How Good Was Michael Jackson Actually?
When Michael Jackson performed, the world stopped. Stadiums overflowed. Fans fainted at the sound of his voice. Thriller alone outsold everybody. And his influence, you can hear it on every pop star who’s ever touched the stage since. But Michael wasn’t perfect. He’s been criticized for his live singing, his bad acting, and even though it’s not his fault, he’s been accused of having fake songs on his Post Humors albums.
; August 2022. Do you think that those were actually Michael’s vocals or not? If I tell you today, right now, I can tell you right now that no. ; Michael obviously became the king of pop, but the journey that made him one was far darker and much more complicated than most people realize. He’s had to face rejection, doubt, and fight to prove himself again and again.
So, how good was Michael Jackson actually? In 1968, a little kid from Gary, Indiana walked into Mottown Records. He out sang grown men who’d been doing this for decades. That kid was Michael Jackson. You see, the Jackson 5 weren’t just another kid group. They were something else entirely. ; Barry Gordy, the founder of Mottown, he said he’d never seen anything like it.
; What was it the first time you saw the Jackson family when Michael Jackson came in? What were your first impressions when you when you saw them perform in front of you? ; Well, I was floored. Uh when I saw them perform, I was really floored. Diana Ross introduced him to America on the Hollywood Palace in 1969.
And Michael, the tiny kid with a afro bigger than his whole body, he grabbed the mic like he’d been performing for 50 years. ; But the part people don’t always think about is while other kids were learning multiplication tables, Michael was learning choreography. While they were playing tag at recess, he was in the studio until 3:00 a.m.
; Actually, you’re becoming like a stage addict. I really am. Like when there are off days and there is no show, I’m up at night dancing just the same. It’s really strange. Guess I’m an addict. Can’t help it. Joe Jackson didn’t believe in childhood. He believed in perfection. He got it through this thing right here.
Or if you’re black, you’re probably familiar with the switch. Michael would later say he was so terrified of his father that he vomit when he saw him coming. Now think about that. that a kid so scared of his dad that he’d get physically sick. But that same kid would walk on stage and command an audience of thousands of people.
By 1970, the Jackson 5 had four consecutive number one hits. I Want Your Back, ABC, The Love You Save, I’ll Be There. No group had ever done that before. Michael was 11 years old singing about love and heartbreak in a way that would make grown women cry. But the thing is, it gets complicated because that success came with a price.
Every interview, every photo shoot, Barry Gord’s team would remind him, “You’re not children, you’re professionals.” Michael couldn’t make friends his own age. He couldn’t go to school dances. He couldn’t even hardly go outside without causing a riot. He’d later talk about staring out hotel windows, watching kids play in the park, just watching.
Michael just wanted to be normal. But the thing is, he wasn’t normal. You see, he was talented, but not just talented, he was absolutely obsessed with music. ; Who did you start listening to to to get your kind of um singing style? ; James Brown. I said James Brown and Sammy Davis Jr. cuz I like the kind of things they do, like fast music.
; What did you borrow from him? Well, uh, I do most of his dancing on stage, and I just like the way Sammy sings. ; The music was incredible, but behind every perfect performance, there was a child who had been hit for missing a step. Behind every smile, it was a kid who didn’t know what it was to just be a kid.
By 1979, Michael was 21 and desperate to prove something. The Jackson 5 had left Mottown and became the Jacksons. But Michael, he wanted more. He needed more. My name is James Phillips. I’d like to know, first of all, how do you feel being up there alone? And are you going to make are you going to make appearances by yourself? Um, ; no, I’m just doing this cuz these are solo songs for my album and they put him on the Jackson 5 album.
; Now, enter Quincy Jones, the man who’d worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Count Bassy. When Quincy agreed to produce Michael’s solo album, people thought it was weird. a jazz legend working with a former child star to make pop and disco music, but it was a match made in heaven.
Quincy and Mike, they also worked together on the movie The Whiz, and a year later, they dropped off the wall. Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough, it it still gets played in movies and social events. The album went platinum four times, a part that nobody really talks about. Despite selling millions and four top 10 singles, the album just got two Grammy nods and only one win.
Michael sat in that audience watching other artists win awards he knew he deserved and then something in him just snapped. He told his lawyer that night, “My next album, it’s going to be the biggest album of all time.” Now, most people would have called him crazy, a 21-year-old kid talking about he’s going to make the biggest album ever.
Yeah, he was Michael Jackson, but he wasn’t the king yet. Now, Michael had been competing with adults since he was 5. He knew he was talented, but he learned that talent wasn’t enough. You needed to be undeniable. Now, the thing is, Off-the-Wall should have been enough. It revolutionized pop music. It made disco sound sophisticated.
But the industry still saw him as Little Michael. Still as Diana Ross’ protege, just one of the Jacksons. [Music] [Applause] ; November 29th, 1982. The day the music industry changed forever. Thriller wasn’t supposed to happen the way that it did. CBS executives wanted another off-the-wall, a safe, successful, profitable album.
But Michael and Quincy had other plans. They wanted to create an album where every song could be a single. Every track had to be perfect. But let me tell you about MTV first because you can’t understand the impact Thriller had without understanding this. See, MTV launched in 1981 as music television. They had a very specific format, mostly rock music.
They said Michael didn’t fit their demographic. When Billy Jean dropped, everybody knew it was a hit, but MTV still wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t until the president of CBS Records, Walter Yetnikov, he threatened to pull all of CBS’s artists from their rotation until they played Michael Jackson. And once they did, Billy Jean became one of their most requested videos.
It opened doors for not just Michael, but for countless artists who came after. But see, Michael wasn’t done. It was Mottown 25th anniversary, and Michael was supposed to form with his brothers. He did, but then he asked for a solo spot. He came out with his fedora kind of like this one. Black jacket, silver glove, the Billy Jean baseline started to play and then you know what happened.
But Michael still wasn’t done changing history. For the Thriller video, he made it into a 14-minute short film cost half a million dollars. Before Thriller, music videos were basically film performances. They might have had some simple effects, but after Thriller videos basically became many movies.
Artists started hiring film directors. Budgets exploded. story lines. We see it today still. It all became standard because of Michael. He basically changed what it means to make a music video. Now, Thrill of the Album, I mean, it damn near destroyed every record that ever existed. Bestselling album of 1983, of 1984, of all time. We’re talking 70 million copies, seven singles in the top 10, eight Grammys in one night.
But success, success is complicated because now everybody wanted a piece of Michael Jackson. the Pepsi commercial that went wrong. His hair caught on fire during a pyrochnic malfunction. That’s when the painkiller started. Then he got backlash for his pop success. Black radio station started saying he abandoned his community. And rock critics says he was too commercial.
People who ignored him during Off-the-Wall now saying he’s overexposed. And all of this was just the start of what would eventually become his Achilles heel. The media. Now fast forward. Michael has spent 3 years preparing for a follow-up album. I mean, the pressure of following Thriller must have been crazy.
I mean, imagine trying to follow up the Bible. What do you write next? Bad was the answer. Five number one singles from one album. The Bad Tour became the highest grossing tour in history. But there was another conversation happening. Prince, see, while Michael was breaking sales records, Prince was breaking musical boundaries.
Purple Rain Sound of the Times. Critics love to pit them against each other. Michael was pop and Prince was art. Michael could dance, but Prince could play multiple instruments. Michael actually wanted to collab with Prince. He reached out for him to do a duet on Bad. But when Prince heard the song, he heard the first line, and he wasn’t quite down for that.
; The first line in that song is, “Your butt is mine.” ; Your mine. ; I said, “Who going to sing that to whom?” cuz you sure ain’t singing it to me and I sure ain’t singing it to you. So right there we got, you know, right there we got a problem. ; So the rivalry, it wasn’t real. Not really. They respected each other.
But the media always needs a story. And unfortunately, Michael became a prime target for that. The media discovered they could sell more magazines by calling him wacko jacko than by celebrating his music. Every weird thing he did became a headline. He bought a chimp. Front page news. He slept in a hyperbaric chamber. He didn’t.
But who cares about the truth? Headlines for weeks. And then they got their biggest story yet. ; I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin is something that I cannot help. Okay. But when people make up stories that I don’t want to be who I am, it hurts me. ; Michael had developed vitiligo, a disease that destroys skin pigmentation.
It was something that defined him in both positive and negative ways. But instead of compassion, he got mockery. By the time the Dangerous album came out, Michael was pushing boundaries again. New Jack Screen with Teddy Riley, Industrial Sounds, Black or White became the most watched television event of 1991.
But the Wacko Jacko stories, they just they just kept coming. He was buying the elephant man’s bones. He was sleeping in an oxygen tank. The stories got more and more ridiculous. But some people started to believe him. I mean, at the very least, it started to shape his image. The irony is, while some people were calling him a freak, he was still revolutionizing music.
The choreography he created during this era, I mean, it’s still copy today. Watch any K-pop group. That’s Michael. But see, Michael, he made one critical mistake. You see, Michael was nice and trusting, but a little too trusting. See, Michael had his own theme park, and he would let kids and their families come stay with him. You know, everything was cool.
Well, he never had a childhood, so he wanted to do that. But in 1993, everything came crashing down. In August of 1993, Michael Jackson was accused of, let’s just say, doing not so nice things to children. Now, this has been a sore subject around Michael Jackson for a long time.
But we got to talk about what it did to him, cuz whether you believe he was innocent or guilty, what happened next was basically a public execution. The accusation came during the dangerous tour. Michael was performing a soldout stadiums when police raided his home. Media coverage was relentless. I mean, it was so bad he had to cancel the tour.
He became dependent on painkillers just to function. The case was eventually settled outside of court. But I mean, the damage was permanent. Next thing you know, the history album drops. It was half greatest hits and half new material. And the new songs, they were angrier, more defiant. They don’t care about us, scream, stranger in Moscow.
This wasn’t the same Michael who sang The Way You Make Me Feel. This was somebody who was hurt and wounded. Now, of course, it’s it’s Michael, so the album and the tour was still successful, but you could tell there was something broken that just couldn’t really be fixed. The allegations came back in 2003. Then came the trial.
He was acquitted on all charges, but a quiddle doesn’t necessarily mean vindication in the public eye. By this point, Michael proved himself to be one of the greats. But he had still not topped the success of Thriller, and his career was starting to go on the decline. So, he wanted to try to top himself one more time.
But he had another demon to battle with, Sony Music Entertainment. In 2001, Michael dropped Invincible, his last studio album. Sony barely promoted it. They were in a war with Michael over Masters and Money, but it still debuted at number one and still went double platinum. It was a failure for Michael Jackson, but it was still a success that most artists would kill for.
But the machine was breaking down and the debts were mounting up. It wasn’t because he wasn’t making money. I mean, Michael had lots of assets, but the lawsuits never stopped coming and everything just seemed like it was closing in on him. So, Michael wanted one last hurrah. In 2009, he announced the This Is It tour.
50 concerts at London’s O2 Arena. Sold out in hours. He was 50 years old, rehearsing like he was 25. the footage from the rehearsals. I mean, he was still magical, still had that thing that made him different from everyone else, but he was also fragile. He couldn’t sleep without meds, and he barely weighed 130 lb.
And on June 25th, 2009, the King of Pop was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center. ; According to the Los Angeles Times, pop star Michael Jackson died this afternoon. ; Both the Los Angeles Times and CBS News are both now reporting that Michael Jackson has died. His death was devastating and according to some is still a mystery.
But on the bright side, his legacy is still felt not just by music people but all of us. So how good was Michael Jackson actually? I mean the numbers are untouchable. Over a billion records sold, 13 Grammy wins, 39 Guinness World Records. Thriller alone has sold more than most artists entire careers combined. But numbers, they don’t quite capture it. Not really.
Watch Beyonce perform. That’s Michael. Watch Bruno Mars, Michael, The Weekend, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Chris Brown, all of them. I mean, they’re all trying to copy what he had. Even the K-pop groups, BTS, they’re walking through doors that Michael opened. He changed what it meant to be a pop star. Before Michael, pop stars, they sang songs, but after, I mean, they created whole worlds around their albums and different eras.
Music videos weren’t just promotional tools, they became art. He changed the game for concerts. I mean, he even changed the whole landscape of MTV. A black kid from Gary, Indiana became the biggest star on the planet. He made music that transcended language, race, culture, everything. Was he perfect? Of course not.
I mean, he didn’t play instruments as good as Prince. And on his live shows, his voice got strained and he didn’t sound as good as the record. Well, Michael’s impact was way bigger than music. Michael Jackson had his childhood stolen, had his appearance mocked, his reputation destroyed, his every move criticized.
He never got that comeback, never got that final victory lap where the world just celebrated him. But maybe that’s what makes his greatness even more remarkable. He never stopped trying to give everything he had to heal the world through his music. ; At your concerts, there are hundreds of people in the audience yelling, “Michael, Michael, what do you feel like ; when they’re all holding hands and everybody’s rocking and all colors of people are there, all races, and it’s the most wonderful thing.
” Now, Michael was so good that 15 years later after his death, pop stars are still chasing what he achieved. I have a video about how every modern artist, possibly your favorite artist, is still copying Michael Jackson. Watch this video on the screen next, and I’ll catch you over there. Until next time, peace.
