Jackson moved to Los Angeles, where he rehearsed in the weeks leading up to the tour under the direction of the choreographer Kenny Ortega, whom he had worked with during his previous tours. Rehearsals took place at the Forum and the Staples Center owned by AEG. By this point, Jackson’s debt had grown to almost $500 million. By the time of his death, he was three or four months behind payments of his home in San Fernando Valley. The Independent reported that Jackson planned a string of further ventures designed to recoup his debts, including a world tour, a new album, films, a museum and a casino.
At Jackson’s memorial service on July 7, 2009, Motown founder Berry Gordy called Jackson “the greatest entertainer that ever lived”. In a June 28, 2009 Baltimore Sun article, Jill Rosen wrote that Jackson’s legacy influenced fields including sound, dance, fashion, music videos and celebrity. The success transformed Jackson into a dominant force in global pop culture, and cemented his status as the “king of pop”. Jackson had the highest royalty rate in the music industry at that point, with about $2 for every album sold (equivalent to $5 in 2021), and was making record-breaking profits. Dolls modeled after Jackson appeared in stores in May 1984 for $12 each. In the same year, The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, a documentary about the music video, won a Grammy for Best Music Video .
After signing with Motown, the Jackson family relocated to Los Angeles. In 1969, Motown executives decided Diana Ross should introduce the Jackson 5 to the public—partly to bolster her career in television—sending off what was considered Motown’s last product of its “production line”. The Jackson 5 made their first television appearance in 1969 in the Miss Black America pageant, performing a cover of “It’s Your Thing”. Rolling Stone later described the young Michael as “a prodigy” with “overwhelming musical gifts” who “quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer”.
Between 1971 and 1975, his voice descended from boy soprano to lyric tenor. Choreographer David Winters, who met Jackson while hey im bee leaked only fans choreographing the 1971 Diana Ross TV special Diana! Jackson’s philanthropic activities went beyond just monetary donations.
In 1965, the group won a talent show; Michael performed the dance to Robert Parker’s 1965 song “Barefootin'” and sang the Temptations’ “My Girl”. The Jackson 5 also performed at clubs and cocktail lounges, where striptease shows were featured, and at local auditoriums and high school dances. In August 1967, while touring the East Coast, they won a weekly amateur night concert at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Jackson explored genres including pop, soul, rhythm and blues, funk, rock, disco, post-disco, dance-pop and new jack swing. Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote that Thriller refined the strengths of Off the Wall; the dance and rock tracks were more aggressive, while the pop tunes and ballads were softer and more soulful. Its tracks included the ballads “The Lady in My Life”, “Human Nature”, and “The Girl Is Mine”, the funk pieces “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'”, and the disco set “Baby Be Mine” and “P.Y.T. “. In late 2010, Sony released the first posthumous album, Michael, and the promotional single “Breaking News”.
He denied tabloid rumors that he had bought the bones of the Elephant Man, slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, or bleached his skin, and stated for the first time that he had vitiligo. After the interview, Dangerous re-entered the US albums chart in the top 10, more than a year after its release. In January 1993, Jackson performed at the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show in Pasadena, California. The NFL sought a big-name artist to keep ratings high during halftime following dwindling audience figures.
