Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was for a significant time the biggest superstar in music; though his career was later plagued by controversy he effectively owned the '80s and delivered mainstream R&B at its greatest. Born in Gary Indiana with a controlling stage father, Michael began performing at age six with his brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Tito. By 1966 the group was known as the Jackson Five and was touring the country, covering Motown hits and winning an Apollo Theater talent show.

With help from Diana Ross they signed to Motown in 1969 and were an instant sensation, thanks largely to the 12-year-old Michael's voice and charisma. The first four singles ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save" and their first ballad, "I'll Be There") all went Number One and are considered Motown classics. Within a year Michael also had his first solo hits, "Got to Be There" and "Ben"-- the latter an odd movie theme about a young boy's friendship with a rat. The hits kept coming, both group and solo, as Michael's voice changed and the group moved into the disco era with "Dancing Machine" and "Shake Your Body."

His only flop of this era was a film version of the musical "The Wiz" (1978), costarring Diana Ross and unveiled with great hoopla by Motown. More significantly Jackson began working with star producer Quincy Jones; their first collaboration with 1979's Off the Wall was a smash and sold 20 million copies. But this was bettered by its followup, 1982's Thriller-- not just the peak of Jackson's career but the best-selling album ever made, with all but two of the nine tracks becoming Top 10 singles.

It pioneered rock/R&B crossover on "Beat It" (featuring Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo) and its video clips, including a mock-horror fantasy with Vincent Price on the title track, also made Jackson an early MTV star. His triumph was capped when Jackson stole the show at Motown's 25th anniversary TV special in 1983, doing his now-trademark "moonwalk" dance during "Billie Jean"-- a moment that also made him a sex symbol, however briefly. Jackson ruled pop for the next few years, in 1984 he joined the Jacksons for the large-scale Victory tour (which featured mainly solo material) and in 1985 he cowrote and was featured on the allstar USA for Africa single "We Are the World."

He was now dubbing himself "King of Pop" and press and TV addressed him accordingly.  However there were cracks in Jackson's public image as he began changing his appearance, whitening his skin (to combat the disease vitiligo, he claimed) and undergoing many plastic surgeries. In 1993 he was accused for the first time of instigating sexual relations with the children who were his companions at his Neverland Ranch; such claims would dog him for the rest of his life (and were addressed in a set of angry songs on his 1995 album HIStory, one of which included an apparent anti-Semitic slur addressed at a lawyer).

His 2001 album Invincible still sold millions, though his reputation was damaged and he was reportedly addicted to painkillers. The world was shocked when Jackson died of an apparent overdose in June 2009, he had been rehearsing for a stadium comeback tour.