The King of Pop will forever live in our memories the news of his sudden death on June 25th 2009 is still shocking and devastating for his fans around the world. At age five the music icon joined his siblings in Jackson 5 and stole the hearts of his audience with his dance moves and distinct voice. At just ten years of age Michael became the lead singer of Jackson 5 and created pop history when their first four singles “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There” topped charts at number one position. During the 70s Michael Jackson began his solo career and his first solo single for the movie Ben became a number-one hit. However, it was not until 1982 that Jackson shot to fame with his super hit album, Thriller, produced by Quincy Jones which sold about 53 million copies. Songs from the album became massive hits not just for the music but for their videos that were 14-minute long with a start, middle, and an ending which included professional dance routines that revolutionized music videos. The success of Thriller earned Jackson eight Grammy awards in a single night, setting another industry record.
The music icon had a unique style his famous “moonwalk” and his one white-sequined glove became his signature style. Many tried to imitate the “moonwalk” but no one did it better than him. The pop legend changed the entertainment industry when MTV televised his music videos. He was the first black entertainer that MTV played videos of since earlier they were reluctant to televise their videos.
During his life the pop icon had to face a lot of criticism from the media that constantly targeted him for his bizarre ways. British tabloids named him “Wacko Jacko” for his obsession with face alteration through plastic surgery. However, his loyal fans stood by him even during his court battles.
Michael Jackson was a true legend who can never be replaced. You can win Michael Jackson memorabilia for free by participating in the UK prize draw. The UK prize competition is open for all UK residents and no purchase is necessary.
Michael Jackson the show-stopping singer was the music icon and known as the “King of Pop” all over the world. The news of his sudden death on June 25th 2009 is still shocking and devastating for his admirers. His thrilling and electrifying stage presence made him one of the most popular artists of all time. His bestselling albums were: Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad. The pop legend transformed the entertainment industry when his music videos were televised on MTV. He was the first black performer, whose video were televised by MTV. UK Prize is giving away free Michael Jackson memorabilia which includes Michael Jackson the Black and White doll, Michael Jackson autographed items, Michael Jackson History tour t-shirts and History gold coins.
Michael was the seventh child of the Jackson family and became an instant star at the age of eleven. He made his debut as professional singer in 1969 as the new member of then. He began his solo career in 1971 while he was still a member of the group. The pop icon had a unique style as a vibrant, poised young adult bursting with talent and innovative ideas. The Jacksons had a number of hit records and in total made 6 albums between the years of 1976 and 1984. In 1982 his famous album Thriller was released that broke all the music records and topped the charts for nine months. Thriller has sold 51 million copies and remained in Billboard’s album chart for more than two years. Visit the UK Prize draws website and win the legend’s free memorabilia.
During his career the pop icon received numerous awards and honours from all over the world, such as: the World Music Awards, Best-Selling Pop Male Artist of the Millennium, the American Music Award’s Artist of the Century Award and the Bambi Pop Artist of the Millennium Award. He also received a Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from the United Negro College Fund and the same degree from Fisk University. The legend will never return again but will live in the hearts of his fans forever. Do not miss the golden chance to win Michael Jackson memorabilia free from UK prize.
Top Michael Jackson Videos that Turned MJ Fans Crazy
Michael Jackson is among those singers that do not require any introduction, a one of a kind performer with a voice that make people feel his presence even after his death, Michael Jackson and his videos are here to stay forever. This article contains some of the top MJ videos that turned his fans crazy.
Billie Jean(1983):
Released in the year 1983, Micheal Jackson’s “Billie Jean” is considered the video that brought MTV, an unknown music channel at that time, into mainstream attention. It was the first video by a black artist to be aired by the channel. The video became really popular and Jackson’s new look in the video was copied by all, specially children around the US. In a 2005 poll, the music video was ranked fifth in “Top 20 Music Videos Ever”. The video was also ranked as the 35th greatest music video in a list compiled by MTV and TV Guide at the millennium, which made it one of the popular Michael Jackson videos in the history.
Bad (1987):
Released in 1987, Bad was shot on a subway. In this MJ video, Michael Jackson and a group of dancers are showing dance steps all the way through a subway. The music video also got nominated at the Video Music Awards in the year 1988. The dance steps of this Michael Jackson video are still popular among Jackson’s fans and this is among those popular Michael Jackson videos that increased popularity of Jackson and boosts Michael Jackson fan club.
Dirty Diana(1988):
Released in the year 1988, this is one of the most sexually charged music videos of Jackson. Dirty Diana is a story of a groupie, which was filmed in early 1988 in front of a live audience during Jackson’s ‘Bad’ World Tour. The music video won the “Number One Video In The World” at the 2nd World Music Awards held in the year 1989. Although some people wanted this MJ video to be banned because of too much sexuality, this Michael Jackson video still comes under the popular category.
Beat It (1982):
Released in the year 1982, ‘Beat It’ is the third single from Jackson’s sixth solo album – Thriller. The Michael Jackson music video “Beat It” was awarded two Grammy Awards and two American Music Awards and was inducted into the Music Video Producers Hall of Fame. The music video opens with the news of a fight at a diner. The camera cuts to a scene of Michael lying on a bed, speculating the superfluous violence. Arriving at the scene, where the fight is taking place, Jackson breaks up the fight and launches into a dance routine. The gang members join him in the dance and agree that violence is not the solution to the problems.
JacksonSecretVault.com is a free and easy to use social website that gives Michael Jackson fans a network to connect, share Michael Jackson videos and discuss by becoming the member of Michael Jackson fan club. Their uniquely popular website helps you rediscover and relive some of your favorite MJ moments in time. Plus, connect with a world of MJ fans and share new, stories, photos, , send messages, update your status and much more.
Back in the 1980’s there was no one in the world that influenced the budding Generation ‘X’ like that of Michael Jackson. Yes, there was President Ronald Regan, Bo Jackson, MTV, Boy George, Madonna and those funky heavy metal hair bands. But no one topped the power of Michael Jackson.
He was not just a star; he was phenomenon. He commanded your attention, weather you were a music fan or not. Where he went, legions of fans followed, screaming for a glimpse. The world had not seen that since the Beatles and Elvis.
Now deceased, Michael Jackson is more powerful than ever before. This story has made frontline news in all the world’s paper for 3 days straight now. No other news is seemingly is so captivating; not Jon and Kate, not US economic woes, not even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Michaels’ death has suddenly revived his career. Yes, revived. In all likelihood, he may generate more money then he ever did alive. Already record stores, iTunes, and Amazon have experience enormous demands. Elvis, John Lennon, Jim Morrison all experienced the same.
Michael’s legacy will most likely focus on the days he produced Off the Wall and Thriller. Those two albums alone produced more hits then most musicians have in their entire careers. His music videos ‘Beat It’, ‘Billie Jean’, and ‘Thriller’ transformed music videos from a mere promotional tool to an art. It helped ignite MTV. His career in a nutshell: 2 time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a solo artist and member of the Jackson 5), 13 Grammy Awards, 13 Number one singles, over 750 million albums sold worldwide, and billions of dollars generated.
The Lost Childhood As the world learned, however, was that Michael Jackson had a dark side that involved child abuse, neglect, and accusations of child molestation. You find can an entire populace of people with similar history in prison.
It wasn’t enough that Michael suffered a lost childhood. He was never allowed to be own person. His spirit was never free. Instead, his life became a tool for others to make profit of his enormous talent. His father, Joe Jackson, was not a successful man on his own by any means. He was a steel worker during the day, hardly carrying enough change in his pockets for lunch.
To his credit, however, Joe Jackson was a driven man. He played in a band and was a talented guitarist. Perhaps he had dreams playing for record label, but fell victim to the circumstances in his day: poverty, racism, and missed opportunities.
To some, growing old and not fulfilling your lifelong dream is intolerable. Joe Jackson may not have wanted any of that. So, his kids became the pawns for his success. According the Michael and his sister LaToya, Joe Jackson was a tyrant with an iron fist. He ran the household with fear, intimidation, and complete lack of concern about his children’s feelings.
In addition, Michael had to endure the challenge of being in a one-income household with ten kids. Normally with large families siblings would play and fight with each other. In the Jackson household, it seemed that band practice took precedence to growing up and living a normal childhood.
Despite the hardship, Michael was born to be an entertainer. For years the Jackson 5 played in local venues and won numerous competitions. It was not till Michael joined the band did MoTown Records take notice.
The Baton is Passed Smokey Robinson said, “Michael had the talent of someone years his age.” Which Michael at the realm, the Jackson 5 attracted television and record deals. Like many child stars, however, Michael was forced into world that God never meant for children. Michael never experienced a childhood. He was busy making money for his family and for the record labels. He was a moneymaker. Despite the claims from those who say they loved him and showed genuine concern, he was a music moneymaking machine. The self-worth was solely based on that. If he stopped producing, they stopped caring.
In 1979, the record ‘Off the Wall’ was a solo act without Michael’s tyrant father or his brothers. Quincy Jones was the man behind the project. Together, Jones and the 20 year old Jackson produced the first ever album to generate US top 10 hits including blockbuster songs like “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Rock with You”.
The man was only 20!
At 20 years old most people are in college, partying, studying for college exams, or thinking of their careers. Michael remained what he was since he was 10, a money making machine. Not a man with feelings, not a man with a spirit, and a human being. He was money making machine, the darling of the media, a man with billions of dollars, yet no life.
At 24, Thriller was released. It’s the greatest album I have ever purchased. For Michael, the arrow had reached its peak and is now failing.
Energy Released – His deal with Children It’s little wonder why Michael had that special relationship with children. He wanted to be around them, especially young male boys. Why? Because he was never allowed to experience having a ‘best friend’, or play outside with friends after school, like normal kids do.
It’s just human nature to make up for lost experience. It not unusual for teenage moms, as soon as their children are grown, to dress up in sexy garbs, hang out at bars, and date younger men.
Michael’s inner demons were not demons. They were yearnings. Yearnings to have the God given right to a normal childhood.
Did he molest young boys? I’m not sure, but then I wonder why an innocent man would pay the family of one of his so-called victims million to keep their mouth shut. I don’t know the details, nor will I speculate.
His Career Revived in Death In years to come there will be speculations if Michael did actually die? The same theories floated around about Elvis and Jim Morrison. Elvis and Jim Morrison made more money in death then they did alive.
Will that happen to Michael? Most likely yes.
The greatest gifts Michael left us his music. He is the ‘King of Pop’ and the greatest entertainer since Elvis and the Beatles. More important, for those who wish to live their successful through their children, look at Michael’s life and where it went.
He became a lost soul with billions of dollars. As it was mentioned in the Bible,
What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? – Matthew 16:26
Rest in Peace Michael and thanks for the music and the lessons learned.
Jim Hague is an author, lecturer, owner of Crystal Digital Images LLC, has no party affiliation and is a moderate. He is the author of ‘Abandoned Son: Roe vs. Wade is overturned.’
How can one figure out what to say upon hearing of the passing of someone like Michael Jackson? Even that statement doesn’t make any sense; there is, and never will be, anyone else like Michael Jackson.
There aren’t many celebrities who we can look to and come close to what Michael Jackson has meant to so many of us throughout our lives. The closest names we can think of are Brooke Shields and Sammy Davis, Jr. They make the list because they were in the public eye since they were children, Brooke with her first advertisements at the age of 10, and Sammy when he was performing with his father and bandmates from the age of 3. Neither one of them ever attained quite the significance of Michael Jackson, though.
For instance, Michael Jackson, in a weird way, aged in reverse, almost like Benjamin Button, the movie with Brad Pitt. As a child, he was already an adult beyond his years, helping the family make deals, being the leader of his singing group from the age of 5, and singing and dancing as though he was already a seasoned performer of years much further than he could have come close to.
Compare that to the Michael Jackson who took the world by storm with the Thriller album, the man-child who, now that he had unlimited wealth, determined not to be made to grow up. He built the ultimate child’s paradise in Neverland Ranch, and then invited children, as playmates, to come and play with him. Then, over the years, as he continued to age, he fought it by eventually having kids of his own, and playing games with them as though he were still the biggest kid in the room.
Beyond all of that, though, was the music, and the dancing. He touched our souls, first with his brothers. From the time America heard “I Want You Back”, then saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show, it was already determined that there was no comparison with family groups that had come before them, such as the Osmond Brothers or the Brothers Gibb. Indeed, this was something drastically different; these guys had a soul, and its front man was named Michael.
Who didn’t remember the soulful way this child-man sang love ballads with the emotion of someone who’d actually been through them? Songs like “I’ll Be There” and “Got To Be There” would have made you cry if you were allowed to cry as a young man; the girls indeed did cry. The ballads would be balanced with songs like “ABC” or “Dancing Machine”, where everyone I knew tried to figure out how he did that special robot dance that not even his brothers could emulate.
Then we moved on, and saw Michael Jackson and his brothers grow up, and grow out, leaving Motown and establishing themselves as an independent force with three group albums, one of which included the number one hit song helping to bring the 70’s to a close called “Shake Your Body Down To The Ground.” Who could have known that would be the last truly big song that the Jackson brothers would have as a group, and what was about to happen for their brother Michael?
What happened? Most people don’t know this, but the music industry was crashing down. Record sales weren’t doing all that well. We had all learned how to record music off the radio, and it didn’t matter that it wasn’t all that clear. MTV had come out, and we were starting to watch videos. But there was no black music on MTV except for one old video of Jimi Hendrix playing a song few people remembered, “Are You Experienced.” Then CBS Records, whom Michael Jackson had moved to as an independent musical force, gave an ultimatum to MTV; play Michael Jackson’s video or never get to play another video from a CBS Records artist.
That it had to come to that is shocking, especially in light of the fact that Michael’s second individual album (he’s had the album “Ben” released as a solo album back in the early 70’s) had gone to number one and produced four chart topping hits, including “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”. Sure, MTV had its worries; the first song released from the album, “The Girl Is Mine” with Paul McCartney, wasn’t quite the style of music MTV wanted to associate itself with, even if the song did go to number one.
If someone with his pedigree couldn’t get on MTV, what would it be worth? CBS was resting a lot of hopes on the back of Michael Jackson, and eventually bullied MTV into putting “Billie Jean” on its station.
To say it was an instant hit is insufficient. People loved the driving beat to the song, and saw a much different looking, grown up performer than what they were used to. Then they saw him perform on the Motown 25th Anniversary Show, and the rest is history. Thriller sold more albums than any other record in history, breaking so many records that will never be broken, and saving the record industry. Indeed, if one looks at the true golden age of music, it would be the period between when Michael Jackson released Thriller and when he released the Bad album. That was the period of the mega-album; without Thriller, Prince’s Purple Rain album, Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA album, and U2’s Joshua Tree may never have sold the number of albums that they did. Thriller was to the 80’s album what Saturday Night Fever by the Bee Gees was to the age of disco, and Peter Frampton’s album Frampton Comes Alive did for rock.
What was the difference? Michael Jackson didn’t only do music; he did dance. And he did it better than anyone else ever had except for Gene Kelly. The dance made the music a part of our lives, and extended the popularity of both Michael Jackson and his craft. And, what made it so special is that we got to see the evolution of the artist right before our eyes. Many of us grow up along with him, and that made him special to us. We could recall what was going on in our lives when his songs came out, and how they made us feel better.
And he kept coming back to us more and more often. We had Dangerous; we had HIStory. We had Invincible. We had the videos. We had “We Are The World.” We had more coming, and we were all looking forward to that, plus the upcoming concerts that he said were the last hurrah.
And then it was gone in an instant. No one saw it coming, that’s for sure. Two days after Ed McMahon, hours after Farrah Fawcett, and with the knowledge of how sick Walter Cronkite was, who could believe the breaking news alerts that Michael Jackson was being taken to the hospital after cardiac arrest? Who could believe the rumors that he was in a coma? Who could believe the rumors that he had passed away? And he had a cardiologist with him? Unthinkable.
Yet, it was true, and it shocked us. It made us take a look at our mortality. It made us feel bad. But we weren’t ready to feel bad. Instead, we wanted to feel good, because deep down inside, we know that he did all of this for us from the beginning. He didn’t seem, in person, like the happiest guy in the world over the last decade. With good reason, it seems, things we’re not going into. And yet, when all was said and done, all he cared about, other than his kids, was his fans. He wanted us to enjoy him, his music, his dancing, and all that he had to offer for us.
If you’re like me, after you got over the initial shock and had to pull yourself away from all the overwhelming news stories, you pulled out your Michael Jackson music, the solo stuff and the group stuff, the songs he did with others such as “We Are The World” and “State Of Shock” with Mick Jagger and “Scream” with his sister Janet, and we listened to those songs over and over. I listened for days; I’m still listening a week later.
As a younger person, I did that same thing. I’d buy the latest Jackson Five album, or the newest Michael Jackson album, on the day it was released and I’d play it over and over for weeks. Then, when everyone else caught up, I’d feel special because I already had it. I didn’t have to wait to see if I was going to like any of the songs first; I bought it because I knew he wasn’t going to let me down, that he was going to have songs I just had to have in my life.
To the end, he controlled my emotions. He helped make me happy. He helped make me reflect on different aspects of my life. He made me think about things such as racism and poverty and violence. He helped make me whole. And I wasn’t alone. He touched the world, the most famous entertainer in history, bigger than Elvis, possibly bigger than Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan and Princess Diana. In the first week after his passing, 9 of the top 10 albums on the Billboard charts were Michael Jackson related albums. That didn’t happen with Elvis passed away.
It’s hard to totally convey what Michael Jackson meant to my life and the lives of others in a few words; look how many words this has taken already, and there’s so much more that can be said. Michael Jackson was all about us. He sacrificed his life, his privacy, his happiness, so we could all feel better about our lives. It doesn’t get more selfless than that. R.I.P., Michael; we’ll miss you more than we’ll ever know.
Luis Pezzini
www.LuisPezzini.com
Sunset Strip Realty
lpezzini@SunsetStripRealty.com
(www.paxstereo.tv/morningcoffee) Morning Coffee with Mario Talk Show Series: It is comedian TreLuv’s birthday, and the talk is fast, furious, and dirty. The Live HOtt Pixx, Handra is keeping it real, and the hot topics are James Taylor and Carole King topping the concert income this year with over milliion in revenue. We also take a look at Billboard magazine’s recent article acknowledging the evolving DIY (“Do It Yourself”) new music industry. Come on, let’s party. (07-07-10) PART 8 of 16 — THIS IS A PARTIAL EPISODE Video Rating: 0 / 5
