Michael Jackson is back — and it’s too soon

Six months on from the damning documentary that alleged the King of Pop had been a paedophile, Michael Jackson’s music is making a quiet comeback. Where do we go from here, asks Cameron Adams.

Six short months on from the damning documentary that finally aired the long-time allegations about his sexual misconduct towards children, it seems Michael Jackson’s pop culture purgatory is over.

During last weekend’s grand final of The Voice, judge Kelly Rowland sang Jackson’s Earth Song with one of her contestants. Interestingly, no one mentioned Jackson’s name before or after the performance, which could be written off as an oversight were it not for a number of other performances featuring his songs throughout the season.

So is this the new midpoint — celebrating the brilliance of his music while refusing to mention his name — the new normal that we’re bound to settle on?

The tenth anniversary of Jackson’s death came and went last month without any major fanfare; the album reissues and documentaries that had been planned for release to mark the occasion were all scrapped following the release of Leaving Neverland.

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When recently asked about the allegations against her brother and the documentary, Janet Jackson simply said, “I love it when I see kids emulating him, when adults still listen to his music.”

She added that despite everything, Michael’s legacy “will continue.”

Which is essentially what we saw last week during the finale of The Voice.

Six months on from the release of Leaving Neverland, it seems Michael Jackson’s hiatus is over. Picture: AP/Rusty Kennedy

Dan Reed, the director of Leaving Neverland, has said that he doesn’t agree with “cancelling” Jackson’s music, claiming that it would set a bad precedent to simply erase him from history altogether. Instead, Reed expects his documentary — which is the most watched HBO documentary of all time — to raise questions and spark discussions when Jackson’s songs come on.

Currently, Jackson’s hits are still played a massive 20 million times each month on the streaming service Spotify. His Vegas Cirque Du Soleil show is still running, and a Michael Jackson musical is still in production.

Interestingly, the writer of the musical, Lynn Nottage, who was backed by the Jackson estate, told a UK site she believed Robson and Safechuck (”I think they were telling the truth”) and that her musical will touch on the allegations stating “he was a genius, but an immensely flawed human being.”

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More locally, retro radio stations in Australia either kept Jackson on their playlists (Gold FM received a number of salty tweets asking why they were still playing him), while Smooth FM and Austereo “rested” his songs for a number of months before slowly beginning to reintroduce them again in recent weeks. Smooth FM has been approached for comment on this issue, but did not receive a response by time of publication.

Australian Idol alumni Ricki-Lee Coulter is covering Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough on her latest tour. As a lifelong Jackson fan who cites the star as one of her major influences, she admits to being “shattered” by the documentary, but told News Corp, “There’s a lot of controversy around him now, but I’m a person who can separate the person from the music.”

For every person who believes Jackson is guilty of what he’s been accused of, there is a fan who believes he is innocent. Picture: AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth

And that ability to separate the two seems to be the major issue here, not just with Jackson, but an increasing string of problematic musicians.

This year we’ve seen R Kelly’s career on life support after the documentary Surviving R Kelly exposed his alleged decades-long history of engaging in sexual acts and predatory behaviour with minors; Ryan Adams outed after a number of high-profile women (including his ex-wife Mandy Moore) detailed his emotionally manipulative behaviour, and Morrissey dealing with being labelled a racist thanks to his links to a far-right British political party.

In these instances we’ve watched R Kelly make things worse while trying to explain himself and Ryan Adams taking the sensible route of shutting up and either waiting for people to move on or find a bigger scalp to claim, but Jackson is not here to defend himself.

And what all of this it boils down to is that ultimately, there are millions of passionate people who will never believe Jackson was guilty, and millions of passionate people who will never accept he was innocent.

For his legacy to continue, it’s the middle ground — the people who can like the songs and tune out everything else, who don’t cringe when a DJ drops a Jackson song or shudder when someone rocks up to Halloween dressed in Thriller garb — that needs to be reached.

Cancelling a man of Jackson’s creative might shouldn’t come down to an argument of one side being right and another being wrong. It should be about finding enough room for multiple things to be true at once. That he was, as Nottage says, “an immensely flawed human being,” but also an otherworldly talent.

Whatever the final decision is, get ready, because the King of Pop’s hiatus is over.

Cameron Adams is News Corp Australia’s National Music Writer.

@cameron_adams