Did Michael Jackson's Death Save His Reputation?

Jackson Was a Transitional Figure

Instead, we now largely live in a "mash-up" culture. We snatch up bits and pieces of other people's creations, old and new, and glue them together to create something distinct, fun, shocking and entertaining -- but almost never truly original. Or we toss up bits of cultural detritus into the blogosphere to watch them be speared by hundreds of clever comments -- creating in the process a new, but ephemeral, creative artifact.

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Even here, Michael Jackson was, one final time, a transitional figure. On the one hand, and culminating in "Thriller," he was the last artisan Pop Superstar. What he and Quincy Jones created still has the feel of a hand-wrought masterpiece. But, even then, Jackson was also fast becoming the first modern Mash-up Entertainer -- a shiny assemblage of other people's inventions designed to hide (though with ever-less efficiency) the increasingly grotesque, decaying and pathetic operator within.

Now that unsteady pilot is gone -- to the unstated relief of even many of his fans. But the Mash-up Machine called Michael Jackson remains, free, at last, to be polished up and regularly rebuilt to moonwalk for the entertainment of generations to come.

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000.