“Remember when Elvis died?”

“Remember when John Lennon died?”

That is what I was hearing Thursday around the sudden death of Michael Jackson, 50, at his home in Los Angeles.

The scene of people surrounding the UCLA hospital where Jackson died was astounding. The wave of shock for everyone that he was gone was probably much what people had experienced when Elvis or Lennon died. I wasn’t born when Elvis died and really close to 2 when Lennon was shot.

But Jackson is one of the first icons of my generation to pass on. Sure, he was a kid for the boomers, but the music he made while an adult shaped the popular music of my generation.

I really didn’t care for much of his music after “Bad,” but “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” were two of the largest albums of the 1980s and still show musical genius even when listened to today. A testament to his showmanship and the greatness of Quincy Jones.

Even his Motown stuff with the Jackson 5 were standards in modern music. The Motown sound of tight beats and vocal harmonies are still being standards in the popular music we hear today. He influenced any artist making music today.

Also, we can’t forget his presence on MTV. My friends and I remember watching the full music video version of “Thriller” and still think it’s the best video ever made. Too bad MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore.

What will we remember of Jackson? Will we remember the “King of Pop” or will it be “Jacko the Wacko?” Probably, like Elvis and Lennon, a little bit of both. But, of course, those two weren’t charged with child molesting.

It wasn’t until later in life that I learned Elvis popped prescriptions like Chiclets, and had the pull to become a DEA agent under Nixon. But we remember the audacity and the velvet baritone that Elvis had more than making sure he takes his Vicodin in the jungle room.

Funny that we mention Elvis, who died young. Jackson married his daughter, Lisa Marie. The lives of the two will be oddly connected.

And what about Lennon? Have you ever read the words to “Imagine?” “Imagine there’s no country... nothing to kill or fight for and no religion too...” If anyone said that today, pundits would be eating it up, calling him a socialist. It’s the music, that solitary piano, everyone remembers.

Actually, I personally think George Harrison and Paul McCartney made better music after the Beatles broke up. And who gets the credit for breaking up the Beatles? John (Yoko, too).

But they are remembered not just for the way they lived, but the sudden way they were taken from us.

Now, like I said before, neither of those two icons of popular music had a charge of child molesting hanging over them. Although Jackson beat it, (Oops. Bad pun!) will that and the stunts of the surgeries, the monkeys and the other tabloid stuff tarnish his legacy?

One could look at Jackson this way, splitting the two Jacksons up to Michael and that other crazy dude who dangled his baby from a hotel balcony once. Hard to be objective.

I can appreciate John Coltrane without the heroin. Miles Davis without the cocaine. Kurt Cobain without the whining (and more heroin). Walt Whitman without the gay overtones. Elvis without the peanut butter and painkillers and Lennon without Yoko.

Maybe in time, we can remember Michael without the wacko.

n One of Nate Smith’s dream jobs is to be a music critic for Rolling Stone. It’s too bad he can’t play a lick of guitar.

E-mail him at nsmith@washtimesherald.com.