Today’s music news comes from the “what were they thinking?” category. Jermaine Jackson, of recent Celebrity Big Brother fame, told BBC Radio on November 27th that the Jackson 5 are planning a reunion tour. They are also “in the studio,” which I take to mean that they’re hanging out at Mike’s house in Dubai, trying on fake noses.
My first thought on reading the big news was this: is it possible that anything more tragically appropriate could happen to Jermaine Jackson than placing second on Celebrity Big Brother? Once I got over that, the true implications of a Jackson 5 reunion began to sink in.
Listen: this was cute. It was even cool, back when cool apparently involved oversized lapels and boots that wouldn’t look out of place in Sherwood Forest. This, on the other hand… not so much. Don’t even get me started on this.
Seriously, that is not cool. Who took that picture?
The Jackson 5 disbanded in 1990. I know what you’re thinking: “Didn’t they disband in, like, the early eighties or something?” But no, apparently they didn’t, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. All they’re doing by coming back now is making some kind of inscrutable gesture (inscrutable because it’s been blurred out) and throwing the limelight back on their genre-busting tragicomedy of a family. There is no shade of light in the visible spectrum – lime or otherwise – that can make Michael Jackson look human again.
The music is almost irrelevant by comparison, but I suppose it merits a brief mention:
First, let’s acknowledge the fact that they can’t perform any of their past hits without looking sad, pathetic, a little creepy, and incredibly old and irrelevant. Former top 10 hits like “Sugar Daddy,” “Can You Feel It,” and “The Love You Save” are just too funny now to play with a straight face, and who will recognize “Doctor My Eyes” when they have to change the title to “Doctor My Nose”?
Second, if I hear “ABC” just one more time, I might go ballistic.
Finally, if the Jackson 5 really are “in the studio,” what of it? In retrospect, they were basically dependent on Michael Jackson, and even his last album (2001’s “Invincible”) was awful. Yes, it debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, but it cratered immediately thereafter, and has been roundly booed by critics.
In the end, a Jackson 5 reunion will simply serve as a depressing reminder of happier, simpler, and perhaps cocaine-hazier days that we will not soon recapture. Maybe the tour will be popular, and the Jacksons will probably make some money, but in the aftermath everyone involved – fans and performers alike – will be left with the same dirty taste in their mouths that accompanies so many other meaningless excesses.
And please, for the love of God - don’t play “ABC” again!
© 2007 Evan Mix for Listen In. Some rights reserved.
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