Two dead kings are walking the earth again.
There's Elvis on the cover of his new box set -- the young buck rock 'n' roller on stage somewhere in the 1950s. His buxom acoustic guitar swings freely as his right hand clutches a microphone. The ink-black hair, the sideburns and, of course, the snarl -- all there.
Eyes closed, the young Elvis looks ecstatic, like a Pentecostal preacher about to snatch a lost soul from the gaping maw of Satan.
But those aren't the most eye-popping elements of the young rock 'n' roll god. Legs clad in black pants and flexed at his knees, Elvis is forcing his toes, inside white shoes, to go impossibly en pointe.
Nijinsky, you ain't got nuthin' on this Mississippi hick.
Meanwhile, the King of Rock 'n' Roll's one-time son-in-law -- the self-proclaimed King of Pop, Michael Jackson -- is half-strutting, half-sashaying across the silver screen. Michael is taking another star turn in "This Is It," the posthumous movie documenting the rehearsals for his never-to-be comeback concerts.
In the film Michael, oddly, eschews his signature moonwalk during "Billie Jean." No matter.
At age 50, Michael has impossible, inhuman joints in his bones. During "Thriller," "Beat It" and his other hits, Michael glides like a supernatural marionette -- knees, elbows, hands, feet, ankles, shoulders all seem to be independent electrons gracefully or ecstatically orbiting the protons of his body.
Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, you got nothin' on this guy from Gary, Indiana.
Round one -- round one in this dead celeb battle for the title of Greatest Entertainer of All Time -- goes to ... Michael Jackson!
Of course, the estates of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson didn't plan it this way -- this posthumous battle of legacies.
No one is surprised that the Elvis estate has found yet another excuse to release yet another repackaging of Presley's music. In this case, the new four-CD set, "Elvis 75 -- Good Rockin' Tonight" (due out Dec. 8), is touted as celebrating the 75th centennial of Presley's birth.
And no one is surprised that the Jackson estate took the extensive film footage of Michael's rehearsals for his string of London comeback concerts and fashioned them into a visual memorial.
But the result is this: The King of Rock 'n' Roll and the King of Pop are once again battling for supremacy in the pop culture universe.
Is "Thriller" a "better" song and video than "Jailhouse Rock" and that choreographed, proto-video that Elvis filmed for that hit? Is "Billie Jean" "better" than "Hound Dog"? Fans of either king will passionately argue their case.
After seeing "This Is It," I score a big knock-out for Michael.
Yes, Elvis the Pelvis pioneered rock 'n' roll's hippie-hippie shake. Yes, James Brown's insane showmanship and Mick Jagger's kinetic energy cemented the idea that pop music can be and should be a physical as well as a sonic medium -- that any art form so obsessed with sex damn well better be of the body as well as about the body.
But no one -- not Soul Brother No. 1, not Mick, not Elvis, not Prince -- ever moved like Michael. Watching "This Is It" after Jackson spent so many years on the tabloid stage instead of a concert stage, I was reminded how much Michael's body is an instrument. His dance steps and body movements communicated something beyond the showy splits of the Godfather of Soul, Jagger's manic rooster steps or Jim Morrison's spastic shaman twitches.
Watching Michael, I thought of the line from a poem by William Butler Yeats: "O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?"
Jackson's comeback concerts were primed to be a mega-spectacle. From the glimpses in the film, Michael and his band, dancers, video, sets, special effects and more would have rivaled the alpha tours of the Rolling Stones, U2 and Pink Floyd.
And at the center of it all was a singing dancing-machine/showman who could pen a sonic groove that would have had Beethoven moonwalking.
Elvis, hand over your crown.
There's Elvis on the cover of his new box set -- the young buck rock 'n' roller on stage somewhere in the 1950s. His buxom acoustic guitar swings freely as his right hand clutches a microphone. The ink-black hair, the sideburns and, of course, the snarl -- all there.
Eyes closed, the young Elvis looks ecstatic, like a Pentecostal preacher about to snatch a lost soul from the gaping maw of Satan.
But those aren't the most eye-popping elements of the young rock 'n' roll god. Legs clad in black pants and flexed at his knees, Elvis is forcing his toes, inside white shoes, to go impossibly en pointe.
Nijinsky, you ain't got nuthin' on this Mississippi hick.
Meanwhile, the King of Rock 'n' Roll's one-time son-in-law -- the self-proclaimed King of Pop, Michael Jackson -- is half-strutting, half-sashaying across the silver screen. Michael is taking another star turn in "This Is It," the posthumous movie documenting the rehearsals for his never-to-be comeback concerts.
In the film Michael, oddly, eschews his signature moonwalk during "Billie Jean." No matter.
At age 50, Michael has impossible, inhuman joints in his bones. During "Thriller," "Beat It" and his other hits, Michael glides like a supernatural marionette -- knees, elbows, hands, feet, ankles, shoulders all seem to be independent electrons gracefully or ecstatically orbiting the protons of his body.
Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, you got nothin' on this guy from Gary, Indiana.
Round one -- round one in this dead celeb battle for the title of Greatest Entertainer of All Time -- goes to ... Michael Jackson!
Of course, the estates of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson didn't plan it this way -- this posthumous battle of legacies.
No one is surprised that the Elvis estate has found yet another excuse to release yet another repackaging of Presley's music. In this case, the new four-CD set, "Elvis 75 -- Good Rockin' Tonight" (due out Dec. 8), is touted as celebrating the 75th centennial of Presley's birth.
And no one is surprised that the Jackson estate took the extensive film footage of Michael's rehearsals for his string of London comeback concerts and fashioned them into a visual memorial.
But the result is this: The King of Rock 'n' Roll and the King of Pop are once again battling for supremacy in the pop culture universe.
Is "Thriller" a "better" song and video than "Jailhouse Rock" and that choreographed, proto-video that Elvis filmed for that hit? Is "Billie Jean" "better" than "Hound Dog"? Fans of either king will passionately argue their case.
After seeing "This Is It," I score a big knock-out for Michael.
Yes, Elvis the Pelvis pioneered rock 'n' roll's hippie-hippie shake. Yes, James Brown's insane showmanship and Mick Jagger's kinetic energy cemented the idea that pop music can be and should be a physical as well as a sonic medium -- that any art form so obsessed with sex damn well better be of the body as well as about the body.
But no one -- not Soul Brother No. 1, not Mick, not Elvis, not Prince -- ever moved like Michael. Watching "This Is It" after Jackson spent so many years on the tabloid stage instead of a concert stage, I was reminded how much Michael's body is an instrument. His dance steps and body movements communicated something beyond the showy splits of the Godfather of Soul, Jagger's manic rooster steps or Jim Morrison's spastic shaman twitches.
Watching Michael, I thought of the line from a poem by William Butler Yeats: "O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?"
Jackson's comeback concerts were primed to be a mega-spectacle. From the glimpses in the film, Michael and his band, dancers, video, sets, special effects and more would have rivaled the alpha tours of the Rolling Stones, U2 and Pink Floyd.
And at the center of it all was a singing dancing-machine/showman who could pen a sonic groove that would have had Beethoven moonwalking.
Elvis, hand over your crown.
