Otherworldly, like 'Moonwalk'

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson was not of this world. He always seemed to defy gravity, as a dancer whose signature move was so incomprehensibly graceful that it earned the extraterrestrial title "the moonwalk," a singer whose tenor was high but strong, a rhythmic instrument that went as sweet and tender as a clarinet on the long notes — and as a man whose physical presence was first androgynous and then seemingly cyborgian, forcing his astounded public to puzzle over their assumptions about race, gender and age.

He was the boy who knew too much, bursting upon the pop scene in the 1970s as the neon-bright center of his family group The Jackson 5, singing songs that communicated emotions that should have been beyond the grasp of a prepubescent boy.

For the cameras, he danced in a newsboy cap to childlike rhymes — A,B,C, easy as 1,2,3 — but the children and teenagers who were his primary audience loved him because his voice went beyond the guilelessness of playground games.

The fidelity he communicated in "I'll Be There," the broken heart in "Maybe Tomorrow," the longing in "Never Can Say Goodbye," these were emotions children weren't supposed to have, but did, and he gave them voice.

Then he became a man and the biggest star in the pop universe. He kept transcending. The sound he developed with producer Quincy Jones was based in funk and old-school soul but added elements of jazz, disco and Beatle-esque rock in a smooth mix that created new possibilities for crossover pop.

'82 masterwork

It took shape with 1979's "Off the Wall" but was fully formed on "Thriller," the 1982 masterwork that changed mainstream pop, breaking down the lines between black and white music, fluff and serious art, sounds meant for the dance floor and for the headphones.

Baby boomers have "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Pet Sounds," but for subsequent generations "Thriller" remains pop's ultimate artistic endeavor. Mr. Jackson not only crafted a sound that is still imitated by every young star who wants to claim territory in R&B, he also explored serious themes: obsessive love in "Billie Jean," street violence in the "West Side Story" homage "Beat It," the scourge of gossip in "Wanna Be Startin' Something."

Even the title track, an old-fashioned horror tale seemingly meant for kids, held something more ominous. In the groundbreaking video, director John Landis transformed Mr. Jackson into a monster, an early metaphor for the struggles with identity that would dominate the singer's life.

Complicated art form

For Mr. Jackson was also completely of this world, his often tragic life and complicated art formed by the phenomenon of global celebrity in the age of late capitalism. What Marilyn Monroe's life and death said about Hollywood, and what Elvis Presley's said about the rise of rock 'n' roll, Mr. Jackson's says about pop in the time of media saturation, when our stars became truly global and omnipresent, across genres and media platforms.

Throughout his career, Mr. Jackson never let go of the mandate — and privilege — to transform. It became the great source of his art and his biggest burden.

"Magic is easy if you put your heart into it," he told Sylvie Simmons in Creem magazine in 1983.

But as he grew more famous, he began altering his own appearance, going further into an image that appeared to be androgynous, beyond racial categorization and the bounds of age.

As a performer, he was never not sexual — after all, he was famous for hip thrusts and crotch-grabbing — but instead of maturing, he underwent a different kind of evolution.

The songs and the videos he made as his trajectory peaked and started downward, such as "Black or White" and "In the Closet," simmered with anger and fear about outside forces — the media, the listening public — who wanted to pin down his identity.

But their power lies more in their expression of the inner torment he seemed to be suffering as his attempt to elude definition turned into a tragedy of arrested development.

Planned comeback

Mr. Jackson had said the comeback he was planning to stage this summer, with 50 concert dates at London's O2 Arena, was partly motivated by his desire to share his artistic legacy with his own three school-age children. That he died while pursuing this goal is just one tragic turn in an almost unfathomably complicated life.

Those of us who grew up with Mr. Jackson's music and the glow of his fame in its prime may choose to remember him in the way he seemed to want us to perceive him, as that magical child, never struck down by ordinary life, forever singing, "I'll Be There."