1982 was the year that Michael Jackson became the new face of music. It was a time when Indian TV viewers were at the mercy of Doordarshan and
while we shall never know what crossed through the minds of the Mandi House Mandarins, but they decided that the Grammies should be telecast in India.
For me and my generation, brought up as we were on the saccharine sweet Bachelor Boy and Top Of The World melodies of Cliff Richard and Karen Carpenter, respectively, not to mention the ABBA and Boney M (Osi-Bisa and their horrendous/cult/ludicrous version of Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram deserves mention) that pre-Grammy show was an explosion of sorts.
There was a scrawny young African- American kid, with a body that seemed to defy the laws of gravity, singing in a high pitched voice, who had been nominated for 10 Grammys for an album called Thriller. I still remember my mother asking us whether this person was a boy or a girl — a year later she would be scandalised by a 50+ Tina Turner shaking her booty on What’s Love Got To Do With It.
But when that show was done, we just knew that this kid whom we had never heard of till then (kids go ahead and laugh at us, of the black and white memories) was going to win. So it was no surprise when a week later the Grammy Awards were aired and Jackson won 8 Grammy awards. (The Police turned in a rather wonderful performance as well, with the Synchonicity album and the perennial radio favourite ‘Every Breath You Take’).
And just like that we were all scrambling to try and find people who could record the album for us on our preciously guarded Maxell, TDK and Sony blank cassettes. Archies came out with lyrics which was a must have and young boys began to move their hands in stilted wavy patterns doing ‘break-dance’.
Thriller, Beat It and Billy Jean, became anthems that could be heard everywhere, Neil Armstrong may have been the first man to walk on the moon but he was eclipsed and ‘moonwalking’ became synonymous with Jackson. Hell, the man even had a duet with a Beatle (Paul McCartney) The Girl Is Mine on that album.
The Making Of Thriller video was perhaps the most rented video as we tried to fathom the mystery that was MJ. Post Thriller, came the sappy We Are The World, penned by MJ and Lionel Richie, which was perhaps the first ’cause song’ and had the who’s who of the music world performing.
It was another testimony to what Michael Jackson alone could orchestrate. Suddenly hunger in Africa was worthy of world attention. Then came the period of disenchantment as MJ embarked on the road to Wacko Jacko. There was a nose job, the skin colour became a few shades lighter and the scrawny African American boy disappeared behind the big glares and numerous surgeries.