Oh how the mighty..

I was watching a programme on TV just yesterday chronicling the rise and subsequent fall of Pop music's self-proclaimed King: Michael Jackson.

Oh, what a god.

Who else but Michael Jackson - dimunitive lead singer of the Jackson Five dwarfed by his much-older brothers - could have pulled off the single white glove and the spangled songs above black loafers? Who else but Michael Jackson - child wunderkind turned teen sensation to rise above the success of his previous band - could have gotten away with red leather zippers and chunky chiming belts?

Michael Jackson created a music phenomenon with only one Master and one Follower - himself. It not just pop; it was Michael Jackson pop. The distinctive dance steps, the crotch-grab, the animal-like noise he made at the end of every line he sang.

Everything he touched turned to gold.

And then. Then came the suspect self-deification in the History album. Then came the curious private themepark-cum-home innocently called Neverland. Then came the astonishing marriages and divorces to Lisa-Marie Presley and the nanny. Then the increasingly incomprehensible plastic surgery decisions. And most disturbing of all - like the sullied gem that tops a famous but cursed piece of crown jewelery - the allegations of child molestation. First one, followed by another and another and yet another.

What was going on?

Throughout it all, he appears briefly, behind large reflective aviator glasses, clad in elaborate embroidered coats, to grin innocently at cameras.

What is going on?

Some say he never grew up. But to me, it seems more of regression rather than a static unmoving picture. No one, during his Bad days, would have thought Michael Jackson innocent nor childlike. If anything, he spoke the angst of his generation, inspiring his peers with anthemic rhythms and mind-blowing riffs. He was the bigger, bolder, brighter, mainstream Dylan. If he continued on this path would he have been like Sting - golden, untouchable yet still relevant? Maybe like Sir Cliff Richard - mellowed yet fondly remembered?

Instead he regressed - into a naivety so naive it was unbelievable. In a bad way.

Did we leave him behind somewhere? Had society laboured on - progressing from modernism to modernism - only to leave one of our icons behind? Which train did Michael Jackson miss?

Or did we do him some kind of wrong? Did our increasing affinity for bubblegum pop and our love for skinny, buxom women and buffed, strong-jawed men leave the slender, androgynous Michael out of the picture? Have we become so swift and unforgiving in our slights and praises that his attempts to change came too slow?

Or perhaps this IS his adulthood - this is what the teen star grew up to be. Nobody would say that his alleged paedophilia is a remnant of a childhood hobby. And his eccentricities - his obsessiveness about his appearance, his love of beautiful clothing are not childish - are just that: eccentricities.

Perhaps it is Michael Jackson who has fooled us all. Behind his gentle voice and demeanour beats the heart of a deviant - once unfurled to us in the songs of his stardom, now pulsing behind an inscrutable frame. A deviant whose clever manipulations have created scores of camps, each completely dedicated to the version of the Michael Jackson they preach.

It's sad, it's so sad the human condition. But I want to salvage Michael Jackson - in my head at least: Perhaps the best way to think of pop's megastar (when pop was still music) is enshrined in the context of his rise. Leave him and love him in the 80's when he was bigger than big. Why try to get him to fit into 21st century life? Idols who leave their place of worship become merely decorative.