Michael Joseph Jackson's Contribution To Music And Music

"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.)

The public views musicians are some of the most influential people they know, which is why many of them try to maintain this positive image for their audience. The inspiration for many hip hop artist today, Tupac Shakur is a prime example of one who was able to pull himself out of a dark place. Throughout his life, Tupac has faced many obstacles, the largest being his family. Associating with the Black Panther several members Shakur’s family has dealt with the law. His godparents killing a state trooper and teacher and stepfather wanted on the FBI’s Most Wanted. Although not entirely similar, Michael Jackson also had vast amounts of obstacles in his life. From a young age, Jackson had utilized his talents with his brothers to from the band the Jackson 5. Allegedly, he would often be overworked by his father to push for more popularity for the boys. This lack of a childhood contributed to him putting sums of money in his theme park and even being accused of being a pedophile for the degree in which he was around children. Regardless, both had one thing in common. They fought. Unlike the people stated before, these people decided that they did not want to become their obstacles. They did not want to become the people who were a bad influence on them. As a result, they decided to do everything they could.

Music is a creative art form that allows the artist to construct something that expresses a purpose. It evolves over time and changes as the world changes, taking on many different motivations behind the melody and lyrics. In today’s society, anger, oppression, racism, and negative opinions rule the media and popular culture. I believe that African Americans need to show their self worth and not let white people hold them back. With the music in white culture often mocking African American culture and portraying negative stereotypes, African Americans have to find ways to gain respect. In acknowledgement of the negative portrayal of their culture, African Americans respond by creating songs and videos that express their pride in their culture and heritage, react to white oppression, and communicate their independence.

Millions of people in the world listen to music for all different reasons. Most people all over the world listen to different genres of music in order to relax, but not too many people pay attention to the actual lyrics of a song. If you listen to the lyrics of a song you will realize that many songs have important messages or themes to them. An example of this is the lyrics of the song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur. If you listen to this song, you will realize that Tupac raps about not only the problems that African Americans face from society, but also the struggles that poor people in society have to endure and overcome. Many

Michael Jackson was known around the world as the “King of Pop.” He was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, which molded him into a shy and quiet person. Something he was opposite of on stage. It is well documented that his father became violent with him and his brothers in order to push them to become successful. Thus, missing out on his childhood. During his early life, Michael had an accident that resulted in burns on his head and face. After this incident he had plastic surgery, changing the shape of his nose. Although he was born an African American, it became apparent that he started to appear lighter and lighter, bleaching his skin and ultimately appearing white. He created his own amusement park called Neverland, where there were exotic

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

He was about to enter the long duration of his “Wacko Jacko” phase in which he would spend most of his time in the company of children at his multi-million dollar Neverland mansion. Michael would lose himself in his own created fantasy world. When he did reappear in the public eye it was to promote one of his records or to film a television commercial for Pepsi Cola. His image would slowly change from the young heartthrob Jackson we came to know and love to the mysterious secluded world- renowned superstar that we often questioned. Not only did his public perception and image change but with all of that his appearance took a drastic change again. His nose was thinner than before, his eyelids were tattooed and the most dramatic change was his skin color (Johnson, 45). Michael has always insisted that the changes in his skin color are the result of a rare dermatological disease and not that of a cosmetic surgery. That could be true, but what cannot be denied is that long ago, his face became his own canvas on which to create an idealized self-image. He was creating an image of self-perfection (Saunders, 4). In time he began to look like no one else in the world. African American’s argued that as his fame grew he became more detached from his African American roots and adopted the image and appearance of the white male. This could be blamed on the media and the perception that an African American male could not achieve the level of

In his song entitled “They Don’t Care About Us,” Michael Jackson discusses social issues such as police brutality and fixed racial solidarity. The song was released in the year 1995, two years after the accusations of his child abuse. Because of this ongoing scandal as well as the controversy from his song, “Black or White,” Michael Jackson managed to exceeded controversy records. However due to the lyrics and content in the videos, this caused the videos to be temporarily banned and unable to air in both America and in other countries.

For many decades popular cultural icons, Michael Jackson and Prince dominated the music scene. Over the years there are always countless discussions about both of their careers. Although Michael and Prince bear some superficial similarities with their musical influences on the world, the differences between their careers and upbringings are clear.

“Oh, that was just the greatest entertainer of all time!” A very intelligent girl exclaimed. Michael Jackson is certainly the greatest entertainer that has ever lived. To begin, an article stated this, “The King of Pop's hits included Beat It, Billie Jean and Thriller and his 1982 album was the best-selling album of all time, with more than 26 million copies sold” (“Michael Jackson”). Since his album is the best selling album ever and that he has millions of fans that proves he actually is the greatest entertainer ever. Secondly, Jackson is referred as The King of Pop because Michael is a very skilled dancer, singer, and songwriter (Hill 249). This shows that he was very

“I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there 's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that 's really important to us, and music is all we 've really got” – Missy Elliot. Hip-Hop is a cultural movement and popular genre of music that emerged during the early 1970 's by working class Black youths in New York City. The cultural movement has rapidly expanded across different countries and ethnicities over the years, becoming one of the few markers that define a generation. Hip-Hop can be seen as “the fundamental matrix of self-expression for this whole generation” (Katz & Smith, 1993). Through music, itself, artists can express their feelings towards different events or social changes that they’ve see or have experienced in their lives. According to Frith (1986), this perspective towards writing music is similar to Mooney’s argument that popular song lyrics is a reflection of what’s missing or needed at their time, giving us a trace of America’s ‘mood’ throughout history. In return, music artists captivate the minds of people among various backgrounds who use these relatable music lyrics as a source of empowerment or as an expression of their own thoughts. While some music artists create music to uplift their audience by giving them a sense of freedom, other artists create music that separates their audience by dehumanizing one group and giving power to the other.

Michael Jackson, a man that changed the music world forever. Jackson made his professional singing debut in 1964 with his siblings in a band called the Jackson 5. Jackson made it big with Jackson 5 having many singles reach the top 100 in the United States. But, when Jackson decided to start his own solo career in 1971 we were seeing a side of Michael Jackson that we have never seen before. Most importantly Jackson 1982, mulit-platinum selling album Thriller. Michael Jackson broke music barriers and made a change for racial equality in the music industry.

The reason i chose to do Michael Jackson is because he was one my of my favorite also he changed the world from the way he sung to the way he dressed..

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.

Music is an important part of life. Its role as a form of art and entertainment is a significant one but more important is that it serves to reflect and reinforce societal norms and values. It is not only used to entertain but also serves as a form of social commentary (Baran, 2009). For instance, the emergence of Rhythm and Blues (R&B) in America after the Second World War was a means of advancing the black race and it helped blur the line between white and black as more young white people became aware of the distinctions that existed in the society. The Hip-hop and rap of the 1980s and 1990s had almost the same effect, awakening in Black Americans a sense of