Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958-June 25, 2009)[2]
Was
an American Pop Icon known as the king of pop. He was born into the
Jackson family as the 7th child of Joseph Jackson. When Michael Jackson
was very young, 11 years old, he and 4 of his siblings began a band with
their father Joseph Jackson as the manager. The band was called "the
Jackson 5" and the group attained much commercial success. It was not
until 1971 that Michael Jackson left the Jackson 5 and began his solo
career. He went on to become one of the most famous recording artists of
all time and eventually became the "king of pop" a title he bestowed
upon himself. His solo albums hold many titles for their astounding
number of sales. 5 of his albums hold records for number of sales.
His career really began to take off in the early 1980's. and he was one
of the first and most popular black artists to gain a prominent
following on MTV. This was due in large part to the huge budget and
extravagant budgets of his music videos for his songs. Songs with record
holding videos include: Beat it - Billie Jean - and Thriller. Some of
these videos are so influential that they are credited with changing
music videos from a recording of the song into mini movie works of art.
This led further to Michael Jackson's popularization of amazing and
complicated dance choreographing and musical numbers. This dancing
featured prominently in his live shows. His record breaking live shows
earned him enormous amounts of money.
Some of the dances moves popularized at these live shows include the
robot and the moonwalk. Michael Jackson's musical influence stretched
across many musical genre's including hip-hop, pop and R&B in part
because of his eccentric and distinct style of vocals and music.
One thing that many do not know about Jackson is that he raised and
donated MILLIONS of dollars to over 39 charities for a multitude of
causes through his namesake foundation. This is often overlooked due to
his appearance and increasingly bizarre and changing appearance. Not to
mention a string of child molestation accusations...
