Michael Jackson - Another Premature Loss

When the news came out about Michael Jackson's death it was the latest addition to a long list of musicians who had died before their time.

No-one will under-estimate the impact that Michael had on music. He had such a huge amount of charisma about him and this was always so evident in his faultless performances. His dance routines have been incredibly influential and his song writing skills were recognised in many different circles.

It is perhaps not since the untimely death of Freddie Mercury that the world has lost such a powerful performer. Michael's stage presence was awesome and you would never find an empty seat at one of his shows.

The loss of such stars is, I am afraid, nothing new. In every area of music, for decades, there have been many tragic deaths. You can even go right back to such names as Glenn Miller, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran. If you were to write down the names of them all, then you would very quickly realise just how many artists the world has lost. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Sam Cooke, Nick Drake, Marc Bolan, Ian Curtis, Jim Croce, John Lennon and Mick Ronson all went away before they should have done. In more recent years there have been such people as Kurt Cobain, Michael Hutchence and Luciano Pavarotti.

At least we have Michael Jackson's music and videos to remember him with, but you can't help wondering what he (and all of the others) would have gone on to do in years to come.

The biggest lesson that can be learned from the deaths of celebrities though, is that they are still only people. No matter how talented they were and what they achieved in their lives, they were still just the same as us all. Ordinary people are dying every day and each of them has a talent at one thing or another. Yes, it is a great loss to lose someone like Michael, but we need to keep it all in perspective. When we are surrounded by hype in the media it is very easy to get caught up in it all and forget that Michael Jackson was also just like the rest of us.