The thing I keep com­ing back to about Michael Jackson’s death is his danc­ing. The pri­mary moti­va­tion of Jackson’s music can be found in this won­der­ful nugget from Quincy Jones about “Bil­lie Jean”: “I said, ‘Michael we’ve got to cut that intro.’ He said, ‘But that’s the jelly!’…‘That’s what makes me want to dance’. And when Michael Jack­son tells you, ‘That’s what makes me want to dance’, well, the rest of us just have to shut up.” And if there was ever a song made for danc­ing, it’s “Bil­lie Jean.” There is no per­former in the world who can stand up to Jack­son in pure unique­ness when it comes to this par­tic­u­lar aspect of pop­u­lar music. Michael Jack­son was a dancer, per­haps one of the best there ever was. We all know “Thriller,” of course, and I’ll wager we know it mostly from the epic video and it’s legion of zom­bies get­ting down. I won’t lie and say I’m a dyed in the wool Michael Jack­son fan but Thriller and Bad were a huge part of my child­hood and I’ve always put Jack­son down in the “Respected” cat­e­gory of music. How­ever, I do remem­ber watch­ing a Jack­son spe­cial that re-aired the debut of the moon­walk dur­ing is per­for­mance of “Bil­lie Jean” at the Motown 25th Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion. I do remem­ber falling out of my chair at his rou­tine and gig­gling like a school girl at the sheer auda­cious­ness and pre­ci­sion of it. And I’ve always had the “Smooth Crim­i­nal” video on my list of top videos that resides some­where in my head. I think moreso than any other rou­tine, it’s “Smooth Crim­i­nal” that cements Michael Jack­son as a Dancer. RIP.