Seeing two of his songs performed at the Grammy’s helped put into perspective my overall feelings on it after being convinced he’s guilty.

It was mostly in tribute to Quincy Jones, but I found myself really enjoying his music being performed by other people. And I think that if I occasionally hear his music I’ll enjoy it (especially if someone else is performing it, since they presumably don’t have the same baggage), but I won’t go out of my way to listen to it.

But that’s one thing that makes the whole situation so complicated. Michael Jackson may have been a prolific child molester, but he was also a musical genius. He did horrible things but his music is still really great, and whatever he did doesn’t change that fact. I wonder if his music wasn’t as well made if people wouldn’t be so quick to defend him.

But this also begs the question of how you deal with collaborations. Michael didn’t work entirely on his own, and like I said this whole thing was in tribute to Quincy Jones who played a big role in MJ’s success. It’s unfortunate that all of his collaborators have to deal with the fact that they’ve worked with someone who was so problematic.