Kingdom gone

If all goes according to plan for Michael Jackson’s family, the Santa Maria courthouse in which he’s being arraigned today on charges of child molestation will be surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds of friends and fans who caravanned in to support the besieged celebrity.

That number, however, could easily have reached into the thousands, even tens of thousands, had Jackson’s troubles unfolded two decades ago when he ruled pop music.

Those were the heady days of “Thriller,” at one point the bestselling album of all time, one that’s sold more than 26 million copies. For countless fans, Jackson hits ranging from “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” on back to “ABC” and “I Want You Back,” the bubbly Jackson 5 tunes with which he first captured America’s hearts 10 years earlier, can still powerfully evoke the effervescent joy they originally instilled.

By contrast, his most recent single flopped in the world of radio he once dominated, and his new hits collection has sold fewer than half a million copies two months after its release.

The obvious question: How does anyone lose 25.5 million fans?

Did admirers who once took to heart the message of Jackson’s party anthem “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” ultimately get fed up with the self-proclaimed “King of Pop”?

“With all the facial changes and the other weirdness, I kind of got tired of having to buy into all that instead of just enjoying the music,” said Pru O’Malley, 25, a vacationing teacher from Geelong, Australia, in a Costa Mesa record store.

“I’ve heard the new stuff, but I’m not particularly fond of it,” said Kay Ewing, 18, a clerk at the same store who fell in love with Jackson’s music when she was 3. “He tried to change his appeal to attract people who weren’t his fans. I don’t think he needs more.”

The answer may seem obvious: The 45-year-old singer’s long history of idiosyncratic personal behavior crossed the line between charmingly intriguing and tragicomically surreal once they prompted allegations, twice in the last decade, that he sexually abused young male fans.

But even that’s not enough in itself to explain his career slide. Multiple charges of child pornography against R&B; star R. Kelly, stemming from a videotape allegedly showing him having sex with an underage girl, haven’t kept his music off the pop charts or radio.

“The primary reason something gets played on the radio or doesn’t is what the record sounds like,” said Jeff Pollack, one of the nation’s leading radio consultants. “It’s less about what’s written up in the newspapers. The issue of whether Michael is hot or not, has to do with the kinds of records he’s releasing to U.S. radio.”

That would be the recent single “One More Chance,” which “obviously hasn’t connected,” Pollack said. “There’s no question Michael will need a different and more contemporary sound to reach the audience today. It’s a very different scene than it was 20 years ago.”

The difference between then and now is a key issue for a lot of Jackson’s longtime fans.

“I think he’s brilliant, but I’ve departed from being a big fan,” said Bob Neri, 50, of Newport Beach, another record store customer. “It’s not because of all the controversy, but because his music is less attractive, and I’ve listened to his latest album.”

Adds Ewing, “His earlier music still rocks. You can’t get any better than that.”

Indeed, Jackson’s ‘80s music conjures a feel-good spirit of the times for those who grew up with them. In “13 Going on 30,” a movie slated for Memorial Day release, a girl who goes to sleep on her 13th birthday in 1987 wakes up to find it’s 2004, she’s 30 and she doesn’t know what happened to the 17 years in between. At a deadly dull social gathering, she persuades the disc jockey to play “Thriller,” apparently a pivotal move that jolts the party to life.

“I have no doubt he’s a genius in helping us to groove through life,” Denise Bubonic, 39, of Laguna Beach said while flipping through racks of CDs at the same store. “But I believe he is like a child who got stuck at a certain point, like when some people get traumatized and they stay at that age.”

But some argue that critics are too quick to pronounce Jackson’s career in the trash bin.

He has sold more than 10 million albums in the U.S. since 1993, when the first allegations of child molestation arose. (Jackson settled by paying several millions of dollars to the family of the boy in that case.)

Some also argue that it’s especially difficult to gauge Jackson’s popularity today because of the schism in the music business between acts that get the most radio airplay and sell the most records and those that sell the most concert tickets.

Jackson’s “Invincible” album has sold 2.1 million copies in the U.S. since it came out a little over two years ago, prompting pundits to suggest it proved Jackson was anything but.

Yet, said Rolling Stone music editor Joe Levy, “The very worst you can say is that it sounds exactly like a Michael Jackson record -- that it doesn’t invent a new sound, but merely recapitulates a great sound he invented.”

The lackluster response to the “Number Ones” album may well reflect the fact that it’s Jackson’s third hits collection since 1995, a period in which he’s released just one new studio album.

“What can you expect when you go to the well three times for the same body of work?” said Billboard charts editor Geoff Mayfield.

Although the specifics of Jackson’s life and career are unlike those of anyone who came before him, Rolling Stone’s Levy notes that on a more fundamental level, his career arc is no different from that of every pop superstar to come down the pike since Bing Crosby.

Outside the legal arena, Jackson’s greatest foe hasn’t been his talent or his antics, but time.

“Absolutely no one retains an audience at the level Michael was at with ‘Thriller.’ No one in the history of pop music has done it,” Levy said. “Not Elvis, not Madonna, and the only way the Beatles did it was to break up before they’d spent a decade making albums....

“The younger part of the audience, the part Michael would really need to reach if he were to have a multimillion-selling new record, they’ve moved on to Michael’s disciples. They’ve moved on to Britney, they’ve moved on to Justin, they’ve moved on to Jay-Z. Tastes have changed. They’ve moved on to 50 Cent and Eminem. But that’s natural.

“As for the people who grew up with his music, they’ve moved on too. They’re raising families and ... paying mortgages, not checking out this new John Mayer guy they’ve heard about, and they don’t really care about a new Michael Jackson record. They’ve got ‘Thriller or ‘Off the Wall.’ When they want to feel like they’re living off the wall, they’re going to put that record on.”

That’s exactly what Bubonic does when she needs a lift.

“I have my own compilation CD I’ve made, but I’d definitely buy the latest one if I had more money on me right now,” she said. “It takes you back to all the fun times. He was a master at putting a smile on your face.”