Why shaking your body is enough

If you’re looking for a dentist, mine is brilliant, he has a fantastic drill-side manner. As well as being patient with patients, he genuinely cares about doing the best job possible, he clearly knows his stuff, and is obviously at the top of his game. If his dentistry skills were magically changed into soccer skills he’d be married to a pop princess and due for a transfer to Spain or Italy. When it comes to the inside of my mouth, I would never think of questioning anything this man does.

However, that only works one way.

As we all know, dentists can’t help asking us questions when our mouths are full of fingers and assorted descendents of the Spanish Inquisition. Perhaps your God of the Gob quizzes you about the day’s big news story, or [if it was a toss up between dentistry and hairdressing] where you’re going on holiday this year, but for me it’s about our radio station.

As you’d expect, the surgery DAB radio is tuned to PASSION for the PLANET, which means that I’m frequently frustrated by not being able to answer queries about the decade a particular song is from, or the name of a band’s lead singer, or the country certain artists belong to.

But then the other day [not long after Michael Jackson’s death], my dentist asked “why aren’t you playing lots of Michael Jackson like everyone else?” I was of course forced into silence. After the Torquemada-esque implements were removed, I attempted a frozen faced explanation about the subtlety of music programming that included a surfing analogy. Looking back, the music programming is like surfing comparison is sure-footed, but doesn’t explain my decision not to follow the pack and flood our schedule with wall to wall Jacko.

Before his death, we played one song featuring Michael Jackson … “Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)” by the Jacksons. It’s still the only song featuring Michael Jackson we play. Why? Because it is brilliant, the Jacksons clearly knew their stuff, and they were obviously at the top of their game. The success of Michael Jackson’s solo hits easily eclipsed “Shake Your Body” but [for me] Michael never recreated the incredible infectious joy of that song. Go to YouTube and you’ll see a beaming Michael boogying with his brothers in blindingly bright costumes. Cheesy, but fantastic fun. Have a look at his later, bigger hits. You’ll see stunningly slick performances and trend setting, technically breathtaking video sequences, but you’ll be hard pushed to see a happy looking Michael Jackson. From the “Thriller” album onwards the songs are shrouded in sadness or shot through with a faux “edginess” that sees Michael’s “Shake Your Body” smiles replaced by snarls and scowls. And that’s why we don’t play lots of Michael Jackson songs, they are obviously well crafted and performed by an undoubtedly talented man, but they don’t make me feel good.

And this brings us back to dentists and football. Just like football management, radio programming is one of those jobs dependent on successfully surfing subjectivity. It’s one of those things people in dentistry [and every other profession] have an opinion about, and a particular way they’d do it if they were in charge. You and my dentist have your own views on Michael Jackson, and programmers on other radio stations have their own way of marking his passing. My view is that it’s best to go with quality rather than quantity, and I prefer to remember a happy Michael with his brothers loving every second of making people feel good, while shaking their bodies down to the ground.