birthday party at Magic Waters in Draper and she scraped my back on purpose! To this day I really don't know what I did to make her so mad! One minute we're walking up to the next water slide and the next minute she turns into a crazy cat and is scratching her long nails down my back!)
My mom bought me the cassette tape of Thriller not too long after I saw Michael Jackson on TV and I played it and played it until the tape would literally not play anymore. And I made up half the words because I could never understand what he was singing and there was no google in 1983.
My musical tastes may have won me a friend in '83 but it didn't get me anywhere as I grew older. For example, let's travel to 1985, I'm 12 years old and I'm in the locker room after swim practice. Two girls are grilling me on why I am clearly uncool, and I am doing my best to prove them wrong. "Like what music do you listen to?" they asked, "Phil Collins!" I said back almost instantly (I really should have thought that one through). They walked away laughing. Later on, in an effort to win back their friendship I pointed out to one of the girls that she had an extraordinarily large amount of ear wax built up in her ear. I thought I was helping.
So at 9 I knew what was cool ...what happened?
And to my defense, Phil Collins had some brilliant hits in the 80's.
