Music Throughout the Ages

Michael’s Journey To HIStory

Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana USA) is an American musician and entertainer. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene at the age of 11 as a member of The Jackson 5 and began a solo career in 1971 while still a member of the group.

Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music as the first African-American entertainer to amass a strong crossover following on MTV. The popularity of his music videos airing on MTV, such as “Beat It”, “Billie Jean” and Thriller—credited for transforming the music video into an art form and a promotional tool—helped bring the relatively new channel to fame.

Going Solo

In 1978 Jackson teamed with Quincy Jones to produce his first solo album Off The Wall. Released in 1979, Off the Wall was the first album to generate four US top 10 hits, including the chart-topping singles “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Rock with You”. Off the Wall reached number three on the Billboard 200 and has since been certified for 7 million shipments in the US and eventually sold over 15 million copies worldwide. In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B Album, Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Single (for “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”). That year, he also won Billboard Music Awards for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (for “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”). Then there was ‘Thriller’.

In 1982, Jackson issued his second Epic album, Thriller. The New York Times called him a “musical phenomenon”, saying that “in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else”. The album remained in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for 80 consecutive weeks there and 37 of those weeks at the peak position. It was the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles, including “Billie Jean”, “Beat It” and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. Thriller was certified for 27 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the US. It is often cited as the best-selling album of all time, with worldwide sales between 47 million and 104 million copies. That same year Jackson contributed the song “Someone In the Dark” to the storybook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; the record won a Grammy for Best Album for Children.

Michael Jackson changed the way the industry functioned; as an artistic entity and a financial, profitable organization. His attorney John Branca noted that Jackson had the highest royalty rate in the music industry at that point; approximately $2 for every album sold. He was also making record breaking profit from compact discs or the sale of The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller; a documentary produced by Jackson and John Landis. Funded by MTV, the documentary sold over 350,000 copies in a few months of sale. Thriller retains a position in American culture; biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli explains, “At some point, Thriller stopped selling like a leisure item—like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie—and started selling like a household staple.”

Time magazine explained that “the fallout from Thriller has given the music business its best years since the heady days of 1978, when it had an estimated total domestic revenue of $4.1 billion”. Time summed up Thriller’s impact as a “restoration of confidence” for an industry bordering on “the ruins of punk and the chic regions of synthesizer pop”. The publication described Jackson’s influence at that point as “Star of records, radio, rock video. A one-man rescue team for the music business. A songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too”.

Historical Performance

On March 25, 1983, Jackson performed live on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special, both with The Jackson 5 and on his own singing “Billie Jean”. Debuting his signature dance move—the moonwalk—his performances during the event were seen by 47 million viewers during its initial airing, and drew comparisons to Elvis Presley’s and the The Beatles’ appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. The New York Times said, “The moonwalk that he made famous is an apt metaphor for his dance style. How does he do it? As a technician, he is a great illusionist, a genuine mime. His ability to keep one leg straight as he glides while the other bends and seems to walk requires perfect timing”.

“Fred Astaire told me things I will never forget. Gene Kelly also said he liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience because I felt I had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so honored because these were the people I most admired in the world.”

-Michael Jackson

Jackson won eight awards during the 1984 Grammys. Unlike later albums, Thriller did not have an official tour to promote it, but the 1984 Victory Tour, headlined by The Jacksons, showcased much of Jackson’s new solo material to more than two million Americans. He donated his five million dollar share from the Victory Tour to charity. Inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984, Jackson has had a notable impact on music and culture throughout the world. After the insurmountable success of the ‘Thriller’ album, some had doubts that Jackson could produce follow up albums with measurable success.

A Surprise Return

With the industry expecting another major hit, Jackson’s first album in five years, Bad (1987), was highly anticipated. Bad had lower sales than Thriller, but was still a significant commercial success. In the US, it spawned seven hit singles, five of which (”I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Bad”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man in the Mirror” and “Dirty Diana”) went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, more than any other album. The album sold over 25 million copies worldwide, and shipped eight million units in the US.

The Bad World Tour began on September 12, 1987, and finished on January 14, 1989. In Japan alone, the tour had 14 sellouts and drew 570,000 people, nearly tripling the previous record of 200,000 in a single tour. Jackson broke a Guinness World Record when 504,000 people attended seven sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium. He performed a total of 123 concerts to a total audience of 4.4 million people, and gained a further Guinness World Record when the tour grossed him $125 million.

In 1991, Jackson renewed his contract with Sony for $65 million; a record breaking deal at the time. Jackson released his eighth album “Dangerous” in 1991. The Dangerous album had 7 million shipments in the US and sold 27 million copies worldwide; its sales were slightly higher than Bad’s. In the US, the album’s first single “Black or White” was the album’s biggest hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and remaining there for seven weeks, with similar chart performances worldwide. The album’s second single “Remember the Time” spent eight weeks in the top five in the US, peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

He then released the double album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. The first disc, HIStory Begins, was a 15-track greatest hits album, and was later released as Greatest Hits — HIStory Vol. I in 2001, the second disc, HIStory Continues, contained 15 new songs. The album debuted at number one on the charts and has been certified for seven million shipments in the US. It is the best-selling multiple-disc album of all-time, with 18 million copies (36 million units) sold worldwide. The album won a Grammy Award for “Best Video of the Year”.

Savy Businessman

Jackson purchased Northern Songs, a music catalog holding thousands of songs. The catalog includes The Beatles’ back catalog and songs by Elvis Presley. Jackson outbid Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono at a cost of $47.5 million. The idea came to Jackson while working with McCartney on the two hit singles “The Girl Is Mine” and “Say Say Say” a few years prior. The pair became friendly, occasionally visiting one another. In one discussion, McCartney told Jackson about the millions of dollars he had made from music catalogs; he was earning approximately $40 million a year from other peoples songs.

Jackson began a business career buying music and shortly afterward Northern Songs was put up for sale. He was warned that he would face strong competition. Branca (Jackson’s attorney) contacted the attorney of McCartney, who clarified that his client was not interested in bidding because, “It’s too pricey”. After Jackson had started negotiations, McCartney changed his mind and tried to persuade Yoko Ono to join him in a joint bid, she declined, so he pulled out.

Jackson eventually beat off the rest of the competition in negotiations that lasted 10 months. When McCartney found out he said, “I think it’s dodgy to do things like that. To be someones friend and then buy the rug they’re standing on”. Reacting to that statement, biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli observed that McCartney himself made millions of dollars from the music of other people. He had more money than Jackson at that point so could have made a substantial bid for his own music and would not have suffered financial danger from Jackson owning the catalog.

A Title Well Deserved

He is a double-inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, once as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1997 and later as a solo artist in 2001. Jackson was also an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. His awards include multiple Guinness World Records (eight in 2006 alone), 13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one singles in his solo career—more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era—and the sale of over 750 million units worldwide.

In the mid-1980s, Time described Jackson as “the hottest single phenomenon since Elvis Presley”. Daily Telegraph writer Tom Utley called him an “extremely important figure in the history of popular culture” and a “genius”. His total lifetime earnings from royalties on his solo recordings and music videos, revenue from concerts and endorsements have been estimated at $500 million; some analysts have speculated that his music catalog holdings could be worth billions of dollars. Jackson’s successful career has made him a part of pop culture for almost four decades. In recent years he has been cited as one of the world’s most famous men.

Jackson’s success resulted in his being dubbed the “King of Pop”, a nickname conceived by actress and friend Elizabeth Taylor when she presented Jackson with an “Artist of the Decade” award in 1989, proclaiming him “the true king of pop, rock and soul”.