In a strange bit of pop-culture déjà vu, the two names back on everyone’s lips this summer are Madonna and Michael Jackson .

Antoine Fuqua’s Jackson biopic Michael , starring nephew Jaafar Jackson, has just delivered a huge global opening for a musical biopic. Madonna, meanwhile, is back in circulation, coming off Coachella appearances and teasing new music with Sabrina Carpenter.

Which makes this a useful moment to revisit the period when the two biggest pop stars in the world briefly tried to operate in the same orbit.

On a recent episode of The Magnificent Others , super-manager Freddy DeMann, who worked with Jackson from 1978 to 1983 and Madonna from 1983 to 1997, offered a telling memory. Recalling a meeting with Jackson in a Paris hotel suite in 2008, he remembered Jackson’s parting message: “Tell your girl she forgot about melodies.”

Even then, Jackson was still tracking Madonna’s choices, still weighing them against his own instincts.…