Michael Jackson part 3

Today is the third and final part of our Michael Jackson story. At the end of part 2, MJ was at the top of the world, with the fantastic success of Thriller. Here's what happened next.

Let's begin with a returned favor; Paul McCartney duetted with MJ on The Girl Is Mine, the lead single of Thriller. Jacko then duetted with Sir Paul on the much better Say Say Say, the lead single from Paul's album Pipes Of Peace. It was an easy international #1, with yet another great video. Was it only I who considered the moment that Paul applies a touch of shaving lather on Michael's smiling face incredibly sexy?

Before Thriller, we knew that Michael Jackson was an immensely talented young man – he seemed shy but ambitious, and he certainly seemed enigmatic. Nobody knew much about his beliefs or his sex life; he rarely gave interviews, but he also didn't land himself in scandals. He did, however, describe himself as a lonely person – particularly around the time he made Off the Wall. Former Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn recently wrote of meeting Jackson in 1981, when the singer was 23, that Jackson struck him as "one of the most fragile and lonely people I've ever met… almost abandoned. When I asked why he didn't live on his own like his brothers, instead remaining at his parents' house, he said, 'Oh, no, I think I'd die on my own. I'd be so lonely. Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room and sometimes cry. It is so hard to make friends, and there are some things you can't talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home.'?"

In any event, Michael Jackson seemed clearly reputable – eminent though not heroic, not yet messianic, and certainly not contemptible. Thriller placed seven singles in Billboard's Top 10 and also became the biggest-selling album in history (presently around 66 million copies or more), and at the 1984 Grammy Awards, Jackson finally claimed his due, capturing eight awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Then, months later, it was announced that Michael would be setting out on a nationwide tour with the Jacksons. He hadn't wanted to undertake the venture but felt obliged ("Those were slim shoulders on which to place such burdens," he wrote of his lifelong family pressures).

It was during this period that a backlash first set in against Jackson, though from the press more than from the public. The mid-1980s was a time when many in the music press had misgivings about mass popularity – especially if it seemed to represent a homogenized or acquiescent culture. Michael Jackson, after all, wasn't an artist with a message of sociopolitical revolution, nor did his lyrics reflect literary aspirations. To some then – and to some now – he represented little more than an ambition for personal fame.

But there was a trickier concern at play. The racial dimensions of Jackson's image proved complex beyond any easy answers at that time, or even since. Some of that was attributable to charges that Jackson seemed willing to trade his former black constituency for an overwhelmingly white audience – otherwise how could he have achieved such staggering sales figures in the US? But what probably inspired these race-related arguments most – the terrain where they all seemed to play out – was the topography of Jackson's face. With the exception of later accusations about his sexual behavior, nothing inspired more argument or ridicule about Michael Jackson than that face.

In his childhood, Jackson had a sweet, dark-skinned countenance; many early Jackson 5 fans regarded him as the cutest of the brothers. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, has written, "[Michael] believed his skin…'messed up my whole personality.' He no longer looked at people as he talked to them. His playful personality changed and he became quieter and more serious. He thought he was ugly – his skin was too dark, he decided, and his nose too wide. It was no help that his insensitive father and brothers called him 'Big Nose.'?" Also, as Jackson became an adolescent, he was horribly self- conscious about acne. Hilburn recalled going through a stack of photos with Jackson one night and coming across a picture of him as a teenager: "'Ohh, that's horrible,' [Jackson] said, recoiling from the picture."

The face Jackson displayed on the cover of Thriller had changed; the skin tone seemed lighter and his nose thinner and straighter. In Moonwalk, Jackson claimed that much of the apparent renovation was due to a change in his diet; he admitted to altering his nose and his chin, but he denied he'd done anything to his skin. Still, the changes didn't end there.

Over the years, Jackson's skin grew lighter and lighter, his nose tapered more and more and his cheekbones seemed to gain prominence. To some, this all became fair game for derision; to others, it seemed a grotesque mutilation – not just because it might have been an act of conceit, aimed to keep his face forever childlike, but more troublingly because some believed Jackson wanted to transform himself into a white person. Or an androgyne – somebody with both male and female traits.

Let's rewind and listen to the reason for MJ's tour with his brothers; it was the release of a new album by the Jacksons in 1984 called Victory. It would be very successful, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Also it would be the last album entirely recorded with Michael Jackson as a member of the band.

Having already duetted with the surviving lead member of the Beatles on Thriller, it made sense that right after he would duet with the voice of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger. That was their first single, State Of Shock, a #3 US Hot 100 hit. The song was originally intended to be a collaboration with Queen's Freddie Mercury but fell into Jagger's hands due to scheduling difficulties. "[Michael] had Mick doing scales for over an hour to warm up before he would even start," said sound engineer Bruce Swedien. "Mick didn't hesitate. By then, everyone knew how good Michael was. If Michael Jackson says warm up, you warm up – even if you are Mick Jagger."

The album produced another hit single in the shape of Torture; it was less successful, but still managed to peak at #17 on the US Hot 100.

To close the Jacksons' chapter, they only had one studio album since, their least successful, both commercially and critically, 2300 Jackson Street (1989). Michael and Marlon, who had quit the group after the 1984 tour, only appeared on the title track, which was a celebration of the Jackson dynasty. Sisters Janet and Rebbie were also there; middle sister La Toya was, at the time of this album, estranged from the family and did not appear on the song.

Following Band Aid's 1984 Do They Know It's Christmas? project in the United Kingdom, an idea for the creation of an American benefit single for African famine relief came from activist Harry Belafonte, who, along with fundraiser Ken Kragen, was instrumental in bringing the vision to reality. Several musicians were contacted by the pair, before Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie were assigned the task of writing the song. The duo completed the writing of We Are the World seven weeks after the release of Do They Know It's Christmas?, and one night before the song's first recording session, on January 21, 1985. The historic event brought together some of the most famous artists in the music industry at the time.

The song was released on March 7, 1985. A worldwide commercial success, it topped music charts throughout the world and became the fastest-selling American pop single in history. The first ever single to be certified multi-platinum, We Are the World received a Quadruple Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Awarded numerous honors - including three Grammy Awards, one American Music Award, and a People's Choice Award - the song was promoted with a critically received music video, a home video, a special edition magazine, a simulcast, and several books, posters, and shirts. The promotion and merchandise aided the success of We Are the World and raised over $63 million (equivalent to $138 million today) for humanitarian aid in Africa and the US.

Michael Jackson wanted his next album to be bigger than Thriller, which was of course too much to ask. Jackson was also seeking vindication. He felt misjudged and maligned by much of the criticism heaped on him after the 1984 Victory Tour. Some of the scrutiny he received about his "freakishness" – his devotion to his animals as if they were his friends, his ongoing facial reconstruction, scornful charges that he slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to maintain his youthfulness – was judgmental, even moralistic. Worse, too much of it came from reporters and gossip columnists, even political commentators, who displayed little if any real appreciation for Jackson's music and little respect for the sheer genius of his work.

At that time, Jackson's art was still his best way of making a case for himself. In 1987, he released Bad, his much-anticipated successor to Thriller. If not as eventful and ingenious as Off the Wall and Thriller, Bad was as good as any album he ever made. It was taut and funky, it had snap and fever, it radiated rage and self-pity but also yearning for grace and transcendence – particularly in Man in the Mirror, a song about accepting social and political responsibility, and about the artist negotiating his way back into the world. Bad sold over 32 millions internationally and launched five Number One singles, three more than Thriller, but because it couldn't match the accomplishments of Thriller, it was viewed as a flop.

The lead single, a sweet ballad feat. Siedah Garrett, was called I Just Can't Stop Loving You. It was an international #1, naturally.

His next single was Bad. The searing title track for Bad injected a new level of aggression and tension into Jackson's music. Written by Jackson, the song was inspired by an article he'd read about an African-American student who left the inner city to attend a largely white school and was killed on a visit home. At the same time, Jackson was obsessed with Prince, whom he saw as genuine competition. (During a visit to Neverland, producers L.A. Reid and Babyface sat with Jackson in his home movie theater and watched Prince's film Under the Cherry Moon.) Perhaps to prove who was truly the King of Pop, Jackson and Jones initially conceived Bad as a duet – or showdown – between the two men (Prince was supposed to sing the initial "your butt is mine" line). Prince met with Jackson and Jones to discuss the collaboration, but after hearing the song, he passed. As he left the meeting, he supposedly said, "It will be a big hit, even if I am not on it!" The song became a solo showcase, from a seething delivery and mouth-percussion part by Jackson to an organ solo by jazz great Jimmy Smith.

The video was another work of art, this time directed by none other than Martin Scorsese. Wesley Snipes and Roberta Flack also appear on the video.

The third single was The Way You Make Me Feel: The Way You Make Me Feel and Smooth Criminal are simply the grooves I was in at the time," Jackson said. Planet Earth was pretty into them as well. The third consecutive Number One single from Bad is the last unambiguously buoyant hit of Jackson's miraculous Eighties. "That was one of my favorites," says keyboardist Greg Phillinganes. "I remember how much fun I had laying down those offbeat parts, the bass line, all that stuff, and watching the expression on Michael's face." The idea for the unshakable groove came from Jackson's mother, Katherine, who suggested he do a song "with a shuffling kind of rhythm." Jackson replied, "I think I know what you mean," and quickly came up with something (originally titled "Hot Fever"). Jackson recorded all the vocal parts, including the backing vocals, dancing around a darkened studio to the track. Recalled engineer Bruce Swedien, "He'd sing his line, then he'd disappear into the darkness."

Next came Man in the Mirror: Jackson's most ambitious, emotional ballad was written toward the end of the Bad sessions by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. "It was the last weekend; we were going to close out the Bad record, and Quincy said, "Don't you guys have anything for us?" Ballard recalled. "We did a quick demo with Siedah singing, and she drove over and played it for Quincy the next day. He loved it, and he played it for Michael on Monday, and he said, 'Make a track.' So we started building this track, and it was magic." Jackson took it from there, asking Garrett to add backing vocals and bringing in San Francisco's Andrae Crouch choir and the Winans to back him. "He said, 'I want you to make it big – do it however you hear it. Just make it sound real gospel. Make it sound like church,' " recalls Sandra Crouch, who was leader Andrae's sister. "And that's what we did." Upon hearing the song, singer Mavis Staples interpreted Jackson's unforgettable made-up entreaty "sch-mon!" as an homage to her performance in the Staple Singers' R&B classic I'll Take You There, another song with deep gospel roots.

The fifth and final consecutive US #1 from this album was Dirty Diana. Quincy Jones later confirmed that it was about groupies – some media speculation point this song to Diana Ross, who Jacko was believed to have been having an affair with at the time.

Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens helped Jackson toughen his sound and his wardrobe – after Stevens introduced the pop star to his tailor, he adopted the leather-bound heavy-metal look on the cover of Bad. But Stevens' greatest contribution to the record is the spiraling metal solo in the steamy power ballad Dirty Diana. "[Michael] kept asking me about rock bands: 'Do you know Mötley Crüe?' " Stevens recalled. The hard-edged track became Bad's fifth consecutive Number One single and a favorite of a famous real-life Diana (Princess Diana) who reportedly requested the song at a 1988 Jackson concert in London.

Another Part of Me only just missed the US top 10 by a hair's breadth (it peaked at #11), which was a pity, since his next single was a top 10 hit. Therefore, he lost his chance to duplicate his own record, of seven top 10 hits from a single album.

His next single returned him to the US top 10 (#7). Smooth Criminal was the centrepiece for Jackson’s short film Moonwalker, featuring Joe Pesci. The effect in the video when Jackson and his dancers lean forward (‘Anti-gravity lean’) was achieved using special harnesses with wires and magnets.

Given that he was the biggest, most beloved pop star in the world, not everyone was happy about Michael Jackson coming out with a song that built on the aggression of Thriller's Beat It. He and Quincy Jones reportedly butted heads over including the irresistibly menacing Smooth Criminal on Bad, and Jehovah's Witness elders visited the set of the song's video and expressed disappointment with its violent imagery. But Jackson held his ground, and the result is his best blend of R&B groove and rock edginess, and a turning point in his shift toward darker, harder-edged material. Inspired in part by the story of mid-Eighties serial killer Richard Ramirez, Smooth Criminal had been around in slightly different form since 1985, first called "Chicago 1945" and then "Al Capone"; both versions of the track featured a rapid-fire funky bass line close to the ravaging synth-bass of the finished number. The heartbeat heard on the track is a Synclavier rendition of Jackson's own, and helps provide creeping counterpoint to his haunting cries of "Annie, are you OK?"

The next two singles from the album were not released in America. Leave Me Alone was #1 in Spain and #2 in the UK:

The charming Liberian Girl peaked at #13 in the UK:

Michael could afford not to release a duet with Stevie Wonder as a single. The song was called Just Good Friends:

I've just noticed that we've played every single track from this album, with the exception of Speed Demon. In this period, MJ's albums were lean and smoking hot; they contained no filler at all.

Jackson then staged his first solo tour later that year. On several nights, he turned in inspiring performances that also served as timely reminders of a sometimes overlooked truth about him: Namely that whatever his eccentricities, Michael Jackson acquired his fame primarily because of his remarkably intuitive talents as a singer and dancer – talents that were genuine and matchless and not the constructions of mere ambition or hype.

Though he had the lithe frame of Fred Astaire, the mad inventiveness of Gene Kelly, the sexy agony of Jackie Wilson, the rhythmic mastery of James Brown – or of Sammy Davis Jr., for that matter – nobody else moved like Michael Jackson. Certainly nobody else broke open their moment in one daring physical display like Jackson. He didn't invent the moonwalk – that famous and impossible backward gliding movement from his Motown 25 performance of Billie Jean – but it didn't matter. He had defined himself in that moment and dared anybody else to match it, and nobody ever did. During the Bad tour his moves were breathtaking, sometimes unexpected.

In 1988, he was again nominated for key Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, but he was up against hard competition. Artists like U2 and Prince had fashioned the most ambitious and visionary music of their careers – music that reflected the state of pop and the world in enlivening ways. More to the point, in 1988 there was suspicion among many observers that Jackson's season as pop's favorite son had passed. He would win no Grammys that year. In the Rolling Stone Readers' poll, Jackson placed first in six of the readers' "worst of the year" categories (including "worst male singer"); in addition, The Village Voice Critics' Poll failed to mention Jackson's Bad in its selection of 1987's 40 best albums. This was a startling turnaround from four years before, when Jackson and his work topped the same polls in both publications.

With his next album, Dangerous (1991), Michael tried tweaking things up; he parted ways with longtime collaborator Quincy Jones and self-produced the album, with the help of his friend Bill Bottrell, along with Bruce Swedien and Teddy Riley. With Riley, Jackson recorded under the new jack swing genre, a genre Riley has been often credited with inventing. It was also the first album in which Jackson began rapping. The inclusion of the rap group Wreckx-n-Effect, Jackson's embrace of hip-hop rhythms and new jack swing were designed to give Jackson a new younger urban audience. Lyrical themes expressed on the album included racism, poverty, romance, the welfare of children and the world and self-improvement, topics Jackson had covered before.

The album was generally well-reviewed and sold in excess of thirty million worldwide. The lead single was Black or White. This single is considered the biggest selling rock song of the ’90s. Written, composed, and arranged by Jackson with the rap lyrics by Bill Bottrell, the video, directed by John Landis, featured a young Macauly Culkin as the kid playing the loud music at the start. George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) played the father.

A call to racial unity that practiced what it preached by seamlessly combining classic-rock swagger and R&B drive, Black or White is one of the best songs Jackson recorded during the Nineties. "I thought his rock stuff up to that point had been kind of cartoonish," said Bill Bottrell, who co-wrote and co-produced the song. Its Stones-y riff came from Jackson, who hummed it to Bottrell one day in the studio. "I turned it into a Southern-rock thing, a real gutbucket tune," Bottrell recalled. Jackson also came up with the idea for the hard-hitting rhythm track. "I set about adding loads of percussion, including cowbells and shakers," Bottrell said, "trying to get a swingy sort of groove." Rather than call in a top hip-hop MC, Jackson let Bottrell handle the consciousness-raising rap on the song's bridge. But it is Jackson's incisive vocals that make the song a tour de force of pop polish and raw energy. The performance was actually a scratch vocal. But Jackson – a sonic perfectionist who constantly rerecorded undeniably excellent takes – knew it was good enough to keep as is.

A lush reverie, Remember the Time (the next single) was Jackson's finest attempt at updating his sound for the hip-hop era. "I came in with 10 grooves," Riley said at the time. "He liked them all." Remember the Time was a high point of their collaboration and one of Jackson's best post-Eighties vocal performances. Engineer Dave Way recalled watching the singer working on Remember the Time as he nailed "each note and harmony, double it, triple it and then maybe quadruple – each time singing it perfectly, vibratos perfectly matched, perfectly in tune, rhythmically dead on, knowing exactly what he wanted to do the whole time. Flawless." Who was Jackson singing about? Riley claimed the song was written after Jackson told him about his feelings for his second wife, Debbie Rowe (a claim he later retracted on Twitter). Jermaine Jackson, though, said the song was written for Diana Ross.

MJ continued to push the boundaries of the music video medium with a star-studded, nine-minute epic co-starring Eddie Murphy, Iman and Magic Johnson. Directed by John Singleton, this short film was hailed as a "gorgeous ancient Egyptian extravaganza" by Entertainment Weekly.

Writing the steamiest, most unambiguously sexual song he'd ever sung, and calling it In the Closet? Early-Nineties Michael Jackson was a master of mixed signals. Producer Teddy Riley constructed a dissonant, off-kilter beat that made Jackson's hormone-soaked whispers and wails fit right in with the tone of R&B radio ("It was just incredible," recalled keyboardist Brad Buxer, "almost atonal"). Initially conceived as a duet with Madonna, "In the Closet" features a couple of spoken passages by a "Mystery Girl" – Princess Stéphanie of Monaco – on the recording, and Naomi Campbell in the racy video.

The next single was Jam. As danceable pleas for universal understanding go, the opening track on Dangerous is shockingly tense and fragmented. The groove bears the signature sound of producer Teddy Riley, but Jackson came up with most of it. "He brought it to me as a DAT, and he told me there were things he wanted done, and I did them," Riley recalled. Jackson's voice takes its time creeping into the mix, and he stutters the chorus like his voice is being sliced to shreds; the most accessible moment of Jam is arguably the verse by Heavy D, Jackson's favorite rapper at the time. Unsurprisingly, the song stalled on the Pop charts but was a Top Five R&B hit.

The next single was Who Is It. The video is directed by David Fincher:

Then came Heal The World, a song quite similar to We Are The World. It was a big hit in Europe (#1 in Spain, #2 in the UK and France, #3 in Germany, etc):

Give In To Me was a single, but not in America, while his next international single was Will You Be There. Even by Jackson's wildly ambitious standards, the theme song for the 1993 movie Free Willy, and the eighth single from Dangerous, was one of his most grandiose recordings. Written while sitting in his "Giving Tree" at Neverland Ranch, Will You Be There begins with a long orchestral prelude from Beethoven, performed by the Cleveland Orchestra, interweaving hosannas from the Andraé Crouch Singers and climaxing with a tearful spoken monologue. It's a gospel song that continues a theme of his career: from I'll Be There to Got to Be There to Will You Be There, summing up a journey from boundless confidence to fear and solitude.

Released as a single on the fifth annual World AIDS Day, Michael Jackson's Gone Too Soon video is a short film celebrates the life of his friend, AIDS activist Ryan White. The song was recorded by Michael to honor his friend who passed away while he was in the process of working on the Dangerous album.

Michael Jackson never really regained momentum or ambition after the negative reaction to Bad. He had finally left the family home in Encino and built his own fortress estate known as Neverland, about 100 miles north of LA, with an amusement park and train rides redolent of Disneyland. It became a place where he brought the world to him, or at least that part of the world he seemed to care about, which mainly included children – the people, he said, he felt most at home with, since part of him wanted to experience and share the childhood he felt his father and entertainment career had deprived him of. But it was also Michael's appetite for the company of children that would create the most lamentable troubles in his life. In 1993, a story broke that Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy with whom he had kept frequent company.

It was a terribly serious accusation, and given his fondness for the company of children, the charges seemed all too credible to some observers. The story played big in not just tabloid newspapers but in some mainstream media as well. No criminal charges were filed, but in 1994 Jackson settled the matter out of court (reportedly for something in the vicinity of $20 million), which struck many as a tacit admission to the allegations. Jackson, though, categorically denied the claim. He later told British journalist Martin Bashir that he simply wanted to put the issue behind him.

The episode did enormous damage to Jackson's image, and perhaps to his psychology as well. It was during that time that, according to some, he developed a dependency on medications that stayed with him through the rest of his life. (Jackson's need for drugs may also have stemmed from pains attributable to various surgeries.) That same year he unexpectedly married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of rock & roll's most eminent pioneer, Elvis Presley. Some saw it as an effort to both rehabilitate and bolster his image by asserting a heterosexual authenticity, and by linking his name to even greater fame. The marriage lasted 18 months.

Presley has never spoken negatively of Jackson, only affectionately, saying in the days after her ex-husband's death that she left him only because she felt she couldn't save him from himself. Jackson married again in 1996, this time to a nurse from his dermatologist's office, Debbie Rowe. The couple had two children, son Prince Michael Jackson and daughter Paris Michael Katherine Jackson. Apparently, the children were the true objective of the marriage for Jackson; the couple divorced in 1999 and Rowe gave up custody of the children. (Rowe has admitted in the past that Jackson wasn't the children's biological father, but rather that they were conceived by artificial insemination.)

Through the course of all this, sadly, Jackson's musical drive fell off, and the music that did emerge was only sporadically successful. His new music was often a testament of self-justification. In Childhood, a song from 1995's HIStory: Past, Present and Future, he put forth his case for his otherness: "No one understands me/ They view it as such strange eccentricities/ It's been my fate to compensate/ For the childhood I've never known/ Before you judge me, try hard to love me/ Look within your heart, then ask/ Have you seen my childhood?"

Jackson had reached a breaking point after being accused of sexual molestation. The result was Scream, one of his most confrontational songs, and his first ever to use the word "fuck." Written with his sister Janet, it reached #5 on the Hot 100, as a double-A-sided single b/w Childhood, thanks to an extravagant video that has often been credited as the most expensive music clip ever made. But while it was a hard period for Jackson, it wasn't all bad times. "I have had so much fun working with my sister," he said in 1995. "It's like a reunion. I'm closest to Janet of all the family members. We were very emotional on the set."

His next single, You Are Not Alone, was his last US #1. It was also a #1 hit in most of the world. The R&B ballad was written by R. Kelly in response to difficult times in his personal life. He then forwarded a bare demo tape to Jackson, who liked the song and decided to produce it with Kelly. Jackson's interest in the song was also linked to recent events in his personal life. The song was later covered by Kelly himself as a hidden track on his tenth solo studio album Love Letter.

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, "only" sold around 20 million units internationally. The next single, Earth Song, is my favorite from this album, an epic song that overtly dealt with the environment and animal welfare.

They Don't Care About Us is the fifth single from HIStory: Past, Present and Future. The song remains one of the most controversial pieces Jackson ever composed. In the US, media scrutiny surrounding allegations of antisemitic lyrics were the catalyst for Jackson issuing multiple apologies and re-recording the song with altered lyrics. The singer countered allegations of antisemitism, arguing that reviews had misinterpreted the context of the song, either unintentionally or deliberately. The videos (2 different ones were made) were directed by Spike Lee.

The final single off this album, Stranger in Moscow, was originally written as a poem by Jackson, then adapted into a song. It went to the top of the charts in Spain.

His last #1 in the UK was Blood on the Dance Floor: A Dangerous-era outtake, this was revived as the title track of Jackson's 1997 remix album. The ominously slinking song has a fittingly creepy origin story. Teddy Riley had blown off a party to work on it – and someone had been shot on the party's dance floor. He hadn't mentioned the tragedy to Jackson and was shocked when the singer suggested Blood on the Dance Floor as a title. Jackson sings about a stalker with a seven-inch knife – another in his line of femmes fatales for whom sex and murder are one and the same.

Also in this album was a song called Morphine. "Guns n' Roses was probably the biggest stadium rock band at the time, and then you have Michael, who is sort of the Elvis Presley of the period – and, like, that's scary fame," said Slash, who played on this harrowing industrial funkster from Jackson's 1997 remix album. Jackson addresses rumors of his painkiller addiction: "Demerol, Demerol/ Oh, God, he's taking Demerol," like he's crying for help. Jermaine claimed he began taking pain medications for burns suffered during his 1984 Pepsi commercial: "I doubt he gave a second thought to Demerol's side effects," he recalled.

His hurt and anger also began to come out more in his body over the years. Sometimes his expression looked terrified, his eyes peering over surgical masks or from behind the cover of a burqa. Other times he moved with an explosive fury, as in those moments at the end of his infamous but incredibly successful 1991 video for the song Black or White. Those movements seemed so different from the joyful ones of years before.

But despite good moments – and too many treacly and self-aggrandizing ones – Michael Jackson's 1990s music had no real presence in the ongoing current of popular culture. His final album, Invincible, from 2001, yielded a few adventurous tracks – Jackson was finally accommodating the stylistic and cultural innovations made by hip-hop and other urban music forms – but overall it wasn't enough to live up to its title. This isn't to say that Michael Jackson was no longer a huge star but rather that his legend had transmuted: He was now known for his excesses and bad choices. He lived in a castle; he contracted another baby, Prince Michael II (whose mother has never been identified); and he then recklessly dangled the baby over a balcony in Berlin. Sometimes you had to wonder whether Jackson had any real idea how his actions struck the world – which is perhaps OK, unless you expect the world to love you unconditionally.

Invincible managed to sell 10 million units worldwide, which was definitely impressive, but that was half the sales of his previous album, less than a third of Dangerous and Bad, and less than a sixth of what he achieved with Thriller. The lead single, You Rock My World, was the only big hit off this album, peaking at #1 in France and Spain, #2 in the UK, Canada and the Netherlands, and #10 in the US. The song received mixed to positive reviews from music critics. The video features guest appearances from Chris Tucker, Michael Madsen and Marlon Brando.

One of the best songs from Jackson's last studio album is Butterflies, a bit of light, innocent, doting R&B, free of the dark undertones that dominated so much of his later music. The song was presented to Jackson in a demo with vocals from Marsha Ambrosius of the group Floetry, who was also one of the song's writers. "We originally demo'ed it with a woman singing, so it was hard for him to hit those notes," recalled co-producer Vidal Davis. "We did tons and tons of takes." The finished results recaptured the easeful soul of Jackson's earliest solo recordings right down to a rhythm track built around his finger snaps. Said Davis, "He had the loudest snaps in the world."

Jackson's most egregious lapse of judgment became evident in a notorious 2003 interview with Martin Bashir, in which the singer professed that he still shared his bed at Neverland with children who were not his own. During one point in the broadcast, Jackson sat holding the hand of a 13-year-old boy, a cancer survivor, and explained what he saw as the innocent and loving nature of that behavior. The public response was swift and hypercritical; many thought that despite the accusations he had faced in 1993, Jackson could still act as he wanted with impunity. The reaction was so devastating to Jackson that, according to some rumors, later that year he attempted a morphine overdose; at the very least, some observers declared Jackson had committed career suicide.

The controversy became as serious as possible when the boy in the video accused Jackson of fondling him. This time, the matter went to trial. The horrible drama that Jackson had landed in was in keeping with the dominant themes of his life and art: his obsessions with stardom, mystery, hubris, fear and despoiled childhood. If the charges were true, one had to wonder what Jackson truly saw when he looked at the childhoods of others. Was he capable of disrespecting their innocence, just as his own was once ruined? But if the charges weren't true, then one had to ask what measure of satisfaction could be won in his ruin?

The 2005 trial was the spectacle everybody expected it to be – a drama about justice and celebrity, sex and outrage, morality and race. Even though it dragged on, it was clear the prosecution didn't have a case so much as it had umbrage. The trial was a farce – it's dismaying the case ever made it to trial – and Jackson was acquitted on all charges. But the damage done seemed, in many ways, final. Jackson walked out of the courtroom that day a shaken, listless man. His finances were also coming undone; he had been spending ludicrous sums and he'd mismanaged his money – which took some doing, since he had made such a vast fortune.

The biggest star in the world had fallen from the tallest height. He left the country and moved to Bahrain; he was only occasionally seen or heard from. Nobody knew whether he could recover his name, or even preserve his considerable music legacy, until early 2009, when he announced an incredibly ambitious series of 50 concerts – which he described as the "final curtain call" – to take place at London's O2 arena, beginning July 13th.

On June 24, 2009, as Rolling Stone reported, "Jackson ran through a six-hour dress rehearsal of his concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. More than a dozen people who witnessed the final rehearsal - from his promoter to his choreographer to his musicians - all agree on one thing: Jackson was better than he'd ever been. He popped, just like he had in his glory days, singing and out-dancing the young pros that surrounded him. 'He was so brilliant onstage,' recalls his tour director, Kenny Ortega. 'I had goose bumps.'"

The next day he was dead. Reports in the aftermath of Jackson's death revealed a disturbing dependence on Ambien and other prescription drugs. Jackson's autopsy report ruled his death a homicide, stating that Dr. Conrad Murray – Jackson's live-in physician - wrongfully administered the sedative propofol to his patient. On February 8, 2010, Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Jackson's 2002 will stated that his estate would give 40 percent to both his mother Katherine and Michael's children; the remaining 20 percent would go to charity. As of February, 2010, Jackson's estate had earned 100 million since his death, though claims on the estate exceeded $22 million. Joe Jackson was not named as a benefactor in the will. This Is It, the documentary that covers the rehearsals for the O2 shows, grossed more than $250 million worldwide, and with vaults of unreleased music due out in the future, the Jackson estate will likely surpass Elvis Presley's in terms of earnings.

In the days that followed his death, Jackson was everywhere. Makeshift memorials sprung up around his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and outside Harlem's Apollo Theater. His music blared from radios all across the world and his CDs flew off the shelves. 1.6 million people registered for a chance to win tickets to Jackson's public memorial at the Staples Center. At the memorial, Magic Johnson, Brooke Shields, and other celebrities paid tribute, and Stevie Wonder sang Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer. The most moving moment came from Jackson's eleven-year-old daughter Paris, who made her first ever public statement: "Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine," she said. "And I just wanted to say I love him - so much." Here's Stevie Wonder:

Also from the memorial, here's Usher with Gone Too Soon:

... here's Mariah Carey performing I'll Be There:

The memorial closed with a performance of We Are The World and Heal The World.

In the wake of his death, everyone in the world seemed to talk of his or her favorite Jackson song, or favorite Jackson dance move or favorite Jackson video. I'll never forget that night back in early 1983, when onstage in Pasadena, California, at the Motown 25th anniversary show, Michael Jackson gave his first public performance as a mature artist staking his own claim, vaulting into that astonishingly graceful, electrifying version of Billie Jean. Dancing, spinning, sending out impassioned, fierce glares at the overcome audience, Jackson did a powerful job of animating and mythologizing his own blend of mystery and sexuality. I'd never seen anything quite like it before. Maybe I never will again. Michael Jackson didn't just grab the gold ring: He hooked it to a new bar and set it even higher, and nobody has yet snatched it with quite the same flair or results.