Michael Jackson would turn 67: 5 milestones in the career of “King of Pop”

Michael Jackson He was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, was the eighth of the ten children of the Jackson family. In the bosom of his family, music was always present as well as the violence by his father Joe.

Michael began in music at age 8, with the family group “The Jackson Five” where he sang with his brothers. There he quickly stood out as a dancer and singer. In 1969 they signed for the mythical musical seal Motown.

The magazine Rolling Stone He described the young Michael as a “prodigy” with “overwhelming musical gifts” that quickly emerged as the main attraction. The group marked a record on the lists when its first four singles “I want you back” (1969), “ABC” (1970), “The Love You Save” (1970) and “I’ll Be they” (1970) reached number one in the Billboard Hot 100.

As of 1972, Michael Jackson He would start his solo career linked to Motown along with the group. Subsequently and by means of a transfer to Epic Records and with the entered his younger brother Randy, and the game Jermaine would be called “The Jacksons”.

At the end of the decade I would start working with the producer Quincy Jones and from there everything would be known history: Off the wall, Thriller, Badworld tours and controversies around his person (including several complaints of child abuse) would be part of his life until the end of his days, when death found him preparing to return to the stage in June 2009.

Below 5 moments when Michael Jackson changed the world of music:

Born Racial Barriers: Michael Jackson’s success

After “Thriller”, His sixth solo album was a great success in 1982, Jackson won the nickname of El “King of Pop”. The singer received praise from the entire African -American community for having broken racial barriers in the music industry. He was the first African -American singer to have appeared in MTV.

It was considered the first black star that attracted an audience of all origins, marking the beginning of a new era for future African -American artists. Today, artists like Usher, Kanye West and The Weekndamong others, they said that the late singer was a great influence for their careers.

Thriller’s records

Without a doubt Thiller It marked a before and after in the music industry, it is the album that as already said consecrated it but the musical value was accompanied by a series of records that are worth mentioning:

• It was the first album in history to reach number 1 of the lists of successes of the United States and the United Kingdom simultaneously
• From this album was the youngest male artist to sell 10 million copies of a single album in the United States,
• He had the largest number of awards and nominations achieved by a group or artist in a single year: more than 50
• It was the first and only album in the story that has begun and finished the year being the number 1 of the Billboard lists.

It marked a new way of doing musical video clips

Few people would have occurred to you to see a 14 -minute music video that was until 1983, when the Thriller. The video (directed by John Landis), in which Jackson dances with zombies and appears disguised as a werewolf, broke the molds in matters of duration and special effects. The song revolutionized the concept of music video and its iconic dance steps are still popular and imitated.

The magazine Rolling Stone wrote that Thriller It was the most important television musical event since The Beatles They appeared in the show of Ed Sullivan.

Jackson used his videos as an expression of art and did not fear investing large sums of money to produce them. The value of the video was $ 800,000 (equivalent to 2,106,344.26 dollars of the year 2020), a record that remained until 1995 when it was surpassed by the song Screamalso from Michael Jackson. It is also considered the most important video of pop culture, in addition to being the video clip seen by more people (more than 950 million people) so far.

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The dance was another of the arts that Jackson redefined.

Michael Jackson and a dancing redefinition

Think of Jackson and the dance is to think about the famous dance of Dance “Moonwalk”. On May 16, 1983, the NBC issued the 25: YESTERDAY, ALSOVER (transmitted in the twenty -fifth anniversary of Motown), where Michael Jackson marked the beginning of the popularization of the dance step, during his performance of Billie Jean.

From the premiere of the sixth album of Michael Jackson, thriller to the present, his fans call themselves “Moonwalkers”Michael’s autobiography is titled “Moonwalk” And his movie “Moonwalker” They are all references to the dance popularized by the singer.

During an interview with Oprah Winfrey In 1993, Michael declared where the dance step came from: “Well, the ‘Moonwalk’ came from these beautiful children, the black children living in the ghettos, you know, the cities of the interior, which are brilliant, who have that natural talent to dance anyone and these of these new dances ‘The Running Man’, any of these dances. They come with these dances, all I did was improve the step.

Their live shows and “Mega tours”

The King of Pop was famous for radiating energy and transmitting the feeling of enjoying life on stage. Your tours Bad World Tour (1987-89), Dangerous World Tour (1992-93) and History World Tour (1996-97) toured the world and generated millions in income.

One of the culminates of his live shows was the part -time show of the Super Bowl XXVII It took place on January 31, 1993 at Rose Bowl, located in the city of Pasadena, California. In the show he interpreted several of his successes as Billie Jean and Black or WhiteSo Like we are the world and Heal The World accompanied by a choir of 3500 local children. The show turned out to be a success and marked the first time in its history that the half -time of the Super Bowl was more seen than the party in question.

According to estimates the This is it tourcanceled before starting due to the death of Michael Jackson It would have generated extraordinary profits.