ABOUT THIS ITEM

Issue 02 of "Loops", the biannual journal dedicated to music writing from Faber and Domino, hosts essays from Simon Reynolds, Nick Kent, Lavinia Greenlaw, Owen Hatherley, Gruff Rhys, Travis Elborough and DBC Pierre.

The piece de résistance is a 36,000 word essay entitled ‘The Man Who Wasn't There’, Paul Morley’s spectacularly honest and revealing portrait of Michael Jackson and his legacy. So much has been written; so little has been said. Morley unravels and indulges the myth to ask just who he was, how we came to piece him together through our collective desires and fears. This expansive essay takes a sober, brave and imaginative perspective on a story that was written before it was told and mythologised before it was considered. Addicted Jackson. Mutilated Jackson. Abused Jackson. Kennedy, Monroe, Diana: the self-piteous pitiful freak. How did we come to make this man and how did we come to claim him as The King Of Pop?