As I’m sure you already know by now, Michael Jackson died today from cardiac arrest. He was 50 years old.

I’m not going to do a big bio of Michael Jackson as you probably already know it and if you don’t there’s a million places online you can find it.

Instead I want to talk a little bit about how much I have enjoyed Michael Jackson’s music and performances over the years. When I was a kid Michael Jackson was my favorite musical artist. Bad was my first LP and I played it repeatedly. I remember watching the 1988 Grammy’s and being floored by his performance of “Man in the Mirror.” Here it is:

I know it’s pretty uncool to be moved by the death of a celebrity, but this does move me. It’s a weird feeling. The first musical artist that I ever really loved, all of those years ago. And it’s weird because he’s just been so much larger than life throughout his career. And now he has died. It’s a bit of a reality check. Death comes to us all, even Michael Jackson. It reminds me of an interview he gave once where he said he was never going to die. Yes, MJ wasn’t all there and he had a childlike way of looking at the world it seems. But that was kind of part of the charm, wasn’t it? It’s sad that even Peter Pan dies in the end.

And I also think it’s sad because I really was curious about what he was going to do. His later albums have a pretty bad rep with people but I never got the impression that he stopped trying to do something unique and interesting.

Speaking of that, whatever happened to that next album that was supposed to come out? I remember hearing about it back in 2007, it was going to be titled 7EVEN (it would have been his 7th studio album.) It seems like I heard a lot about it’s impending release and then it just sort of disappeared and never happened. Hopefully he finished that album and it’ll be released at some point.

And did I mention that MJ could dance? Dancing is a wonderful thing my brothers and sisters and I don’t think there’s ever been a more interesting more imaginative dancer than Michael Jackson (at least as far as pop stars go, I’m no expert on dancing – I just like to do it.) With that in mind, I’ll leave you with these clips of “The King of Pop” dancing. The music is a remix of “Billy Jean” by The Chemical Brothers (according to the YouTube info anyway.)

Oh and I have to include this too. When MJ first broke out the “moon walk” during his 1983 performance of “Billy Jean” at the Motown Awards: