August 17, 2008
Forgot to mention Prince, who also turns 50 this year.
Pop stars aren’t meant to turn 50. 
Micheal Jackson and Madonna during their 1987 Tours.
The concept of
“pop” implies a sort of built-in obsolescence. In and out quickly is
the rule, and most pop-star life spans are measurable in a couple of
years, if not mere months.
In that context, then, the 50th
birthdays of Madonna and Michael Jackson – today and Aug. 29,
respectively – are momentous occasions.
Against all reason, we
still know who this ambitious dancer-turned-’80s-pop nymphette and this
former child star are. We’re still curious. We still wonder what
they’re up to.
Prying eyes and prurient curiosity are the price
that Madge and Michael must now pay in mid-life for devoting decades to
tirelessly making sure we were all paying attention to them.
Long
before the current tabloid boom, Madonna and Jackson were living their
videogenic lives as pop art, expertly promoting their music – remember
their music? – by finding titillating new ways to stir up water-cooler
chitchat.
Strange pursuits such as purchasing the Elephant Man’s
bones, sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber and palling around with a
chimpanzee on a ranch called Neverland, for instance, earned Jackson
constant media attention and the weirdo mystique that would eventually
consume him.
Likewise, Madonna has made a healthy second career
out of courting controversy, whether she’s tweaking society’s sexual
hang-ups or plucking an adopted child from Malawi. Daniel Paquette, a
publicist and music columnist for Fab magazine, calls her “the queen of manipulating media.”
“With the release of each new album she begins with a controversial act – Like A Prayer‘s religious exploitation, the Sex book, Bush-bashing with American Life –
then she debuts an entirely new look with expensive videos and
exclusive magazine covers,” he says. “By the time she’s done her tour
she goes into hiding (at the gym) for two years. It’s this high level
of strategic PR planning – creating a new, reinvented Madge followed by
a two-year media blackout – that has sustained her career.”
To a point.
The
wheels came off spectacularly for Michael Jackson years ago, as
child-abuse allegations and general ghoulishness rendered the failure
of his last new album, 2001′s ridiculously expensive Invincible,
almost a foregone conclusion. Once vital to sustaining his musical
career, Jackson’s bizarre (and possibly criminal) extra-musical
exploits have now overshadowed and eroded his original raison d’être.
Madonna
is suffering now, too, as her attempts to balance two contradictory
images, ageless sexpot and responsible British mommy, are beginning to
look a little ridiculous. Trying to run with youngsters like Timbaland,
the Neptunes and Justin Timberlake on this year’s poorly received Hard Candy album also, for the first time, made Madonna look a little desperate.
As
industry watcher Bob Lefsetz, author of The Lefsetz Letter newsletter,
puts it: “There’s nothing wrong with being a musician at 50. But you’ve
got to act 50. Madonna’s plastic surgery and working with the
youngsters of the moment is just creepy. And not so successful. Age
gracefully.”
How, though, can pop age gracefully when it’s not supposed to age at all?
At
65, a rocker like Mick Jagger has it easy. Rock audiences tend to be a
loyal lot, content to let their favourite acts live out their days
catering to nostalgia. Rock lets an artist carry on indefinitely in the
mould that first made his or her name.
Pop, however, is by nature
fleeting. The pop audience is fickle, youthful, constantly in flux. A
Madonna or a Michael Jackson is therefore duty bound to constantly come
up with new ways to refresh and rejuvenate that audience, and they’ve
both done a masterful job of just that in the past – so masterful that
the music long ago became secondary to their celebrity auras.
Still,
pop life is finite. They had to start looking ridiculous someday. But
at least they can celebrate their 50th birthdays content in the
knowledge that people will probably still be talking about them in
another 50 years.
Madonna
Birthday: Aug. 16, 1958
Current residence: Between London and New York City
Famous quote:
Everyone probably thinks that I’m a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an
insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I’d rather read a book.
Madonna and Michael Jackson aren’t the only celebrities blowing out the candles this week. Some other milestones:
Tomorrow: Actor Robert DeNiro is 65. Singer Belinda Carlisle is 50.
Actor Sean Penn is 48. Singer Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids on the Block
is 39.
Monday: Movie director Roman Polanski is 75. Actor
Robert Redford is 71. Actor Patrick Swayze is 56. Comedian-actor Denis
Leary is 51. Actor Christian Slater is 39. Rapper Masta Killa of
Wu-Tang Clan is 39. Actor Edward Norton is 39. Actor Malcolm-Jamal
Warner is 38.
Tuesday: Actor John Stamos is 45. Actor Kyra Sedgwick is 43. Actor Matthew Perry (Friends)
is 39. Wednesday: News anchor Connie Chung is 62. Singer Robert Plant
of Led Zeppelin is 60. Actor Joan Allen is 52. Singer Fred Durst of
Limp Bizkit is 38.
Thursday: Singer Kenny Rogers is 70. Actress Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) is 52. Actor Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) is 38. Actor Hayden Panettiere (Heroes) is 19.
Friday: Author Ray Bradbury is 88. Actor Valerie Harper is 68. Actor Cindy Williams (Laverne and Shirley) is 61. Singer Tori Amos is 45. Rapper GZA (Wu-Tang Clan) is 42. Singer Howie Dorough of the Backstreet Boys is 35.
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