Mark McDonald

This post is reflection and personal opinion.

The death of Michael Jackson last week has elicited numerous retrospectives, commemorations and memorials.  As the King of Pop he has certainly played a defining role in popular culture predominately from the 70’s to the 90’s.

Full disclosure, I am not particularly a fan of Jackson’s work.  I do not own his music either in vinyl or digitally.  However, you do not need to be a fan to recognize his position in popular culture of the music business, particularly when his career was at its height.

Michael Jackson represented the zenith of the record studio/global artist business model that dominated the world before the widespread adoption of the Internet and the decimation of the music industry.

During his heyday Jackson could be thought of as the equivalent of the mainframe.  He was an industry unto himself with others scrambling to follow his lead.  He was centralized as a brand, broadcast in the media supporting MTV with Hollywood directors shooting videos off his Thriller Album.  I remember when the premier of Jackson’s “Thriller” video, directed by Jon Landis was a media event.  He was global before globalism was fashionable and he understood the potential of being global.

Jackson was well suited for a 1:M technology model where he was the one and we were all the many. He understood a music industry based on this.  He invested heavily in that model, buying the rights to the Beatles songs, and maintaining a tight control over his brand.  All of which was possible in that model where you can manage your image, position your actions and maintain some level of privacy. 

However, as technology went from 1:M to M:M  the broadcast model breaks down.  That started way before social computing as multiple media outlets looked to find content to feed a curious audience.  That scrutiny, coupled with Jackson’s personal actions and issues fed each other to the extreme.  Jackson did not seem to understand the M:M media or the need to engage the public on these terms.  In a world where even Jack Welch tweets, Michael was silent.

As the personal began to take precedence over the product, Jackson’s broadcast based brand suffered.  While Jackson remained in the public eye the public moved on both in terms of how they consumed music and their reduced interest in single monolithic artistic based brands. 

If you think about it, peer-to-peer (M:M) media has not only fragmented the music industry and its distribution model it has also fragmented the constellations of artists and the path to being a super star.

Jackson was singular in terms of his talent, ability and domination of popular media in his hey day.  Those things will never be in doubt.  The possibility that Jackson was the last great ‘traditional music icon and entertainer’ grounding in a 1:M broadcast model is entirely reasonable observation.  There is certainly no one today who has near the global reach, market influence and presence Jackson had at his height.  Perhaps in this new media market no one ever will.

Don’t believe me, then tell me who is currently holds the position in the public mind and media industry that Jackson held in the mid to late 1980’s.  Who as the realistic potential to do so?

So yes, ‘video killed the radio star’ but will our social based models may deny anyone from ever assuming the crown worn by the king of pop?