Welcome back to the podcast, listeners! Today, we've been examining a fascinating book, "The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson," a collection of essays by music writers reflecting on Jackson's life, legacy, and the complex relationship between his music and the cultural landscape he inhabited.

One of the most prominent themes running through our discussion was Jackson's relationship with "pop" as a concept. We talked about how his unprecedented success with "Thriller" in 1983 seemed to create the idea of pop as a kind of kingdom that could be unified under one ruler. This was a departure from the more fragmented nature of pop music before Jackson's reign, and it raised questions about the nature of pop's appeal, its relationship to cultural and class divisions, and whether this idea of a unified pop kingdom was ultimatel ...