Janet Jackson Research Paper

Not everyone is blessed with musical talent but when someone has an extraordinary ability, he or she should get the chance to please others with it. Sometimes a career can be made out of musical endowment, and that is what Billie Holiday did. Billie had a life that she may not have dreamed of since it started out rough with her mistreatment from adults and discouraging misfortunes, but she was ambitious and that showed through her singing career. Billie could usually adapt to her life’s problems except for her drug addiction and alcohol abuse, which unfortunately led to her demise. She was a talented woman who sang and helped create hit songs that aided her to rise to fame. Billie Holiday bravely stood up to racism, showed the world her talent, and inspired many of her beloved fans, all while continuing to be herself and not allowing the issues in her life hold her back.

"This was a record that had something for everybody by adding harder funk, hard rock, softer ballads, and smoother soul-expanding the approach to have something for every audience. That alone would have given the album a good shot at a huge audience, but it also arrived precisely when MTV was reaching its ascendancy, and Michael Jackson helped the network by being not just its first superstar, but first black star”. (https://www.udiscovermusic.com/artists/michael-jackson/, n.d.)

However, it can also be seen as his environment and experiences of why Michael Jackson was so into becoming a music legend. Michael Jackson used his music as a therapeutic way of transcending his personal struggles. He believed that music is a 'mantra to the soul' which shows that he used his music as a way of moving on from any experiences that he had suffered from. His surroundings in the music industry helped him to do this successfully, his determination to move on from his experiences lead him to one of the most successful music careers in the industry. Being nurtured through his experiences helped him become a music legend.

Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston were two of the biggest music acts in the world, selling hundreds upon thousands of records between them. Both acts rose to fame at an early age eventually earning the titles ‘The King of Pop’ (The Guardian, 2009) and ‘The Voice’ (IMDB, 2012) as well as earning plentiful awards in their careers; It is claimed that Whitney Houston is the most awarded female artist of all time. As well as preforming at some of the biggest and most prestigious venues around the world we can only dream about visiting and gaining world-wide fame they ended up meeting an untimely death due to addiction.

Michael Jackson was not only an artists but a human being who had his struggles. One of them was the insecurity about his appearance which he had tried to correct and then perfect for most of his life. Another was his insistence on preserving his childhood dreams which resulted in the creation of the Neverland Ranch complete with an amusement park and a zoo. Michael was also known for understanding and loving children and on several occasions was accused of child molestation. The shadow of these accusations did

Joe Jackson was known for being too violent to his children. He was known for hitting the kids regularly for disobeying(Pratt, 18). Growing up Michael and his siblings weren’t allowed to play with kids in the neighborhood and they were very afraid of him(Pratt, 18). His father whooped his son for popping a string on his guitar and that was the night they became a musical group. When they started to have stardom every decision was made through their father. “When you’re a show business child, you really don’t have the maturity to understand a great deal of what is going on around you. People make a lot of decisions concerning your life when you’re out of the room. So here’s what I remember. I remember singing at the top of my voice and dancing with real joy and working too hard for a child. Of course, there are many details, I don’t remember at all. I do remember the Jackson 5 taking off when I was eight or nine,” Michael Jackson. (Pratt 16). The difficult part was they/he didn’t get a break from work. They worked on singing and performing everyday for hours. The pressure of being the best got to them all and made them go different

Some of the biggest things that caught people's eyes were Jackson’s music videos and dancing. His music clearly started to take a huge impact on pop music. As a result, Jackson was in the top 10 for over a year and he created the 2nd best selling album of all time (Woog). Michael started to become known as the “King of Pop” around the world, and he still is considered that today. Michael had been a part of setting high standards for today's pop music. “During the 1980’s, artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna set the bar for the level of performance” (Marcovitz). Even after his death, people still loved and appreciated all of his work. In fact, his music video “Thriller” was inducted into the “National Film Registry of the Liberty of Congress” (Vincent). Michael Jackson is still considered a legend and an icon in the pop music industry and his work will never be

Whitney Houston was born to a family that were singers. She was the youngest of three children and was related or friends with lots of talented singers, Aretha Franklin was her grandmother. She began singing in a choir at church and soon went on to become a background singer. When she was 18 she had her first record deal. With her second album she had to first album by a women to enter the number 1 charts.

In 1947, MJ began recording for Apollo Records. It was on September 12th of that year that MJ would record the song that made her a star. MJ’s recording of “Move On Up a Little Higher” would go on to sell millions of copies and become one of the best selling gospel songs of all time. MJ’s popularity skyrocketed rapidly throughout the Western world. By the time she signed with Columbia Records in 1954, Jackson was known as the world’s greatest gospel singer. She was a fixture on radio and television shows and made cameo appearances in a number of movies.

Let's commence with the boy bands. The Jackson 5 were the first and the best, with lil' kid Michael applying his saccharine, soulful, powerhouse vocals to such indisputable hits as "I Optate You Back," "ABC," "The Dote You Preserve" and "I'll Be There."

Being the youngest child of the Jackson Family, she has also had work as an actress. Both of these career paths come together for her spectacular concert shows.

Jackson make a powerful statement with his lyrics, he also made one with his choice of rhythm

Michael Jackson’s music will live forever, even before he died, there were tons of singers trying to imitate his unique style of singing and dancing. Unquestionably, when Michael was up on stage people would feel the electricity in his music as he electrified the audience. Not to mention, his videos such as Billie Jean, Black or White, Remember the Time were all amazing works of art that will reach generations to come to enjoy. The smooth and continuous mix of song and dance that was different from Broadway, it was on television but passionately different from something anyone had ever seen on a tube.

Michael Jackson's tour bus rolled up the gates at the service entrance at Madison Square Garden; it seemed as if thousands of fans were waiting in the streets and sidewalks just to get a moments glance at him, but I was one of the lucky one's who had a ticket to the show. As the gates began to open, Michael Jackson got on top of an SUV and waved to the crowd for less than five seconds, and the gates closed and he had vanished. People were literally crying in the street next to me just to because they felt that they were in the presence of a living legend.

As an adolescent Michael Jackson made appeared in a movie “The Whiz” and released his first solo album “Off The Wall”. His album swept the country topping the charts. He toured the country, show after show, promoting for his album. In addition to his album, at this age he wrote songs with legends like Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones. In Erik Erikson’s theory Jackson was in the Identity vs. Role Diffusion stage. Jackson was supposed to discovering himself and his interest. While touring the country and constantly performing how could Jackson identify interests? Erikson points out failure of this stage could result in being influenced by circumstances rather than from awareness. The failure of this stage appears later in Jackson’s life when he relies on others to help him make important life decisions.