| Reviews : Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream |
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By Paulie (Anytown)
This book may be hard to find, but I found a rather ragged soft cover copy at the local library. At first I thought he was right on in his analysis (Chapter Two). But now I have reservations. Certainly, I think, his analysis in that chapter is right on when discussing reasons for the media's and some of the public's turnabout after Michael's "Thriller" album (and some of it was [is] racially motivated). Basically, the vilification that would continue for the next twenty-five years had begun. But then he goes a little too far and a little too self-righteous in his various analyses.
Becoming a little bored with the style. The chapters are designed as open letters to Michael where he asks Michael a series of questions in a wheedling tone and then proceeds to arrogantly answer his own questions (like some annoying, know-it-all older sibling who's your parents' favorite that you would give anything to punch in the face just once).
Although I intend to read it cover to cover, several chapters in I've skipped to the last chapter and find some of that chapter a little laughable. The book ends after the Victory Tour. He goes into descriptions of, by many accounts, a rather sloppy tour (expensive block ticketing, among other missteps). But after reading his description of one of the concerts (he attended several and found them wanting and repetitive) and how bored the fans were, I skipped over to You-tube and found an excellent quality tape of the event as well as some very grainy ones with poor sound.
Far from the ultra conservative, middle-class, 90% percent white, ivy-league audience that barely reacted, I saw the usual make-up (yes the audience was around 90% white as much of the crowds are in any videos of his tours) of average folks that were hardly bored and non-reactive. I saw nearly the same reactions that Michael will evoke in later tours - tears, trembling, dancing in the aisles, hands to faces in disbelieve (but no fainting, no grown men crying, no bodies carried over heads, no unconscious folks being loaded on to stretches, no hands outstretched, beseechingly, as though to one truly divine - all that will all come later).
Yes, Michael hated doing that tour. He wanted to be shut of his brothers and perform on his own, but twenty-five years later Marsh's prediction (at the end of the book he misinterprets Michael's words at the end of the Victory tour as he is quitting the business) was abundantly wrong. Michael wasn't quitting anything. What Michael was quitting was touring ever again with his brothers. What Michael was starting was a twenty-five year attempt to top "Thriller".
As the previous reviewer implies, the book is a little heavy-handed (Mr. Marsh thinks he is absolutely right in his every opinion). But he is knowledgeable about black (and white) musical acts of the time and you will find yourself running to You-tube to listen to a Jackson 5 or Michael song after hearing a description or analysis of it. He also mentions songs that the boys did even before they made it to Motown and I actually was able to find some of them on You-tube as well. You will also get a long list of other stars and find yourself running to listen to their music again or for the first time. For the wealth of background information - and his take on Michael - it's worth the read.
(By the way - Marsh checked out the above review the day after Michael's death and despite some of the reviewer's criticism of his book [and although Michael did anything but quit], he thinks his final prediction still holds up as he states on a website - Google his name to read it) Is this guy ever wrong?
Given the continued wreckage of Michael's face (although many of his female fans think many of those faces are cute and sexy - I do, too [I didn't like the last face or the 2001 face - he looked haggard] - I think Michael *had* to look the way he did to *be* Michael - so perhaps Michael did achieve whatever it was he wanted through those many surgeries), perhaps he was more right than wrong. He obviously knows a lot about the music business, but I take a little offense at his presumption to know what blacks are *really* thinking. He goes into great detail about the history of black music and (to him) Michael's apparent ignorance and deliberate distancing of himself from it (wrong), yet admits that for many black entertainers to be able to "crossover" one must neutralize one's blackness (ethnic performers have been doing that for years) - think Will Smith, Michael Jordan, even Denzel Washington - so that middle class whites will feel comfortable allowing their voices and images into their homes. Or perhaps he doesn't say that. I haven't finished reading the book, yet - but I say it. (It is part of the title though - isn't it?)
He makes much of Michael's nose surgery (he hadn't seen nothing yet!), but acknowledges (as does Taraborrelli Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story, 1958-2009) that what was often mistaken for additional plastic surgery (the seemingly reconstruction of his entire face early on, when it was only the first or second nose job) was actually the result of Michael maturing at that time (pre 1984), becoming a vegetarian and losing weight, and his bone structure (high cheekbones) coming through. Later, Michael obviously did have cheek implants (in my opinion) as a lot of stars do when fatty deposits due to aging hide the high cheekbones of youth (don't I know it - sigh).
Anyone who knew Michael (no one really ever did) as well as they could, will tell you that to try and know or understand Michael is an act in futility. And those that had the arrogance to think they knew him well or had gotten close (except for Liz maybe) found themselves shut out.
Anyway, I, for one, have become completely fascinated by all things Michael - the brilliance, the genius, the talent, the innovation, the creating and recreating, the multiple selves that was Michael. I've included some links to books (above and below) that I think are the best of the lot. One's a very tasty little essay On Michael Jackson by Margo Jefferson, winner of the Pulitzer. Also read Michael Jackson Conspiracy by Aphrodite Jones. (You may start thinking differently about whether Michael did it or not). Let's hope there are more quality books on Michael.
By A. Bryan (Brooklyn, New York, United States)
This is an odd book, written as part open letter to the late Michael Jackson and part history of the life and career of Jackson and the other members of the Jackson family, up until the mid-80s. Interestingly, there is a fair amount of judgement and insinuation going on here (and this was before Michael's life got completely out of control), so it is far from an objective journalistic book. The author seems to be primarily annoyed at MJ's unwillingness (in his opinion) to take risks and expose himself emotionally, either in his music or his personal life, but the writer's smug condescension makes it difficult to take his critique seriously.
By Readin' and Rockin' (USA)
Dear Dave,
Dave, I have a few notions about why your book, _Trapped_, is now sadly out of print. It is, after all, perhaps the best-written tome you've ever come up with. It's filled with more honest emotion than any of your other writing. It's a book that bleeds and struggles and fights with itself. So why, Dave, do you think this book fell away from us?
Could it, Dave, have something to do with the white-liberal-inadvertant racism and condescension that offends to the very marrow of one's bones? Could it be, Dave, your "smarter/holier/morally superior-than-thou" stance? Could it, Dave, have something to do with the ugly, though again inadvertant homophobia that drips creepily from so many of the pages of this book? Could it be that in looking way down on your subject, you dug yourself a hole of hypocrisy from which you've never entirely been able to climb out?
Could it be, Dave, that you were never satisfied with just being a music lover and critic? That you, Dave, wanted to somehow _control_ what musicians said and did to an utterly unreasonable extent? Could it be, Dave, that you wanted those musicians to look up to you, and ask for and follow your advice every time they made a public move?
Finally, could the problem, Dave, be that you finally did find yourself an artist who listened obediantly when you wrote (or quite probably said) "Dear Bruce . . ." And could it be that you were happier when that artist fulfilled your dreams instead of his own?
Dave, you're a fine writer and your analysis of Jackson's songs rank among some of the most insightful ever written. This is why it is so sad that your book is so hard to find. Why, there are times when you propel a listener to run to the nearest CD player and put on their Jackson records immediately. Your words make the music dance right off the page. You seem to understand Jackson's fear, and rage, and pain as he sings those emotions on his records. You even capture the joy of the records like few other writers. You truly illuminate what is best in Jackson's music, and even at time betray a compassion for the man that you try not to feel.
But, Dave, what you failed to do here, as elsewhere, is to take a good look first at the man in the mirror before wagging your finger down at the struggles of another.
By Powerline Ministries (New York, New York)
This book is decent, although others are better. I would recommend a read if you are a Jackson fan.
By Peter Muir (Alameda, CA, USA)
At times, Dave Marsh succumbs to overt hyperbole (who the hell cares whether Jackson loves Bugs Bunny cartoons?) and white "progressive" racist arrogance (Yo, Dave, if "black people carry a burden in America, Michael"---ain't that caused by white racism?). Still, by and large, it serves as a good book on M.J. up to THRILLER (I wish he'd update it for the 90's), and it functions nicely as ironic commentary on his own newsletter (ROCK & RAP CONFIDENTIAL)'s runaway, naive intergrationist/communitarian rhetoric.
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