Michael Jackson Obituary: The Man In The Mirror

26 June 2009

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August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009

The world is in mourning as one of the greatest musicians of all time has died, aged just 50 years old. Here, we remember Michael Jackson and his role as the King Of Pop and the rather eccentric Wacko Jacko.

From an early age, Michael showed an incredible musical talent, and as the seventh child of the Jackson family, he first stepped onto the music scene at the tender age of 11 as one fifth of the Jackson Five… little did he know that fifteen years later he would be on the road to becoming one of the worlds biggest selling musicians.

Michal and Marlon joined their brothers in the Jackson 5 in 1964, along with Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, originally as backup musicians with Michael taking to the conga‘s however, it wasn’t long until he unleashed his vocal chords on the world by performing backup vocals and of course, pulling some killer moves as a backing dancer.

The band set a chart record when their first four singles "I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There" all peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, but at the same time, Michael was keen to show just how capable he was as a solo musician, and from 1972, he released a total of four solo studio albums with the bands record label, with Got to Be There and Ben amongst them.

The band moved to CBS Records in June 1975, and they released six more albums in the years that followed, and Michael Jackson really became to come into his own as he penned hits such as “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", "This Place Hotel" and "Can You Feel It".

When Michael was playing the Scarecrow in the film musical The Wiz, he met musical legend, Quincy Jones, who formed a partnership with Jackson during the film's production and agreed to produce the singer's next solo album Off the Wall, which was released in 1979.

This was the first album from Michael which generated four top 10’s, including “Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You”, whilst the album itself reached number three on the Billboard 200 and has since been certified for 7 million shipments in the US and eventually sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

Thriller & Bad

Michael’s second album, Thriller, was released in 1982 and it was charted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for 80 consecutive weeks and 37 of those weeks at the peak position. This was the point when people started to sit up and take notice of this incredible singer.

The album reaped seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles, and the singles, "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" were all in the charts at the same time. Thriller sold upwards of 109 million copies, making it the best-selling album of all time. With Thriller came Michael’s musical trademark dance move, The Moonwalk, which had it’s debut on March 25, 1983,  live on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special.

Negative Media

With the colossal rise in fame came the obvious tabloid coverage on the singer, and in 1986, the tabloid press ran a story claiming that Jackson slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to slow the aging process; he was pictured lying down in a glass box.

Even more bizarrely, Jackson bought and befriended a pet chimpanzee called Bubbles, which only added to the critics outrageous view of the singer, granted, he was an incredible recording artist, but his behaviour was getting more and more eccentric. Later it was reported that Jackson bought the bones of The Elephant Man and in turn, the papers gave Michael the nickname "Wacko Jacko", which Jackson acquired the following year, although he eventually came to despise the tag over time.

What’s more, during the 1980’s, Michael’s skin began to change colour, obviously creating a media storm with rumours flying around that he was bleaching his skin, although, in the mid-1980s, Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo and lupus; the latter was in remission in Jackson's case, and both illnesses made him sensitive to sunlight and the treatments used only continued to lighten his skin tone… leaving this former black man, now a white person.