Cultural impact of Michael Jackson

Clockwise from top: Michael Jackson live in Bucharest (1992), German Michael Jackson impersonator Andre Santisi performing "Billie Jean", Thriller jacket, Michael Jackson monument in the Netherlands, Asian fans in Thailand dancing to "Beat It", Thrill the World event in Texas, Jackson's Romanian postal stamps, Jackson with former President Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy (1984).

American singer Michael Jackson (1958–2009) is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century,^[1][2] and the most influential entertainer of all time by magazines.^[3][4][5] Referred to as the "King of Pop",^[6] he became the best-selling solo music act of all time, breaking racial barriers and developing the landscape of pop music. His achievements in the 1980s helped desegregation of popular music in the United States and introduced an era of multiculturalism globally. Through his dance, fashion and redefinition of music videos, he proliferated visual performance for musical artists. Credited for influencing hundreds of musicians, his songs are among the most covered and sampled in music history.^[7][8]

His influence extended to inspiring a vast array of trends and raising awareness for social causes around the world. Up until his passing, Jackson was received by over 30 different world leaders.^[9][10] Jackson's global brand resulted in the rise of celebrity products and commemorations such as dolls, video games, merchandise, museum exhibitions, television documentaries and erected monuments of Jackson.

Popularity of Michael Jackson began as a child star in the 1960s, his introduction as the lead singer of the Jackson 5, a band formed with his older brothers.^[11] The group was recognized by U.S. Congress for their contribution to American youth culture, and Jackson was embraced by the American public to a degree not afforded a child star since the height of Shirley Temple in the 1930s.^[12] In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular culture and the first African-American entertainer to have a strong crossover fan base on music television.^[13][14] As he became a rising solo star, his music videos, including those for "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller" from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking several racial barriers both in the United States and worldwide, while his videos transformed the medium into an art form and promotional tool.^[15] The popularity of these videos helped bring the television channel MTV to fame.^[16] Prior to Thriller, timely layoffs were occuring for radio and music record companies, who both suffered during a four year unemployment high between 1978 and 1982 due to the early 1980s recession.^[17] Jackson's world record sales and achievements at this time is credited with helping rescuing the music industry from further debt, and revolutionizing it by initiating marketing plans on blockbuster albums with an emphasis on video presentation focus going forward.^[18]

Further development through his videos and live performances, Jackson popularized street dances, particularly his signature move the moonwalk, patented the anti-gravity lean and attracted a cult of impersonators throughout the world. He is credited with helping to spread dance to a global audience and having an authority comparable to dance icons such as to Fred Astaire and Sammy Davis Jr. With an aesthetic borrowed from the musical film tradition, the Thriller videos created a sub-industry of choreographers as other pop artists deliberately sought to produce sophisticated dance-oriented promotional films and concerts for music on an unprecedented scale. In the later half of the 1980s, Jackson's personal idiosyncrasies and changing appearance became the source of fascination for the tabloid media, a phenomenon furthered by the child abuse accusations leveled against him in 1993. These eccentricities and controversies created major debate, both from comedic and critical perspectives alike. As his last two albums before his passing focused more on social commentary, he matchingly pioneered charitable causes as a philanthropist, putting his wealth into several hospitals and nonprofits in various countries.

Jackson influenced a wide range of subjects, from celebrity studies, music and dance production to visual culture to gender and sexuality studies, and many more including ones not directly related to his profession.^[19][20] Various life events inspired further discussion while many cultural films, televisions, books reference or depict Jackson on a global scale to present day. According to a study published in The Journal of Pan African Studies in 2010, his influence extended to academia, with references to the singer in literature concerning mass communications, psychology, medicine, engineering and chemistry.^[21][22][23] He inspired a wealth of products exploring his public image, some of which have been displayed, examined or auctioned; an example being reinterpretation by leading artists in the 2018 exhibition Michael Jackson: On the Wall at London's National Portrait Gallery. The British Council named Jackson on their list of "80 Moments that Shaped the World" with regard to international cultural relations.^[24] Since Jackson's death there have been many tribute shows performed by fans in concert, Cirque De Solei or Broadway theater which garnered millions of tickets worldwide.