More MJ

The best Michael Jackson obits I've read:

Marcello Carlin (he hears Martin Fry and Trevor Horn in "Beat It"; about Off The Wall: "a pop-up encylopedia containing everything everyone should reasonably or unreasonably need to know about pop and how to walk it and breathe it").

Rick Juzwiak: "I'd never give the public that much credit if I hadn't observed countless examples of the unmitigated joy that results en masse when anything from Thriller is played at a party, no matter the attendees, no matter the occasion and still to this day."

Chris Molanphy dissects the probably-unsurpassable chart facts of Jackson's career. I reminded friends yesterday that Bad scored an astonishing five Number One singles (most of which I think are meh, but that's another story).

Rob Sheffield rushes home from a high school dance to watch Michael. I'm not sure I believe it, but it's touching and emblematic.

Hua Hsu drinks and stumbles his way through an evening of Jackson ("ifferent versions of Michael Jackson had already died years ago. Sometimes he had reinvented himself and found his way back toward his fan's good graces, sometimes he had only grown more illusive and erratic-seeming").