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Michael Jackson: The Greatest of All? · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Beyond Infographics. I am really glad you could
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: join us today because we are getting into something that
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: is incredibly complex.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those topics. It just has layers
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: upon layer exactly.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: there's this expectation of precision. Right, it feels like engineering, right,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: very clinical. Yeah, Like you break your arm, the X
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: ray shows that stark, jagged white line right through the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: bone and the doctor just points at it. There is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: immense comfort in that clarity.
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  Speaker 2: It's totally binary, like the bone is broken or it isn't.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: We crave that kind of visible, undeniable categorization in pretty
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: much every aspect of our lives.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, human beings do not fit neatly
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: onto an X ray film, so that diagnostic machine completely
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: breaks down. The second use step into the world of
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: human psychology or you know, cultural memory and legacy.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, it's completely.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Murky, right, and we end up looking at a landscape
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that is entirely full of contradictions, which is why we're
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: looking at a situation where, seventeen years after his passing,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson is at this exact second, the numbering one
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: global digital artist worldwide.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in the year twenty twenty six. It's wild. And
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: that metric isn't happening in a vacuum either, No, not
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: at all. It is being driven by this massive new
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: biopic titled Michael that is currently dominating I mean literally
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: every single face of the cultural conversation right now.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: You literally cannot look at a screen or walk past
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a theater without confronting his image. So today, our mission
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: for you the listener, is to examine this incredibly complex,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: dual sided legacy, and we are framing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: This entirely through personal insights and observations about the current
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: cultural landscape. We have to balance that undeniable artistic genius
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: that you know, shattered global barriers with the highly controversial
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: legal reality surrounding his personal life exactly.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And the question I really want you to think about
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: as we talk today is how do you reconcile the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: art with the artist when the artist's legacy is a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: multi billion dollar machine.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It's tough, yeah, especially when the music feels like it's
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: woven into your own DNA. But the allegations attached to
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the creator are just horrifying.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: It's a massive contradiction. Oh, and by the way, if
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you enjoy these kinds of deep, nuanced conversations, please drop
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a five star rating for Beyond Infographics on your favorite
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: podcast app. It really helps us out.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: It definitely does. So to really understand this fracture, I
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: think we have to look closely at the sheer phenomenon
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: of this twenty twenty six resurgence.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about the box office numbers, because watching
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: them over the last month has been just.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Staggering, mind blowing really.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Right, So, Michael, directed by Antoine Fuqua, has Jaffar Jackson
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: playing Michael and Coleman Domingo as Joe Jackson. In just
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: three weeks, this film has amassed a global box office
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of six hundred million dollars.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Which is I mean. To understand the gravity of that number,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: you have to contextualize it within the twenty twenty six theatrical.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Market, right, because getting audiences into physical movie theaters for
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a drama or a biopick has become increasingly difficult.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly, Yet this film has already completely surpassed Elvis to
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: become the highest grossing musical biopick ever in North America. Wait, already, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: in just three weeks and it is currently accelerating toward
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: the global all time record held by Bohemian Rhapsody. Box
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: office analysts are totally shocked.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And it isn't just the gross, right, it's the demographic
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: spread right.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Everybody is going to see this. And it isn't just
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the film performing well in the vacuum either. The movie
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: is acting like a massive cultural defibrillator for the music itself.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because Jackson hasn't released a studio album of new
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: material since two thousand and one's Invincible, I mean that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: was a quarter of a century ago.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Let that sync in twenty five years.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: But if you open Spotify right now, he is ruling
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the globe artist charts. He is pulling higher daily stream
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: counts than virtually every active touring pop star out there today, artists.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Who are currently churning out content optimizing algorithms, running massive
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  Speaker 2: social media campaigns. He's beating all of them.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: So what are the mechanics behind that enduring popularity? Because
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: my first assumption is just, oh, it's nostalgia.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: That's the easiest assumption. Right. You look at those numbers
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  Speaker 2: and think, okay, the people who bought Thriller on vinyl
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two are just reliving their youth, but
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: the internal streaming data completely invalidates that theory. What we
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: are witnessing is a highly successful intergenerational transfer of thing.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, explain the mechanics of that transfer. How does a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: level of fame that peaked in the nineteen eighties translate
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to teenagers in twenty twenty six who weren't even alive
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  Speaker 1: when he died.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the unprecedented nature of his original
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  Speaker 2: market penetration. Jackson's success originally broke down racial, cultural, and
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  Speaker 2: class barriers in a way no other artists had ever managed,
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  Speaker 2: and honestly.
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  Speaker 1: No one has really replicated it since exactly.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I mean before Jackson, MTV was heavily segregated. They essentially
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: didn't play black artists, but Billy Jean forced their.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Hand, oh totally, and suddenly his music was reaching suburban
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  Speaker 1: families in Idaho, hardcore gangsters in Los Angeles, kids in
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: rural China.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Right and even remote Amazonian tribes who didn't even have
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: reliable electricity, but somehow, you know, they had a Michael
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Jackson cassette tape.
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  Speaker 1: It's wild to think about.
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  Speaker 2: It is that level of penetration into the global consciousness
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  Speaker 2: didn't just fade when the news cycles moved on. It
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: became hereditary. Parents played it for their children, those children
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  Speaker 2: grew up and are now passing it to their peers
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and their own kids.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Well, it functions less like pop culture and more like
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  Speaker 1: a shared global folk tradition.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I see the power of that hereditary thing. But I
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: have to push back a little here. Sure isn't the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: success of this movie and this current wave of streaming
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: adoration largely due to heavily engineer image control.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Oh?
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  Speaker 1: Unquestionably, because if you look at the timeline and the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: production of this biopic, the estate has a massive vested
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: interest in portraying a very specific, sanitized narrative. It strikes
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  Speaker 1: me as being identical to building a theme park.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: A theme park, Okay, I like that analogy.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, think about it. When you build a theme park,
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  Speaker 1: you design the exact experience the guest is going to have.
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  Speaker 1: You control the site lines, you engineer the thrills on
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  Speaker 1: the rides, you pipe in the perfect soundtrack, and most importantly,
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  Speaker 1: you put up very thick walls to control what is
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  Speaker 1: kept securely behind the employee's only doors.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: That curation aspect is absolutely central to what we are seeing.
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  Speaker 2: The Estate didn't just passively approve this film. They're intimately
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: involved in.
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  Speaker 1: Its production because they hold the keys to the music rights.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Any filmmaker wanting to use the actual songs has
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: to play ball with these states' narrative demands. The New
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Yorker actually published a piece recently analyzing the film structure,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: noting that Michael chronic Jackson's rise and emancipation rather than
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: his downfall.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Ah So it deliberately frames his life as a hero's journey, yes.
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  Speaker 2: A journey against the media and his own physical ailments,
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  Speaker 2: rather than a descent into the dark realities that defined
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: his later decades.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: It's the exact roller coaster they want the public to rite.
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  Speaker 1: They want you to feel the exhilaration of the Motown
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  Speaker 1: twenty five moonwalk, the sheer cinematic triumph of the thriller video, the.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Gravity defying lean and smooth criminal.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, they are selling the magic trick and actively preventing
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  Speaker 1: the audience from looking backstage at the messy, terrifying reality
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  Speaker 1: of the allegations and the lawsuits.
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  Speaker 2: They do and from a purely corporate standpoint, that is
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: exactly what an estate is designed to do. But before
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: we analyze the specifics of what that theme park intentionally
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  Speaker 2: leads out, we really have to understand the foundational product
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  Speaker 2: they are protecting.
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  Speaker 1: We have to look at why the world is so
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  Speaker 1: desperate to buy a ticket to this curated reality in
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the first place.
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  Speaker 2: Right, which requires dissecting Jackson's unparalleled mesas that of creating music,
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  Speaker 2: because his underlying artistic process almost defies belief.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, the architecture of his genius is one of the
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  Speaker 1: most misunderstood aspects of his legacy, because when we think
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  Speaker 1: of musical genius, we naturally default to a visual of
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  Speaker 1: someone manipulating a physical instrument.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we picture Prince shredding a guitar solo in the rain,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: or Elton John furiously pounding the keys of a piano.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Or a classical composer hunched over complex sheet music. But
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  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson actually couldn't play any instruments in a proficient
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  Speaker 1: studio recording.
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  Speaker 2: Capacity, right. He couldn't sit down at a piano and
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  Speaker 2: chart out a complex orchestral arrangement, and he couldn't pick
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  Speaker 2: up a bass guitar and lay down a funk groove.
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  Speaker 1: Which is so surprising to a lot of people.
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  Speaker 2: It is, and for a long time, critics used that
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  Speaker 2: fact to diminish his genius. They suggested he was just
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: a brilliant singer and dancer who relied on legendary producers
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  Speaker 2: like Quincy Jones to actually, you know, make the music.
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  Speaker 1: But the reality of his process was entirely different, and
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  Speaker 1: neurologically speaking, it was incredibly rare.
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  Speaker 2: He possessed absolute pitch combined with what seems to be
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  Speaker 2: extreme hyperfantasia.
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  Speaker 1: Hyperfantasia like the ability to visualize things vividly.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, the ability to visualize and hear complex sonic structures
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  Speaker 2: in his mind with perfect clarity. Because he couldn't play
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  Speaker 2: the instruments, He'd built every single element of a track
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  Speaker 2: using only his voice.
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the entire multi layered sonic landscape.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. He would use a handheld tape recorder and he
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: would beatbox the intricate rhythm section.
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  Speaker 1: Just beatboxing into a paper corder.
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  Speaker 2: Right then he would record another layer, humming the bass lines.
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  Speaker 2: Then he would vocalize the string arrangements, the horn section, blasts,
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  Speaker 2: the synthesizers, the percussion.
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  Speaker 1: He essentially created a massive multi track studio recording using
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  Speaker 1: nothing but his own vocal cords.
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  Speaker 2: It's insane, and the translation of that process into the
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: actual studio environment is legendary among audio engineers. Jackson would
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: bring these raw cassette tapes into the studio surrounded by
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  Speaker 2: some of the greatest session musicians on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: These were seasoned professionals, virtuoso guitarists, classically trained keyboardists.
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  Speaker 2: Right elite percussionists. They would sit in the control room
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  Speaker 2: listen to Jackson beatboxing and imitating a bass guitar, and
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  Speaker 2: their job was to reverse engineer his vocalizations onto their
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  Speaker 2: physical instruments.
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  Speaker 1: So Jackson would dictate the exact tuning, the exact groove,
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  Speaker 1: and the precise emotional inflection just by singing the part
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  Speaker 1: at them until they replicated what was in his head
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  Speaker 1: perfectly exactly.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Think about the level of acute audio spatial awareness required
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  Speaker 2: to do that.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, I have an analogy for this. If you and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I are walking down the street and we hear a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: rusty door squeak on its hinges, or a car slams
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on its brakes and the tires screech, right, our brains
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: just process it as an annoying environmental noise. But someone
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: with Jackson's neurological processing here's that exact same tire screech
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and instantly identifies it as an a flat wow. He
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: hears the squeaking door as an f sharp. He absorbed
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  Speaker 1: the chaotic sounds of the world, organize them mathematically in
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: his mind, and then wonize them into pop perfection.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: That is perfectly stated. It fundamentally changes how we view
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  Speaker 2: music composition, and the empirical results of this vocal architecting
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: method are staggering. We're talking about over five hundred million
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: records sold globally unbelievable numbers, and more specifically, we have
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: to look at the unprecedented, flawless run of three consecutive
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: albums from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty seven, Off
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the Wall, Thriller, and Bad.
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  Speaker 1: Those three albums alone constitute a cultural legacy that most
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: iconic artists couldn't achieve if you gave them ten lifetimes.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Thriller, by itself is a statistical anomaly in the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: history of commerce. It's sold seventy million copies. Seventy million, Yes,
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  Speaker 2: it's been thirty seven non consecutive weeks at number one
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  Speaker 2: on the Billboard charts. That is essentially an entire year
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: of being the undisputed most popular piece of recorded audio
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: And the way he and Quincy Jones engineered Thriller was
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: entirely intentional.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Wasn't it totally intentional? There stated goal was to create
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: an album with absolutely no B sides. Every single track
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  Speaker 2: was designed to be a number one hit, fusing rock,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: R and B, pop and adult contemporary to ensure there
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: was a hook for every conceivable demographic.
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  Speaker 1: And then he followed that up with Bad, which generated
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a record breaking five number one singles from a single
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: track list. The blueprint he created using his mind and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: his voice became the absolute gold standard for the modern
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: music industry.
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  Speaker 2: It really did.
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  Speaker 1: And you know this challenge is our entire traditional definition
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of musicianship. Ohso well, we have a massive cultural bias
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: where we judge artists by how well they manipulate a
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: physical object. Right, We value the dexterity of a guitarist's
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: fingers on a fretboard or the speed of a drummer's hands.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: But Jackson was essentially a human synthesizer.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: A human synthesizer.
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  Speaker 1: I love that his mind was the instrument and his
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: physical body was the amplifier. Does his lack of instrumental
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: proficiency actually make his compositions far more impressive? Because every
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: single horn blast on Don't Stop Till You Get Enough,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: every aggressive bass slap on Billy Jean, originated completely within
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: his own mind before it ever touched physical reality.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: It's a great point because it entirely removes the physical
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: limitations of an instrument from the compositional process. A traditional
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: guitar players compositions are inherently limited by their own physical.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Anatomy, like how fast their fingers can move.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly, or how far they can stretch across the fretboard,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: or even just their muscle memory of familiar chord shapes.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Jackson wasn't confined by a fretboard. He was only limited
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: by his imagination, which is boundless, right, and that is
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: exactly why his cultural footprint remains so massive. He wasn't
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: just writing chord progressions. He was architecting comprehensive, immersive sonic experiences.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: The blueprint he created continues to dictate how pop music
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: is constructed today, and if.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: You're enjoying how we break down these incredible musical insights.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to rate beyond infographics five stars, but seriously
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: look at the diversity of modern musicians who explicitly cite
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Jackson's methods.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, the list is endless.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Jack White is a perfect example. He is a legendary
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: traditional rock guitarist known for his raw analog style with
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the white stripes. Yet when Jack White wanted to break
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: out of his own guitar bassed muscle memory, he outright
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: copied Jackson's music making method. Oh really, Yeah, he read
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: about Jackson vocalizing every single part, so he put down
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: his guitar and started writing songs purely by humming and beatboxing,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: precisely to escape the physical limitations of his instrument.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: That's fascinating, and that influence permeates across entirely different genres. Yeah,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: he has super producers like Farrell Williams, who studies Jackson's
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: drum programming and syncopation. You have electronic arena rock bands
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: like Muse and French touch pioneers like Justinph building massive
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: soundscapes based on Jackson's vocal arrangements.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere. You have singer songwriters like James Bay, pure
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: pop artist like Megan Trainer, and even the algorithm driven
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: hyper pump breakout stars of TikTok. Like pink anthists, they
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: all trace their structural DNA back to the formulas Jackson perfected.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Which naturally brings us to the great nineteen eighties dichotomy.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: The ultimate rivalry.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You cannot thoroughly analyze the cultural impact of Michael
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Jackson without placing him next to the other titan of
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: the era, Prince Right.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It is the defining debate of the decade. But I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: think analyzing that rivalry requires recognizing that comparing the two
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: is genuinely like comparing apples to oranges one hundred percent.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, they were both black men from the Midwest,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: born in exactly the same year in nineteen fifty eight.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: They both completely redefined the sonic landscape of the nineteen eighties,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: and they were both heavily fundamentally influenced by the stagecraft
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: and rhythm of James Brown.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: But that is where the similarities end completely. They took
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: that shared foundation and built entirely different temples. Prince was
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the epitome of the instrumental virtuoso. He famously played twenty
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: seven different physical instruments on his debut.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Album twenty seven, It's Unreal.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And he possessed this raw, incredibly dangerous sex. He was
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: actively challenging gender norms, sexuality, and religious dogma in a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: highly provocative, adult and often explicitly dirty way.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Prince would lock himself in a dimly lit studio
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: in Minneapolis, lay down the drum track himself, move over
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: and play the bass line, strap on a guitar to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: record the rhythm section, and then sing over his own tracks.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: He was the ultimate isolated musical prodigy, an.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Avant garde provocateur who used the studio as his private laboratory.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, conversely, was the ultimate universal pop entertainer. His
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: goal was never to alienate or challenge his audience with
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: explicit provocation.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: His explicit goal was to unite the entire globe under
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a single, irresistible group exactly.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: He was a soul singer whose primary instruments were his
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: vocal cords and his physical body. While Prince was the
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: enigmatic genius hunched over a mixing board, Jackson was the transcendent,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: almost supernatural deity commanding a stadium stage.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And when we look at the broader historical conversation about
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: ultimate lasting five. The cultural consensus usually points to the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Big Three, right, Elvis, Presley, the Beatles, and Michael.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Jackson, the holy trinity of pop music.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Right, And from our vantage point here in twenty twenty six,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: looking at the sheer global analytics, Jackson arguably holds the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: crown for overall longevity and relevance.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It's hard to argue with the numbers, right.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Beatles obviously all the absolute prestige of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: songwriting and fundamentally changed the paradigm of the modern rock man.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Elvis ignited the cultural rock and roll revolution and became
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the blueprint for the solo frontman. But Jackson's fame was
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: something else Entirely.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: The scale of it is almost incomprehensible in today's highly fragmented,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: niche driven media landscape.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I want to contextualize this for a second for the listener.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Think of the absolute biggest, most ubiquitous pop stars in
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the world today, the megastars dominating stadiums now multiply their
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: global reach by ten yeah, and realize that Jackson achieved
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that unpressed level of omnipresence without the help of a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: single social media algorithm.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: No TikTok, no Spotify exactly.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: There were no viral TikTok dance challenges pushing his music
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to the top of the charts, no YouTube recommendation engines,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: no global streaming playlists. He achieved that through purely analog means,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: terrestrial radio, MTV, and physical record stores.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: He was instantly recognizable in remote villages that didn't even
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: have running water, which is an astonishing testament to the
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: power of the art.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: But and this is where the conversation really has to turn,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: because that exact level of fame is what engineered the tragedy.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Think about it, When an individual reaches a level where
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: they are treated more like a religious deity than a
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: human being.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Where sitting presidents are adjusting their schedules just to accommodate
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: a meeting with you.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, when you physically cannot walk down a street anywhere
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: on planet Earth without causing a riot, doesn't that inherently
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: breed an environment where all normal human accountability completely vaporize?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, soloowly does.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: When you become a billion dollar economy entirely by yourself,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: surrounded entirely by an ecosystem of managers, lawyers, and employees
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: whose personal livelihoods depend entirely on keeping you happy and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: shielding you from consequences.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: It creates an ecosystem of complete isolation and absolute power.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: You've identified the exact mechanism that makes the other side
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: of Jackson's legacy so incredibly jarring.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: A fortified, impenetrable castle where absolutely anything can happen behind
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: closed doors.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Right the universal, unquestioning adoration, the immense, unimaginable wealth, and
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: the total lack of standard societal friction are the exact
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: ingredients that allowed the dark shadow of his life to exist.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: It's chilling.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: It is the very same man who meticulously vocalized the
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: joyous baseline of want to be start in something, the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: man who attempted to heal the globe with we are
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: the world, is simultaneously at the center of some of
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the most horrific, chilling, and complex legal battles in the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: history of the entertain in industry.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And those battles aren't historical footnotes. They're coming to an
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: explosive head right now in twenty twenty six. They are
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: because the new Michael biopic, which is grossing hundreds of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars, completely and utterly omits the decades old
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: lawsuits and the chilling allegations of child sexual abuse. It
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: simply erases them from the narrative timeline.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Just pretends they didn't happen, right, But.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The reality outside the movie theater is that lawsuits from
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: two primary accusers, Wade Robson and James Safetok, are officially
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: headed to trial this year. How is this legally possible
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six when these allegations stem from events
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that allegedly occurred decades ago.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: So the legal mechanics here are crucial to understand. This
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: trial is happening because the legal framework in the state
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: of California underwent a massive shift. Okay, the state passed
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: legislation often referred to under the umbrella of the Child
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Victims Act, which drastically extended in in some specific lookback windows,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: entirely removed the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: sexual abuse to file sovil.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Claims because historically, victims of abuse had a very short
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: window after turning eighteen to file a lawsuit right.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Right, which fundamentally ignores the psychological reality of trauma, where
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: victims often take decades to process what happened to them.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: The new laws opened a window for these historical claims
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to finally be litigated in a court of.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Law, and it is vital to specify exactly who is
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: being sued here. Robson and Safechuck are not suing Michael
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Jackson personal. He is deceased and you cannot civilly sue
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: a dead person in this manner. They are suing his
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: massive corporate entities, specifically MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: That is a critical distinction that dictates the entire strategy
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: of the trial. This is a corporate liability case.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So they are going after the businesses exactly.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: The plaintiffs are arguing that these corporations and the executives
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: and board members operating within them, had a strict fiduciary
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: duty and legal obligation to protect miners who are either
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: on their payroll or under their direct supervision.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Robson and Safechuck are accusing the corporate machinery of either
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: actively facilitating the abuse by turning a blind eye to
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Jackson's behavior, or failing in their basic duty to investigate
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the massive redflax simply because intervening would have threatened the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: corporation's billion dollar cash cow. They are suing the financial
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: machinery that enabled the man.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And the public divide on this issue is an absolute chasm.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: There is no middle ground, not at all. On one side,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: you have the people who watched the twenty nineteen HBO
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: documentary Leaving Neverland, directed by Dan Reid. That documentary laid
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: out Robson and Safechuck's claims in agonizing, deeply uncomfortable, hours
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: long detail, and the rhetoric surrounding it is intense. Dan
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Reid recently went on record in global news outlets slamming
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: the Michael biopic for erasing this history, going so far
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: as to call Michael Jackson quote worse than Jeffrey Epstein.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: That is an incredibly heavy, inflammatory comparison, it is, but
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it reflects the absolute certainty of those who believe the accusers.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Supporters of the victims point to the deeply explicit nature
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: of the stories detailed in the documentary. They don't just
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: look at the acts themselves. They point to the documented,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: meticulous patterns of.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Grooming right like the secret facts machines installed in children's
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: bedrooms to bypass parents exactly, and the elaborate warning bell
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: systems installed in the hallways of the Neverland Ranch to
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: alert Jackson if security or staff were approaching his bedroom.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying, and they point to the grim reality that
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the legal system, the media, establishment, and society at large
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: turned a blind eye for decades.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Simply because of Jackson's immense wealth and power and because
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the public liked the music too much to look at
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the monster behind the curtain.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's essentially the prosecution's narrative. But to truly examine
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this cultural fracture impartially, we must present the counter perspective, because.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: It is held just as fiercely by millions of people.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly, there is a massive contingent of staunch defenders, superfans,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and independent legal analysts who view these allegations as nothing
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: more than an endless, highly calculated smear campaign.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: So what is their fundamental argument against these lawsuits.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Well, they view Robson and Safechuck's claims as financially motivated
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: extortion attempts by opportunistic individuals who saw a legal loophole
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: to attack a wealthy estate. Defenders aggressively point out severe
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: documented contradictions in the accuser's timelines, like what, for example,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in Leaving Neverland, James Safechuck claimed he was abused in
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: a specific train station building at the Neverland Ranch over
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a certain period of years. Jackson's defenders and biographers pulled
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the construction permit and proved that the train station hadn't
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: even been built yet during the year's Safechuck claimed the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: abuse occurred there.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Ah. Yeah, that's a significant contradiction.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And they also point heavily to his prior legal victories,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: don't they.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Absolutely they highlight Jackson's total acquittal on all fourteen charges
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: in his two thousand and five criminal trial. That trial
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: wasn't a minor affair either. It followed a massive, multi year,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: highly invasive FBI investigation that raided his home and seized
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: his computers. Right, and that investigation ultimately yielded zero evidence
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: of child pornography or physical abuse.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, defenders point to statements from high profile individuals like
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Macaulay Culkin, who spent an immense amount of time alone
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: with Jackson at Neverland as a child. Culkin has consistently,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: adamantly and under oath, maintained that Jackson's seepovers were entirely innocent,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: childlike and completely devoid of any inappropriate sexual behavior.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: So as a result, the public consciousness has essentially split
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: into two entirely separate realities. It is the two Earth's
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: theory of legacy.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I like that framing the two Earth's theory.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. On Earth one, Michael Jackson is an eccentric, deeply
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: misunderstood genius whose own childhood was stolen from him by
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: an abusive father and the grueling demands of the Motam machine.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: He just wanted to recreate the innocent childhood he never
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: got to experience. And because he was the richest, most famous,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: most power or full black man on the planet, he
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: was ruthlessly targeted by extortionists and a racist media structure
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: eager to tear him down.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: That is the definitive narrative of Earth one.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: But on Earth two, Michael Jackson is a prolific, calculating,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: highly intelligent predator. He used his unimaginable wealth, his carefully
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: cultivated philanthropic Peter Pan image, and a billion dollar corporate
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: machine to groom vulnerable families.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: To isolate children, abuse them, and then silence his victims
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: through massive financial settlements and psychological intimidation.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly, these are two completely fundamentally incompatible realities. They cannot
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: both be true at the same time, Yet they both
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: exist simultaneously in our cultural.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Consciousness, and everyone listening to this has to decide how
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: they process that fracture. What is the actual emotional reaction
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: you have when you hear Michael Jackson song suddenly come
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: on the radio.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It's tough because this profound dichotomy forces us to confront
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a massive, overarching question about the entire entertainment industry and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: really about how we can consume art as a society.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: How do we engage with a piece of brilliant art
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: when the artist's personal life is shrouded in such heavy,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: conflicting and deeply unresolved controversy.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate battle of the tarnish legacy versus
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the undeniable music. Because despite documentaries like Leaving Neverland, despite
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: recent exhaustive investigative pieces like the one from sixty Minutes Australia,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and despite the impending twenty twenty six civil trials, Jackson's
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: music simply refuses to fade. It entirely defies the normal
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: gravity of cancel culture.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: It seems almost entirely impervious to the allegations.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: There was a piece of music criticism recently that captured
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: this phenomenon perfectly. The critic noted that people who actively
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: swear off Michael Jackson's music people who firmly say I
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: believe the victims. The evidence is clear, I will never
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: listen to him again.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what about them?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Even those people often find themselves involuntarily tapping their feet
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: when the bass line of Rock with You or Baby
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Bee Mine comes over the speaker system in a grocery store.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: The sheer, undeniable perfection of the music literally bypasses the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: moral intellectual center of the brain and goes straight to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the nervous system.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: That is a testament to the inescapable power of the
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: groove he engineered using that vocalization process. But you know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: we also have to acknowledge the immense power of the
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: corporate machinery protecting that groove.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Artist's legacies are fiercely aggressively protected by their estates, and
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: often that protection comes at the direct expense of historical truth.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Let's look back at Prince for an industry parallel of
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: how this curation operates.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so how does the Prince the state handle the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: darker aspects of his legacy?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Very recently, Ezra Edelman, an incredibly respected Oscar winning documentary
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: filmmaker known for OJ Made America spent five intensive years
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: directing and editing a definitive nine hour documentary about Prince
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: for a major streaming service.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Five years, nine hours. That's a massive project.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: By all insider accounts, it was a profound cinematic masterpiece.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: But it has been completely killed. Sheldon definitely, Sheldon definitely
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: locked in a vault. Why because the Prince's State legally
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: blocked its release. They blocked it specifically because the film
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: dared to confront Prince's full humanity, which included presenting thoroughly documented,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: corroborated accusations of severe emotional and physical abuse from people
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: in his inner circle.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: So a brilliant filmmaker spends five years crafting a nine
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: hour historical document and it is instantly vaporized just because
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the Estate didn't like the reflection.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: In the mirror. Precisely, the States are not historical archivists.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: They are corporate brand managers. Their fiduciary duty is not
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: to the truth, It is to the commercial viability of
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: the intellectual property.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: In fact, the Prince of State actually released a public
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: statement regarding Michael Jackson recently that perfectly encapsulates this protective mindset.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: In defending Jackson, they stated, we turned a human into
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: a headline, judged him through fear, projection and.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Noise, the estate of his greatest nineteen eighties rival actively
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: defending his legacy. That is incredibly revealing, isn't it. They
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: share the exact same corporate goal aggressively pushing back against
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: any negative narratives that threaten to close the theme.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Park, because if the public starts looking at the artist
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: as a deeply flawed, potentially monstrous human being, the stream
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: counts might drop, the merchandising revenue might fall.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: But there is a powerful psychological mechanism working in tandem
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: with the estates here, and it's what psychologists referred to
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: as the halo effect.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: The halo effect right when.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: A piece of art or music is so deeply intrinsically
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: ingrained in our most joyous personal memories, like it was
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the song playing during your first dance at your wedding,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: or the soundtrack playing in the car on a perfect
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: childhood summer road trip, or.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: It is the song that reliably pulls you out of
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: a depression.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Exactly a brilliant, blinding halo forms around the creator of
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: that joy, and massive cognitive dissonance prevents us from accepting
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that the person who gave us so much, pure, unadulterated
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: happiness might actually be capable of committing horrific acts in
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the dark.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: It's too much for the brain to process.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the human brain literally struggles to hold both of
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: those conflicting thoughts simultaneously. We cannot reconcile. This song makes
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: me feel pure, innocent joy with this man systematically ruined
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: children's lives. So the brain actively rejects the negative information
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: in order to protect the positive memory.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: It functions as a deeply protective psychological mechanism. By fiercely
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: defending the artist against the allegations, we are not necessarily
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: defending the man himself. We are actually defending our own memories,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: our own nostalgia, and our right to feel joy without guilt.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Right, And if the art is so powerful, so structurally perfect,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and so universally beloved that it literally overrides our moral
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: compass and triggers that protective halo effect, does that mean
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: true undeniable greatness acts as a get out of jail
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: free card in the court of public opinion.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: That's a huge question, we actually.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Examining the evidence and deciding to forgive the man, or
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: are we just selfishly unwilling to sacrifice our own enjoyment
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: of the music? Are we simply looking at the allegations
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and saying, deep down, I don't really care what he
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: did because the bass line on Billy Jean is just
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: too good to give up.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: That is the most uncomfortable, piercing question of all. And
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: if we are being brutally, unflinchingly honest with ourselves as
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: consumers of culture, the answer is very often the latter. Yeah,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: we prioritize our own esthetic enjoyment over moral outrage. We
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: loudly proclaim that we are separating the art from the artists,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: not out of some high minded philosophical stance on the
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: autonomy of the art object, but out of pure selfish
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: consumer convenience.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: You want the groove without the guilt.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly, we want the groove without the guilt.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: So Michael Jackson remains an inescapable load bearing tiller of
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: global culture. His genius, that unparalleled human synthesizer method of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: creation fundamentally reshaped the DNA of popular music in a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: way that will never be under yet Simultaneously, his legacy
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is permanently, irreparably fractured by profound, unresolved controversies that are
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: actively playing out in civil courts right now. The staggering
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: record breaking box office success of the twenty twenty six
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: biopic Michael proves definitively that his commercial power and the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: global public's desperate desire for his magic is just as
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: strong today as it was in nineteen eighty three.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: But the looming corporate liability trials proved that the past
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: is absolutely not done with him.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Right, the diagnostic X ray will simply never be clean.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: We are forced to exist in the muddy waters between
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Earth one and Earth two.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, we constantly debate this idea of separating
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the art from the artist. But think about Michael Jackson
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: specifically for a moment. When an artist's entire brand, his
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: entire creative output, was built intrinsically on his personal identity.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Right when he was a human synthesizer, Yes.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: When he was a dancer, when his face, his voice,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and his literal physical body, where the instrument in the
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: icon is separation even practically possible. Can you truly separate
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the magic of the moonwalk from the reality of the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: man who walked It.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: A profound question without an easy answer.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Next time you are in the grocery store or driving
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: in your car and you hear that iconic, thumping bass
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: line of Billy Jean come through the speakers, ask yourself,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: as your foot inevitably starts to tap, what exactly are
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: you celebrating. Are you celebrating a melody, a memory, or
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: are you just buying another ticket to a highly curated reality.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: It really makes you think.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It definitely does. Thank you so much for joining us
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: for this edition of Beyond Infographics. If you appreciate these
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: nuanced discussions, please leave us a five star rating. Keep exploring,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: keep questioning the narrative, and we will see you next time.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: As obvious offers aff