Sunday's Billboard Music Awards brought Michael Jackson before our eyes once more as his hologram sang and danced its way through Jackson’s song, “Slave to the Rhythm”, which has now lead to much debate over whether the performance was something cool or just plain creepy.
The performance featured real life dancers moving around the hologram but even the hologram could not perfectly execute all of Jacksons signature moves. Entertainment Weekly gave a quick recap on the holograms movement by saying that it provided enough MJ-esque hand and face movement for it to appear real.
But now people are speaking out on whether the performance was one to be remembered or something they wish to forget. CNN reported several responses to the act via Twitter including recording artist Travis Morgan who said, “Michael Jackson hologram is rad #BBMAS” and another Twitter user who was less impressed, Assata H., who tweeted, “That Michael Jackson hologram kind of scared me… it was cool. But it was weird.”
The most important criticism of all came from Esco “Jackie” Jackson, Michael’s brother, who People reported said, “If Michael were here he would say thumbs up!" as he remains impressed with everything that was done with the performance.
While this is not the first holographic performance and will probably not be the last, it raises the question on how far the music industry should go to push reality and deliver entertainment.