Oddly enough, you may think, most of Jackson's music didn't appeal to me, either. Even my favorite musicians will put stuff out there that I don't like at all. That doesn't make them hacks, tho. Some of what came out of Motown was truly good music in every sense, but most of the music that came out of Motown was formulaic, not genius at all. But, the concept of the formula and how it was presented, the concept of Motown itself, that was genius.
People tend to like, and gravitate to, the music of their youth, whatever the popular music was when they were generally between the ages of 10 and 20. It sticks with them forever (which is why I truly pity the hardcode Vanilla Ice fans, or <shudder> imagine being old and gray living in a senior citizen home, all gathered around the piano and singing those old timey Guns N' Roses and Eminem hits). That's why every generation just cannot understand the music of their kids.
My musical tastes are at once narrow and wide, where I can appreciate nearly anything that's done well, but I gravitate to a narrow range of music. I grew up with the Beatles and the other bands of the classic rock era, so those will always be a part of me in the same way that Michael Jackson will be a part of another generation (even though he and I are very close to the same age) but I was also a trumpet player, well trained and well educated, and as such am also drawn to classical and jazz, with an emphasis on things with trumpets (not to mention the horn bands of the classic rock era). An evening of oboe or viola concertos and chamber orchestra gets me about as excited as an evening with Pikachu and the Pokémon Technobrats, but give me an evening of Handel or Telleman or a Maynard Ferguson retrospective, and I'm there.
"The turkey buzzards from the politically correct crowd are circling over your head as we speak."
Not to mention the very politically incorrect flying Turtle who knows that anyone can twist the Bible to mean anything you, or I, want it to mean. I've read the Bible, cover to cover, and not once does it say anything even remotely akin to "thou shalt not grab thy crotch on stage," but it does talk about the problems in making and believing false accusations. It talks about that a lot.
