…I just don’t get it.
He was a brilliant musician and he was, pardon my crudeness, a freak.
Which part exactly aren’t you getting?
Because he released lots of music, and lots of people liked it, and was marketed very heavily for decades? Plus added value controversies which kept in the the press.
I guess “brilliance” is in the eye of the beholder.
How many fake-nosed child-molesters are there? Uniqueness, dude!
He’s done a lot of stuff people like. He is not among my favorite performers, but IMO:
1.) He has an excellent voice.
2.) He was part of Motown back in the ‘60’s and the Boomers now control a lot of the media and they like soul. That soul is some of the finest music ever recorded. The hell with the Limeys and the hippies, screw the Stones and the Beatles and Pink Floyd and the Beach Boys, give me the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye (especially when singing with Tammy Terrell), the O’Jays, the Four Tops, Martha and the Vandallas, the Jackson 5, Rare Earth, the Supremes, etc. Those cats could really play and sing and they put their hearts and souls in it, along with their brothers and sisters at places like Stax and Muscle Shoals. Michael Jackson was part of that and I like a lot of Jackson 5 stuff like “Never Can Say Goodbye” and “I’ll Be There.”
3.) He continued to put out stuff in the 1970’s which, aside from “Ben,” is pretty decent.
4.) Thriller This is one of the most influential albums of the last 30 years. Look at the number of hits it spawned and consider their quality. “Billy Jean” is a truly badass song. Not only that, but look at the influence of the song “Thriller.”’ When I was in college in 1983 that video astounded us at a very largely white college. We had never seen anything like it. It certainly helped make MTV bigger and more influential. I’ve also read that it resulted in MTV and other stations airing a lot more minority videos. Sorry I can’t remember the source.
5.) A lot of people think he’s a fabulous dancer. Since I know nothing of dance, I can’t comment on this.
My own person opinion is that whether you like him or not, MJ’s influence on popular music within the last 60 years is up there with that of Elvis and the Beatles. I’m not crazy about that myself as I think Jimi Hendrix had more talent than all three combined, but life ain’t fair.
He was a damn good performer. While I don’t consider his music to be better than average, his performances were over-the-top greatness.
And, yeah, the freak element didn’t hurt him.
I think a lot of people often raise the OP’s question about Jackson for two reasons:
1), because of the freak factor. (They wouldn’t naturally ask the same question about Madonna, for example.) People think a freak doesn’t deserve such positive fame; and
2), because Jackson has such a huge international fan base in addition to that in the U.S.
But really, I don’t think the freak factor gets so much play abroad. I once met kids in the Yucatan jungle, living in one-room cinder-block houses with no electricity, who had Michael Jackson shirts on. They hadn’t the slightest knowledge of Jackson’s legal problems, and didn’t care, either.
Sometimes I think with guys like Michael Jackson and even Vincent Van Gogh, people are more into the people behind the product rather than the product itself. Which is why, for example, Britney Spears stayed in the limelight when she wasn’t doing much musically in the mid-2000s.
One theory I have about the popularity of guys like Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and so forth is people aren’t so much attracted to what they did first (ie, make music [that is, they don’t become fond of these people’s music first, then fond of the people themselves]), they are attracted to what these people were–crackheads, tragic life stories, early deaths, nutcases, et cetera, and by association they become fans of their product.
If you notice, most of the really huge “legends,” “gods,” et cetera in modern music history died early, tragic deaths.
So, in short, so many of these musicians with loyal, fanatic bases that exist long after they die had great stories, not great music.
One more “if you notice:” If you notice, for example, before Michael Jackson died, he was the butt of just about every other joke, everyone laughed at him and it seems no one took him seriously. And now he is revered as a musical god, a musical genius, someone never to be mocked or ridiculed because his inherent greatness is just so incredibly great.
I’ll try to echo other posters’ responses in my own words:
He started out as part of a young group–Michael was maybe under 10 years old when he began singing and dancing. The Jackson 5 had hit after hit ("ABC"for one) when Michael was still young.
It was perhaps natural that Michael went solo in the 70s/early 80s, and then Thriller hit – which touched a lot of people in a way that few other singer/dancers could.
Now, while I was never a big fan of him, I understand a lot of people were – enough to make Thriller the largest selling album of all time (at least for a number of years…I don’t know if it still holds that record or not, but it did at least at one time).
The short answer? He had “it”. “It” being that elusive combination of talent, luck, timing, and charisma. And maybe a few other things.
Absolutely. Quite apart from the freak show aspects, he was one of the greatest entertainers to ever take the stage. The Motown 25th anniversary show performance is a good example.
Him being a freak wasn’t enough for him to be so successful, though it provided lots of publicity; as the others have said, he was a great pop and soul musician and a great dancer and showman.
He was known as a musical genius before he died too, and there are still lots of Michael Jackson jokes around now; there aren’t as many as before, but that’s because he’s not up to much these days.
People (even now) often start liking MJ when they’re little kids - they are definitely not liking him because of his tragic life story.
He really took advantage of the still-young MTV music video phenomenon, and I recall he was spending record-setting amounts on his videos, raising them to movie-studio standards.
I was always meh about his music, but his videos were usually fun to watch.
you got it the wrong way round - his talent brought him to the limelight, his story kept him there.
Like most singers it was a combination of things. And most of this is being in the right place at the right time.
Do you need a good voice? Maybe, but there are plenty of famous singers who are mediocre. There are also a lot of great singers that get no where.
Let’s take a look at two of the biggest acts since 1955, when Rock music came in. Madonna and the Beatles. Did the Beatles sing well? Not always. There are some tracks where McCartney is way off key. But they actually CHANGED the influence of music. And they had great ability to write good music. But had they come in 10 years prior, you’d have to wonder
Madonna is different. Instead of changing the influence of music, she read the trends and capitalized off of it. When something new came along she did went with it and did it well. A lot of people criticize Madonna but she could see a trend and take it.
The Carpenters had Karen’s brilliant voice. But they also came along when the soft mellow music was huge. When disco came in, Karen could do it and well, but people wouldn’t buy it. Same for Helen Reddy.
Let’s look at the 70s. The for the first five years 70-74 Helen Reddy was the biggest charting female act in the USA. For the second half 75-79, what happened? She tried to make a few “disco” like songs (“I Can’t Hear You No More”) but she faded. Donna Summer was became the biggest charting female of the second half of the 70s. In fact Summer said jokingly, “God created Disco so I would have something to excel at.”
Now let’s look at the time frame from 70-79 who was the biggest charting female act? Donna? Helen? No, it was Olivia Newton-John, who started out folk/country moved to soft mellow, then moved over to disco. She was able to change. Who was the second biggest charting female singer of the 70s? Helen? Donna? Sorry it was Diana Ross. Who also managed to have steady success throughout the 70s. Summer comes in third and Reddy in fourth.
So you see timing is right.
Also in the late 70s and early 80s music video took off. MTV wasn’t playing any black artists. Jackson stepped in and filled that role. Jackson has average qualities as a singer and dancer. There were always other acts that were better, but he came along at the right time. MTV was looking for a black artist and he fit the bill.
And the fame kept building on itself.
Does fame last? Going back to female singers, who was the biggest female singer for the first half of the 1900s (1900-1950?). Jo Stafford, she is BRILLIANT. Her voice was so beautiful. How many people have heard of Stafford today? Dinah Shore comes in second for the biggest female artist of the first half of the 1900s. If people know Shore today, they usually know her from her talk show or the fact she was Burt Reynolds cougar lady.
The Jacksons also succeeded because the managers and behind the scenes people are very good. Janet Jackson made records before “Control,” but wasn’t getting anywhere. Her management team knew they couldn’t put Jackson against Whitney Houston or the Pointer Sisters and win. So instead they focused less on her singing and moved her dancing to the front and put it in videos. It worked, in fact until his death Janet Jackson had more chart success than her brother Michael (after he died, his records sold again and he moved ahead of her). If you see the Diff’rent Strokes episode where Jackson plays Willis’s girlfriend and Dana Plato sings with Janet, it’s embarrassing at how much better a singer Plato is than Jackson.
So it’s timing, luck, good management and the ability to stick with it.
He was just a really great pop musician. Pop music might not be your genre, but maybe you can still recognize that much of what he made was better than most pop.
I also am slightly puzzled about the other musicians you mention (Lennon, Cobain, Hendrix), saying they they didn’t make great music. You disagree radically with music critics on this point, with them being the some of the most acclaimed musicians of all time. (http://acclaimedmusic.net/)
Not to be condescending, but how old are you, OP? If you were a teenager or older during the 80’s, I don’t think you’d need to ask the question - it would be self-evident.
- Jackson 5.
- Michael Jackson solo music career - biggest in the world for a long time - you don’t earn the title “King of Pop” with a couple sales.
- Had younger sister with huge musical career (Janet Jackson).
- Hair caught on fire during filming of Pepsi commercial, spawning tons of jokes.
- Had any number of scandals regarding how the Jackson kids were raised - accusations of beatings, sexual abuse, etc.
- Gradually cut his face off surgically; denied having work done.
- Turned from cute black guy to weird-looking, effeminate whitish guy (I understand he legitimately had vitiligo, but it was talked about A LOT, how he was getting lighter and lighter).
- Married Elvis Presley’s only child.
- Had a menagerie at his ranch called Neverland.
- Seemed like a genuinely weird guy in interviews - like he had never actually grown up.
- Palled around with a chimpanzee named Bubbles.
- Friends with huge stars (like Elizabeth Taylor and Brooke Shields).
- Bought the Beatles’ recording catalogue.
- Sold the Beatles’ recording catalogue.
- Went to court twice for charges of child molestation.
- Had kids with surrogate mothers.
- Dangled one of his kids over a high-up balcony with a blanket over its head.
- Gave his kids weird names (Michael Joseph Jr, known as Prince, Paris-Michael Katherine, and Prince Michael II). The youngest was also known as Blanket.
- Went bankrupt (or close to it).
Pick only a few from that list and you’d probably be famous. The dude just couldn’t stop doing stuff to get into the press (whether intentionally or not).
Perhaps his initial fame, but in 30 years when new legions of fanatics cling on to him, I do believe it will be his story that draws them to him first.
I agree with much of what you say, but not this. That was his own formulation - he was not dubbed that by a third party, like Elvis was. He may well have been one of the greatest pop songwriters and performers ever, but all self-applied nicknames are bullshit.
As far as I could tell, he worked hard to stay in the spotlight. I remember an associate working with him on a song, getting ready to leave the studio building and be confronted by paparazzi, Jackson pulled a mask out of his pocket, put it on and said “Showtime!”
This is a myth. MTV was playing a lot of black artists before Michael Jackson including Prince and Tina Turner.