Level 6: The Infatuated Collectors
The Infatuated Collectors would never be able to display an album in a neat and tidy manner. Driven by the desire to one day fully understand the complexity and richness of Michael’s music and persona, they have turned their living room (and subsequently every room in their bungalow) into a sanctuary for the nearly complete collection of all the better and lesser known songs, bonus tracks, novelty records and foreign versions. Michael would have been proud of their hoarding powers. Marie Kondo isn’t exactly his spirit animal either.
Twenty years ago, they even had to sell their Toyota to afford a rare 9-piece set of all 12” single LPs from the Bad album. By surreptitiously leaving a mix of their personal best-of MJ compilation in the car for the new owner to find, they hoped to have planted a seed, to have done their part to perpetuate the lore.
The Infatuated Collectors don’t let the calls from their fellow gatherers — the debt collectors — steal their thunder. Their banker may have told them that a “Captain EO” model from the Disneyland attraction of the same name is “not an investment”. But this ridiculous display of incompetence only fuels their devotion, so they take out the $5,000 loan to place a magnificent 17’’ hand-painted resin mini-statue next to their Michael Jackson-narrated “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” storybook album.
Of course, they know that you should budget for regular payments into a fund to build wealth over time. No need to be condescending. That’s why they’ve set up monthly donations to make the next Kingvention possible, a convention of like-minded connoisseurs, because that’s the kind of environment where they truly thrive.
What they lack in financial savvy, The Infatuated Collectors make up for in unparalleled specialization in the art and the artist that is Michael Jackson. They may have forgotten the names of their own children, but they can name all 25 (or more?) of Michael’s nieces and nephews and their significant others in a heartbeat.
Don’t try to impress them with tidbits like “The song Thriller was almost called Starlight”. That’s redundant information for Level 6 fans. Long before any other Level, except 10, they had already heard a surprisingly lively interview about the making of Thriller. There Michael told Ebony Magazine: “It was Tchaikovsky that influenced me the most. […] If you take an album like Nutcracker Suite, every song is a killer, every one. […] People used to do albums where you’d get one good song and the rest is B-sides or album songs. And I would always say to myself, why can’t every one be like a hit song? Why can’t every song be so great that people would want to buy it if you released it as a single?” That’s why they proudly show you their certificate from Yale’s online “Introduction to Classical Music” class.
What haunts The Infatuated Collector most is the fact that there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of unreleased tracks in Jackson’s vaults. If anyone should get access and crack the codes, it’s them. That’s why they can’t wait for Kingvention, where they would find their associates and – for reasons that can’t be disclosed at this time – go into hiding together for a few years.