Editor 's note : Gene Seymour has written about movies , music and culture for The New York Times , Newsday , Entertainment Weekly and The Washington Post . He lives in Brooklyn , New York . Gene Seymour says we want to relive Michael Jackson 's youth , not the sad and bizarre aspects of his later life . ( CNN ) -- Seconds after the news first hit the airwaves , your own shock merged with everyone else 's in the immediate vicinity . And you could feel it rolling through the rest of the planet like a runaway diesel . As with most things you neither expected nor wanted to hear , you thought that there had to be more to it than what was being said . Especially because it was Michael Jackson , who seemed too dominant , too other-worldly and , more than anything , too complex to be brought down by anything as simple as cardiac arrest . And also because most of what we 'd been hearing about Jackson 's personal life over the last decade and a half had been bizarre , sordid and sad . It was to those aspects -- the deepening isolation , the child molestation trials , the financial woes , the `` Wacko Jacko '' moments like that 2002 interlude on the balcony with the baby -- that the talking heads on TV devoted tentative attention within minutes of the official announcement . The commentariat presumed it had a responsibility to poke those embers for clues of something beyond the single , dreadful fact of Jackson 's death . Even if we did n't care for this conversation , we had been conditioned by the most recent events to wonder , deep down , if there was something stranger or more unpleasant attached to his passing . But acceptance came easier -- and sooner -- than any of us expected last night . And when it did , we wanted the talking heads to go away and leave us with our memories ... and nothing but the good ones , thank you very much . We wanted the loop of performances and hit singles . Retrieve for us , please , the electricity of the 10-year-old wunderkind who literally leapt into our consciousness in that shattering year of 1968 with `` I Want You Back '' and `` ABC . '' Let us see that transfiguring moment 15 years later at the Motown Anniversary TV special when Jackson seized dominion over the pop firmament with his shattering , moon-walking recital of `` Billie Jean . '' We wanted the videos -- `` Beat It , '' `` Bad , '' `` Thriller , '' `` Black and White '' and all that incredible , unearthly dancing . That was all we needed to see and hear . Save the armchair psychoanalysis for later . Maybe , much later . No one would have understood or indulged such yearnings as quickly or as intuitively as Michael Jackson . As surely as he was the King of Pop , Jackson was also a high priest of wish fulfillment . His performances as both precocious child and child-like adult made growing up or growing old the only unimaginable things in the known world . This Peter Pan mystique even became part of the Jackson brand to the point of naming his combination of retreat and theme park the Neverland Ranch . The promise of eternal youth was embedded in pop music way before Jackson and his four brothers emerged from the grit of Gary , Indiana , to jump-start Motown 's winning streak . But it 's when that promise expands to shatter boundaries and expand possibilities beyond Top-40 parameters that pop music becomes pop phenomena . And Michael Jackson , in the early 1980s , was a pop phenomenon powerful enough to pool together previously polarized audiences -- heavy metal , disco , funk -- and get them all on the same bandwagon . Only twice before -- with Elvis Presley and the Beatles -- had the cultural landscape been changed as decisively by a pop star . It has n't happened since -- and may never happen again . Certainly , `` Thriller , '' the best-selling LP of all time , wo n't be surpassed because LPs have been superseded twice over by discs and downloads . Jackson 's off-stage public diffidence gave the impression that his transformations of both self and society were all happening by off-hand magic . But his wispy speaking voice belied a steely resolve to control his image , his artistry and his product . The energy he devoted to keep what he considered `` negativity '' at bay was meant to nurture his audience 's dreams of release -- and to maintain his primacy in the pop marketplace . Even the eccentricities , at the peak of his influence , seemed calculated to promote , if not perpetuate , his product . But time ( by far , Jackson 's worst and most formidable enemy ) could n't stop even his most devoted admirers from wondering what drove him to change his appearance so drastically over the years . Or why he wanted to both save the world and hide from it with the same ferocious intensity . If he 'd been able to stop the clock at 1985 or even 1987 ( the year of `` Bad '' ) , life would have been so much easier . The magic faded . Setbacks and embarrassments were occasionally offset by a tour or show that transported us back to the better , happier times when we were willing to overlook real life for our most elemental dreams of release . We seek those dreams even more urgently now that we know , for certain , that we 'll never again see him on stage -- the one place where he was happiest and most assured . But perhaps the hardest dream to give up -- and the reason so many people in so many countries were almost physically leveled by yesterday 's news -- is of finding common ground and sharing common awe in a song or a dance or a single act of outreaching , transcendent audacity . However divided ( or worse ) we may have felt about Michael Jackson at the end , we cherish how he brought out the best in us at the beginning . Whatever the days ahead , that will be more than enough for now , forever . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gene Seymour .
Gene Seymour : We want to relive the promise of Jackson 's eternal youth . He says the final years of his life were bizarre and sad . Seymour : Jackson pooled heavy metal , disco and funk audiences . Jackson 's `` Thriller '' LP will never be surpassed , he says .