The Eddie Van Halen / MJ / "Beat It" misconception

[Amerigo Vespucci]

"Black" music...Motown, Blues, Jazz...was NEVER "Black" music to me.

It was MUSIC.

I loved Motown...Smokey, Marvin, Stevie, and yes...The Jackson Five.

I loved Miles and Trane.

I loved Muddy, Buddy, Wolf, the Hook...

I loved JAMES, and P-FUNK, and the JBs...

...I'm a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Italian who...just because of a roll of the dice...went through most my life color blind.

Whether you have talent or whether you are a good person has nothing to do with your skin color.

...so this bullshit about Eddie Van Halen pulling a guitar solo out of his ass to make "Beat It" acceptable to the MTV audience, for me, is just that...bullshit.

I have mixed feelings about Michael Jackson "breaking down the color barrier" on MTV, because let's face it...

...if you have a "color barrier" to begin with, you suck ASS.

That is all.

:toast:

[Twillig]

1. I thought "That's the most brazen,shameless Van Halen rip-off copycat solo

that I've ever heard!"

('Oh,' I said when I found out.)

But hey, that song was hardrock-ish. That was obviously a calculation on MJ and QJ's part.

Not that it was needed to get on MTV. So, yeah.

That generation--late teens when MTV started--grew up with the Jackson 5 on the tube, after all.

[carlyhippy]

2. That song would have been a hit even without Eddie's solo

the solo was just icing on the biggest selling album ever.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. It was "stunt casting"...

...and yeah, it would have been nice to let the album stand or fall on its own merits without it.