On a new episode of The New Roth Show, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth revealed how those who attended any dance class across the world would simply convulse due to Michael Jackson being a gold standard in the genre when his music was played. He also wondered aloud if Jackson’s music should be ‘retired’ due to recent pedophile allegations on HBO’s Leaving Neverland, and stated that what really happened to Jackson may have been ‘phasing’ like Elvis Presley. Alternative Nation transcribed Roth’s comments.
Roth: That class is going to have three-hundred people. It’s gonna be about this much room and there is going to be about nineteen languages in there, it’s the coolest thing you’ve ever saw. There’s gonna be nineteen languages and there’s gonna be three girls, no wait minute thirteen girls in one hotel room at one hotel room at the Tropicana who is used to this shit. There is also somebody at the front desk speaks fluent Korean, okay? We don’t have anybody who speaks Uzbek but we do have somebody from, according to my map right next door, do you speak Turkish?
[Roth laughs]
Roth: You’re gonna hear that at the counter endlessly, and when it’s lunchtime, seventeen times if different things come out of the different bags. You know dance class, everybody’s like, “get around the corners of the room.” Everybody is setting their bags in their legwarmers in the shin. Everybody is stretching in fourteen different languages. Okay? They are gonna play Michael Jackson in that room and everyone in that room is gonna convulse. Everybody is going to have a great time, everybody is gonna be going, they’re gonna learn every possible kind of move, take it home and choreograph for Japanese boy bands, K-POP just across the sea. The Chinese version of all of that right there. Indonesian is different and don’t fucking confuse that with the Philippines.
Roth later continues:
Roth: Boom! Everybody is shakin’ and bakin’! What’s my point? Michael Jackson is probably the single Esperanto moment that you’re probably gonna get there. You play that and it’s the epitome of dance music. Everybody knows, he’s the first one to throw it, break it, and do something like this. Today, there is some controversy about young Michael or old Michael or middle Michael. There were different phases, like Elvis (Presley) or Anna Nicole Smith. First period, Elvis is like, [impersonating Elvis] “Thank you very much, Hound dog”. Second phase is maybe the comeback special in the black outfit and third period Elvis, which sounds like High School, is somewhat enlarged in the Las Vegas approach. Michael Jackson might have the same kinds of phasing. Nevertheless there is controversy, it’s colorful controversy and I’m gonna wonder out loud, do we retire his work?
