MJINNOCENCE BRACELETS

Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, USA. The day was Friday, August 29th 1958. From a very early age, it seems all he's ever done is break records in the music industry.

  In 1965 Michael and four of his brothers formed their first band, the Jackson Five. Three years later, 1968, they had their first record deal with the label "Steeltown". The brothers only recorded one, not very successful, album for the firm. Most radio stations refused to play any of their songs. In 1969 they signed with Motown Records in a move that would be the first step to catapulting Michael and the Jackson brothers to mega-stardom. A frenzy of recording, touring, recording, touring and then some more recording began. The Jackson brothers gained success and international recognition in exchange for their childhood. They broke record after record, and with Michael's even then powerful and very emotional vocals there seemed to be no end to their success.

  Through the years however, the family band felt more and more restricted by their contract with Motown. They wanted to write and produce their own music, which their contract did not allow them to do. The Jackson Five released 14 albums at Motown and it was time for a change. In 1972 Michael started recording and releasing solo material for Motown with considerable success. Probably the biggest hit was the ballad "Ben" - a soundtrack for a 1973 movie. In 1976 they left Motown, signed with Epic Records and changed their name to The Jacksons. Jermaine Jackson who was married to the daughter of Motown boss Berry Gordy, decided to leave the band and stay with Motown. Still working with The Jacksons, Michael also continued to work on his own material. A key meeting happened during the filming of the musical movie "The Wiz" in which Michael played the scarecrow. The famous producer Quincy Jones, who was producing the film, agreed to make an album with Michael. They put their heads together and Michael brought in some demos as Quincy brought in some great songwriters.

  The result? The 1979 album "Off The Wall". One of the most surprising albums and a huge step for Michael Jackson as a recording artist, who with this album made it clear that he's not just the front man for The Jacksons. He is an artist in his own right and he's different! It is no wonder that so many people see Off The Wall as Michael's first true solo album. Michael wrote 3 of the 10 songs by himself. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Working Day & Night and Get On The Floor. Listening to the home demos that Michael recorded with his brother Randy and his sister Janet, at his home shows, you see that those who say Quincy Jones "made" Michael Jackson couldn't be more wrong. In the demos that you hear in the Special Edition of Off The Wall and Thriller you can see clearly that the basic song was finished before it even reached Quincy's ears. What happened then was a polishing and perfecting of the basic idea. And that is something that Quincy Jones knew how to do like no other. Surprisingly the album was virtually ignored when it came to awards, but its sales speak for themselves. Off The Wall sold around 20 million copies world-wide. Among other high-lights, there's a duet with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney called "Girlfriend." Michael broke the record for most hit singles off of one album and the world was eager to see what would happen next. Could Michael Jackson continue on the road too success? Could he top Off The Wall? He could! Late 1982 saw the release of a new Michael Jackson album called "Thriller".

  Another collaboration with Quincy Jones producing with Michael Jackson Thriller was like an atomic explosion. It sold fast and more than any other album not only too date, but it remains the all time best selling album. By Christmas of 1982, the 10 million mark was breached. The track list of Thriller reads like a who is who of the chart toppers in the early eighties. Again Michael broke the record for most hit singles off of one album. The top singles were Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', The Girl Is Mine (duet with Paul McCartney), Beat It, Thriller, Billie Jean, Pyt and Human nature. Seven of the nine tracks on the album were released as singles and all were very big hits. In an ironic opposite of the Off The Wall era, Michael receives a huge amount of recognition for the album including a record breaking 8 Grammies, plus one for the E.T. Story Book and many, many other awards. March 5, 1983 sees the release of Billie Jean, probably the best known Michael Jackson song ever. The second single off the Thriller album, it tops the charts for seven weeks. March 25, 1983 is a date that became one of the most important in Michael Jackson's career. On this day, Michael, after reluctantly agreeing to do the show, performed at Motown 25 Yesterday, Today, Forever. To any Michael Jackson fan this is one of the most important shows ever. Not only because it features a great performance of The Jacksons, but because on that day, for the first time ever, Michael Jackson did the moonwalk. At "Motown 25" Michael Jackson became a living legend. Nobody had ever seen anything like it on TV before. This gravity-defying dance move mystified everyone who saw it. Then the now famous Michael Jackson spin and the standing on his toes it all came together into something that nobody could explain or give justice. The greatest performers from Sammy Davis Jr to Fred Astair all agreed: This Michael Jackson would continue what they once started and make it bigger and bigger. The magic, the wonder, the entertainment. Michael seemed to be able to do no wrong. And all the while the Thriller album sold on and on and on.

  Because of the success of the Thriller album, Michael found himself in a whole new position in many ways. For example, the then little known music channel MTV refused to play any videos featuring black artists. After some pushing and shoving, on March 31 1983 MTV premiered the "Beat It" video. With all the elaborate choreography and even a story rather than just chaotic random shots of the artist, as was common in music videos at the time, Beat It became a preview to what would enter the history books as THE music video. Thriller. Written by British Rod Temperton, the album title track needed something special as a video, Michael thought. He called legendary director John Landis (Blues Brothers, American Werewolf In Paris, etc.) and together they made a 14 minute short horror film around the song Thriller. The movie was partially financed by Michael himself because nobody had ever made such an elaborate and long video before and CBS (later to become Sony Music), the record label that Michael was with, refused to finance the whole project. "Making Michael Jackson's Thriller" was then released on VHS and became the best selling music video of all time. What follows is what is often referred to as Michael's golden times. He rose higher and higher far above the road to success. Sales of the Thriller album to date are said to be around 60 million. It is still by far the best selling album of all time.

Michael went on to do one last tour ("Victory Tour") with his brothers in 1984 before The Jacksons officially split as a band. Michael donated all of the money he earned on that tour to charity as one of many charitable events and other such efforts that Michael has continued to this day. It is no secret that throughout his career, Michael Jackson has always been at the forefront of charitable activities. Some highlights of his charity work can be found at his official web site MJJSource.com.

  In 1985 when Britain's best known stars rallied around Bob Geldof in aid of the Ethiopian starvation crisis to create "Band Aid" and eventually "Live Aid" the USA did not stand by and watch. Michael Jackson wrote a song with the legendary song writer and performer Lionel Richie called "We Are The World". A who-is-who of American recording artists gathered round Jackson and recorded this anthem that, to this day stands as a symbol for charity and giving all around the world. The single We Are The World became one of the fastest selling singles of all time and huge amounts of money were donated under the project "USA for Africa".

  After receiving a star on the Hollywood walk of fame Michael Jackson retreated to the studio to produce another album. This time the pressure was immense. Thriller was already a legend, how could he possibly live up to that? Be that as it may, in 1987 Michael Jackson delivered. The album: Bad. The sales: Good? Better than good! To this day it has sold 30 million copies, making it Michael's second entry in the top five list of the best selling albums of all time with Thriller still standing firm as the number one. The track listing of Bad reads like a hit list of the charts in 1987, 1988 and 1989.

  Bad, The Way You Make Me Feel, Liberian Girl, Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana, Leave Me Alone rolled off the shelf as Michael continued to set trend after trend such as Leave Me Alone which was only included on the CD version of the album, not the MC or LP to help boost the use of the, then, new media that was the compact disk. Great videos, nothing new there. The biggest and most ever number one hits on one album, Michael was getting used to breaking records. And just like that he also went on to do a two-year world tour that broke record after record. It is, to this day, regarded by many fans as Michael's best tour with his performance level at it's peak. Nobody had ever seen a mammoth tour like that before. A bigger stage than anyone else, more concert goers than anyone else, best equipment, more personnel, Michael Jackson seemed unstoppable. But even as he triumphed on his world tour, the papers at home and abroad began an assault on Michael that would last for years. Speculation about his nose, his skin, his sexuality and slowly but surely a trend developed. The media concentrated less and less on Michael's musical contributions in favor of the much more profitable stature of portraying him as a weirdo with strange habits and ideas. In a reaction to that Michael seemed to become more and more of a recluse. No matter what he said in public it was turned and mixed around to mean something else. So he stopped talking and let the music do the talking for him.

  "Dangerous". The first single, Black or White, with one of the most elaborate and expensive videos ever, started what would be the world's biggest promotion campaign for one of the most underrated albums of the nineties. Michael said about Dangerous that he wanted to create something like Beethoven did so that people would still listen to it in a thousand years. The depth of artistry, production and outstanding song-writing skills on Dangerous are something to behold and of course, it had the usual amount of number one hits and fantastic videos. While the press continued their assault on Michael Jackson they remained unaware of a fantastic musical contribution that would influence the world of popular music for years to come as Dangerous sales rise over 30 million copies. Again records were broken as another world tour followed but this time something was different. In 1993 a scandal unraveled that would throw the world of Michael Jackson into turmoil. The family of a boy who spent a lot of time in Neverland, Michael's 2000 acre ranch, first blackmailed Michael and then tried to pursue a civil case against him. No evidence was found, no charges brought and no arrests made. The case was terminated when the family accepted a pay-off through one of Michael's insurance policies with the thought that this bought peace. Everyone asked "If he's innocent, why did he pay?" yet nobody seemed to wonder "If he did that to the boy, why did the family take the money?" Once the scandal started to die down with some media outlets starting their own investigations with amazing results such as the GQ article "Was Michael Jackson Framed?", Michael started to move on. Michael married Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie and released his next album on a double CD set "HIStory, Past, Present & Future - Book 1". It featured some ground breaking music and the released hit singles once again broke records and boundaries. Disk one of the set was a collection of some of Jackson's best known hits and disk two was 14 new songs plus "Come Together", the cover version of a Beatles song that he originally recorded for the Moonwalker movie which Jackson released in 1989.

  Funny enough, "Scream" the first single off the HIStory album entered the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 5. Something that previously only one other act had managed to do. The Beatles. The next single, You Are Not Alone did one better. It entered the Hot 100 at number one. Another single, another hit, another record. Neither scandal nor controversy could over-shadow the music. HIStory sold roughly 18 million copies. That's 36 million disks. What followed was one more ground-breaking world tour. Michael again broke records, brought in new material and songs from the new album and proved more versatile, entertaining and interesting than ever before. He proved that at the age of almost 40 he could still "cut it". He was still the man, the King of Pop!

  During the tour which took place between 1996 and 1998 Michael Jackson released a long awaited mini-movie called "Ghosts". A horror story with fantastic music and choreography. The usual, sensational Michael Jackson. When you think you've seen it all, he just does something that blows your mind again - that's how a close friend described him. He also released a remix album: "Blood On The Dance Floor - HIStory In The Mix". It featured 5 new songs, two of which featured in Ghosts and 8 remixes of songs from the HIStory album. It became one of the biggest selling remix albums ever with world wide sales reaching beyond 6 million. And then the sound of silence. Even the fans scrambled to find out what was going on. The Internet revolutionized the world and the recording artists ability to interact with their fans and yet, Michael Jackson's official site had not been updated for years.

  What the world didn't know was that there was a battle going on between Michael and the boss of the record company that Michael had signed with. The company? Sony Music. The boss? Tommy Mottola. Things were said and egos flew. In the end Michael stayed and Motolla was let go. During the ongoing battle Michael produced an album of new music and in the midst of tapes being stolen from the recording studio and leaked to radio stations, and the whole album being put on Sony's official web site to "listen to", there was no promotion. Things looked bad for the 2001 release called "Invincible". Michael starred in only one rushed video for the single "You Rock My World" with another video, "Cry" being made without Michael in it. In spite of all the tactics to stop Michael from being successful, Invincible sold around 10 million copies world wide. And then, when everyone thought that things were starting to pick up again, with Tommy Mottola gone and a new greatest hits album on the way - the bomb. In the week that saw the release of "Number Ones", Michael's greatest hits CD, in November 2003, Michael's home was searched and he was arrested and set free on bail. It was 1993 all over again. Only this time Michael is fighting and the court eventually declared what his fans knew all along. Michael was and is innocent. Even in the midst of these troubling times Number Ones has managed to sell around 7 million copies worldwide and Michael released a 5 disc boxed set - especially for his fans. The Box set, called "The Ultimate Collection" featuring his greatest hits (both solo and with his brothers) as well as previously unreleased songs and new material like the fantastic anti-war and anti-suffering anthem "We've Had Enough". It's proof that no matter what happens next, Michael Jackson is a force to be reckoned with, King, now and forever.

SOURCE: MJJdiscussion.com