Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was unquestionably the biggest pop star of the '80s, and certainly one of the most popular recording artists of all time. In his prime, Michael Jackson was an unstoppable juggernaut, possessed of all the tools to dominate the charts seemingly at will: an instantly identifiable voice, eye-popping dance moves, stunning musical versatility, and loads of sheer star power. His 1982 blockbuster Michael Jackson Thriller became the biggest-selling album of all time (probably his best-known accomplishment), and he was the first black artist Michael Jackson to find stardom on MTV, breaking down innumerable boundaries both for his race and for music video as an art form. Yet as Jackson's career began, very gradually, to descend from the dizzying heights of his peak years, most of the media's attention Michael Jackson focused on his increasingly bizarre eccentricities; Michael Jackson was often depicted as a man-child in a state of arrested development, completely sheltered from adult reality by a life spent in show business. The snickering turned to scandal in 1993, when Michael Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy; although he categorically denied the charges, his out-of-court settlement failed to restore his tarnished image.Michael Jackson