He’s been called The Gloved One, Smelly, or simply MJ, but Michael Jackson is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of all time. In his time, he was the most famous person in the world. But how has the King of Pop influenced life today? First, we need to know how he got here.
On Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary, Ind., Michael Joseph Jackson was born into a family of ten. From the ripe age of six, he was thrown into the jaws of the music industry where he and his brothers created The Jackson Brothers, a band started by their father. In just one year, Jackson assumed lead vocals with his brother Jermaine, and later that same year, they rebranded into The Jackson 5. Six years later, when Jackson was only 13, they reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with their first single, “I Want You Back.”
When Jackson moved to New York City, N.Y. to star as the scarecrow in the musical film The Wiz at age 19, it marked a turning point in his career where he finally became independent of his family. He was Michael Jackson, not just a member of the Jackson 5. In 1979, when he was 21, Jackson released “Off The Wall.” This album shot him into stardom, with four songs reaching the top ten on the charts, and two of them hitting number one. However, in just a few years following this, he reached heights no one had ever touched.
Three months after his 24th birthday, Jackson released the best-selling album of all time, “Thriller.” It was the top album worldwide in 1983 and won a record eight Grammys, including Best Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Beat It.”
This album stood out differently: “We hadn’t seen that before. We’re taking jazz, blues, soul, funk, rock and roll, to sort of formulate this new pop that hadn’t existed before,” said Breezy Hoppenrath, music teacher at HBHA.
There are many reasons why “Thriller” became the album that it did, but an often underrated aspect is Jackson’s singing. Last year, Apple Music ranked their top 100 albums, and “Thriller” was deemed the second greatest album of all time. When asked by Apple Music about the album, musician and songwriter Nile Rodgers said, “No one else could perform infectious songs of that quality at that high a level.”
Even with all the phenomenal aspects of this album, the thing that sticks with people the most through the years is the iconic “Thriller” music video. Only two years after the debut of MTV, Jackson released a 14-minute-long mini-movie that is still hailed as the best music video of all time. People were glued to their screens the entire night of its release, and at that moment, they knew they were witnessing history. “It’s Michael Jackson, he makes you wanna dance,” Lara Krigel Pabst, a diehard MJ fan, says.
This video took the world by storm. It laid down the foundation for what a music video should look like. Pabst says, “That dance, when everybody is sort of in a flash mob, I can think of so many other scenes that seem to have copied that.”
Everything about this video is legendary, and it has stood the test of time to be remembered today. Pabst shares, “I must’ve been five or six, and my brother and I… would listen to the laughing part over and over and over again because we thought it was so funny.”
Michael Jackson became infused in people’s lives, and she recalls, “I was at the mall with my parents and we left, and [PYT] was on. You know a song will just imprint on you and you’ll have a vision of where you were when you heard it.” He was so catchy and refreshing, that even 40 years later people have memories attributed to specific songs.
Over the years, the music of the 80s and 90s has slowly been lost to Father Time. The instruments or style might become dated, or the artist or band may have stopped releasing music. However, MJ has just shifted away from the spotlight.
Michael Jackson has been dead for 15 years, and yet he influences countless artists today. HBHA junior Avital Mullokandova says, “(Tyler The Creator) created Egor, and he has so much energy when he performs it, I know he definitely got inspired by MJ.”
Modern artists continue to sample his music, imitate his dance moves, and use his name and likeness to further their music careers. He created a recipe that worked so well that people to this day people are influenced by him. Mullokandova remarks, “There’s a reason why R&B and Pop are my two top genres on Spotify, and it’s because of him.”
Often, people compare songs made in the 20th century with music today to see if the songs from before the turn of the century would stand the test of time. Regarding “Thriller,” there is zero doubt the album would still be massively successful today. Hoppenrath stated, “It’s just sort of a behemoth in the musical world. It’s so significant.”
Today, Michael Jackson still reigns supreme in the music industry. On Spotify, he is currently the 65th most listened-to artist or band in the world. When his music was being released, CDs didn’t even exist. The ability to maintain his relevance through all this time is truly incredible.
Pabst continues, “[The songs] imprint on all of us, and it becomes sort of a shared experience, and we often don’t even realize it.” People find haven in this nostalgic music because it marked a turning point not just in the music industry, but in their personal lives.
There is little doubt the King of Pop changed the landscape of music forever, but he expanded beyond that. He danced, he acted, and he was a major role model to many. He shaped the way people listen to music, but additionally, the way people live.
