I’ve mostly been following Paris Jackson, because I was fascinated with her father. It wasn’t just his music and his dancing. He was a fascinating person—almost like a Howard Hughes: a mysterious genius.
At first I bought into those people who said that his children were adopted. Then, when I saw them at the funeral, and saw that their skin was darker then most white people’s skin and that Prince had vitiligo, I realized that those rumors were just lies. They were clearly his children. I wrote a blog about this before.
http://straightarrow372.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-can-they-say-she-doesnt-look-like.html
After a while, I saw that, whatever that X Factor thing is, Paris has it. She wasn’t as graceful in her walk as the other models at the Victoria’s Secret show, but when you sit down and listen to her speaking, you can’t take your eyes off of her. David Foster said you can tell a star because, when they’re in the room, everybody else disappears. You only see them. She has that. Whatever that is she has it. She must’ve gotten it from her father.
I’ve been wanting to hear her perform. There’ve been some tantalizing clips on YouTube. Frankly, she didn’t sound that great. I was surprised. She sounded hesitant in her singing. She didn’t sound like she had good breath control. I thought it was too bad that her father was so anxious to avoid putting the kind of pressure on her that he had a child that he would completely avoid giving her voice lessons.
Now she came out with an EP. Surprisingly to me, it’s a folk indie style performance. Even more surprising to me, was that Paris mostly sings descant. She has one song that she wrote. She has some solos in the other songs. Still, I hear the guy (Gabriel Glen) more than I hear her.
Glen stated that she blends with him much better than anyone he’s ever sung with. I feel like she’s too quiet, but that’s appropriate when you’re singing descant.
In thinking back on Michael Jackson—the father she looks so much like— and what he was known for, I think of him as a charismatic performer, with a solo voice, and extraordinary dancing skills. That’s my first impression.
Yet there was something else that he did. In his recorded music, particularly later in his career, he created many complex layers of rhythms and harmonies. He sang choirs of harmonies with his own solo tracks. A lot of the distinctive sound of his music comes from the work he did making layers of tracks. If you listen to the recordings, the blending of the different tracks is seamless. You can’t hear separate voices or instruments very much. It’s all just an extraordinarily precise and coherent whole.
When I think of that context, I realize she does sound like him. She doesn’t sound like his solo tracks. She sounds like his harmony tracks. She's very precise and, when she adds her voice, she adds a layer of excitement that wouldn't be there without her.
I’m thinking too of David Foster who chooses to create complex music, but puts a singer upfront to entertain the audience. The audience doesn’t necessarily even notice, consciously, the sounds of the orchestra behind the singer; but that is the domain of the genius of David Foster.
Michael Jackson had that kind of genius as well, but also the solo voice that David Foster doesn’t have and the dancing that David Foster probably never even considered.
Sometimes genius can be recognized, not in standing out, but in laboring to create a more accomplished product in conjunction with others. It seems that Paris has decided to go this route. I don't know if she is a genius. Time will tell. Still, there are definitely times when her harmonization is quite extraordinary.
When I've seen them performing, it's just the 2 of them, and usually only one is playing the guitar at a time. Yet, on the EP, there is at least one other instrument: a drum. My ear is not good enough to discern if there are more, but there certainly could be. It remains to be seen how many instruments would be in the band if they go to tour.
