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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Sunday Jukebox: 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You' by Michael Jackson and Siedah Garrett

As you probably are aware by now, yesterday marked the second anniversary of the passing of a musical legend.

June 25, 2009 was the day that Michael Jackson, who many referred to as the 'King of Pop' passed away at the age of 50.

Certainly, his death was one of the most talked about news stories of 2009, and definitely a death that was filled with controversy and accusations.

I suppose that was nothing new to Michael Jackson though, whose whole life was filled with controversy and accusations towards him.

Now, I'm not here to cast judgment on what kind of a person he was, or what allegations were made against him.  I certainly do not want the focus of this blog to attack any celebrity of any sort, no matter how famous or infamous they might be.  So, I'm not even going to bring that up here.

Whatever crimes he allegedly did or did not do are irrelevent at this point anyways.  Michael is dead, and not able to defend himself any more, so I think it would be pointless to talk about it.

Seeing as how I have brought up Michael Jackson in this blog entry, it makes sense that I would feature one of his songs in the blog in memory of him. 

Of course, choosing one song out of however many singles he's released was definitely a challenge.  I mean, if you take into account his work within the Jackson 5, as well as his numerous solo efforts, that's a career that has spanned almost four decades.

It was then that the perfect song came across my mind.


ARTIST:  Michael Jackson
SONG: I Just Can't Stop Loving You (duet with Siedah Garrett)
ALBUM: Bad
RELEASED:  July 20, 1987
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 1 week


Michael Jackson's 'Bad' album was anything but bad.  Almost every track on the album was released as a single, and of the tracks that were released from the album, five of them hit the top of the charts.  Impressive feat, especially after the success of 'Thriller', which was released five years earlier.

The song I chose to feature in this blog entry from this album happened to be the very first single released from the album.  It was a duet that he had done with singer Siedah Garrett, who had just come off of recording back-up vocals for Madonna's 'True Blue' album the year before.

The song hit number one in September of 1987, but because of the fact that the next single 'Bad' was rocketing up the charts at the same time, the song fell off the charts rather quickly.

There is a reason why I chose this song...and oddly enough, it's not because I have an emotional connection to the song whatsoever.  I mean, it's a nice song, don't get me wrong.

I think it's the perfect song to describe the true fans of Michael Jackson.  How despite his death, and all the controversy surrounding him, the people still loved him for his music.

Just take a look at the video for the song that I posted above.  As far as I know, the song didn't really have an official video release, so the one I found was fan-made.  If you watch it really closely, you'll see clips of all his previous videos, as well as some concert footage, and the like.  It takes real dedication to make a fan video for an artist, as well as real loyalty.

See, no matter how one may have felt about him, one has to admit that his musical career was solid.  I can still remember back to about two weeks before he passed away, getting excited about his brand new concert tour, entitled 'This Is It'.  It was slated to be his final world tour, and the tour was supposed to have kicked off in the UK on July 13, 2009.

As we all know, the tour never happened, but just seeing his joy for performing for his fans, and his excitement for the tour, you couldn't help but think how tragic it was that he never got his chance to see his last tour out.

I mean, yes, there was that movie documentary that showed his rehearsal sessions, but it wasn't quite the same as seeing him perform live. 

In the end though, Michael Jackson loved his fans, and that's something that you can't take away from him. 

When Michael Jackson's funeral was broadcast on July 7, 2009, one could not believe the amount of people who paid their respects to the entertainer.  In that one moment, it was like whatever he had done, or allegedly did in his past didn't really matter.

I think in the end, that's all that really counted.


Michael Jackson
1958-2009

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