Mirrors in Song: The English Beat, Michael Jackson, and Justin Timberlake

I was there during the 80’s. But somehow I missed the mirror songs.  

When The English Beat released their song “Mirror in the Bathroom,” I had just started college. Believe it or not boys and girls, I moved into my little rectangle of Durward Hall sans TV or stereo. I had a radio, but it was set to mellow contemporary and this ska/pop/soul/reggae/punk rock group somehow didn’t make it onto KOSI 101.

It’s a catchy tune, and watching YouTube, I recognize the 80’s music video tropes (by 1983 I had access to MTV): shots of the band looking serious, nodding their heads in sync, four quick consecutive shots of the same scene, reflections in mirrors, the latter of which, admittedly makes sense.

Fast forward to 1988, and Michael Jackson had taken the music video to a whole different level with his storytelling and cinematography. However, for the song “Man in the Mirror,” he took a different approach, staying out of the video entirely and making a montage of news footage of starving, homeless, and downtrodden people around the world.  (Though I heard this song on the radio in ’88, I missed the video, probably because I was in the library on Friday nights doing research for a graduate degree, rather than watching Friday Night Videos.) Jackson has a complicated legacy, and it will be interesting if his humanitarian-themed songs will outlive his sketchy personal life.

And now we have Justin Timberlake’s “Mirror.” It’s doing well, and near the top of the list on Freegal. His fans seem to like it. Rumor is, he wrote it for his wife, Jessica Biel, and it’s a sweet, relaxed sort of piece. Some reviewers say that Timberlake is branding himself as “luxury pop” and that this will likely be the most expensively-produced album of the year.

So there you have it, three different mirrors all for free download on Freegal.