Michael Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor. Called the King of Pop, his contributions to music and dance, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.
His career started when he was a part of his brother's group, 'Jackson 5'. They had a number of hits including 'Rockin Robin', 'ABC' and 'I want you back'.
Their videos were very basic as they were just promoting the song. There was limited sophistication but very good lip syncing.
As Michael got older, he started to have his own singing career as a solo artist. His first big hit was 'Rock with you', which came out in 1979. It's a very simple video which included a lot of lighting to make silhouettes. His costume is very interesting because of how glittery it was.
In 1982, 'Billy Jean' was released. This was a very interesting video that told a story and Michael does more than just lip synching as he includes his own dance moves throughout the video.
In 1983, Michael's music video for 'Thriller' was considered the most famous music video of all time. It included elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue. The video was more like a miniature film than just a music video. The long version of "Thriller" runs nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up over 100 million views when it showed up on YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran a little under five minutes but still contained about a minute of non-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie the couple is watching at the beginning.
The video cost about $500,000 to make. Jackson's record company had no intention of paying for it, since the album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of its songs. According to John Landis (Director), Jackson really wanted to turn into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project because he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved.
The video won for Best Performance Video, Best Choreography, and Viewers Choice at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984.
Most homes had Video Cassette Recorders in 1983 and sales of videos were big business.
You could buy a VHS or beta copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which included the full video and also "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller," a behind the scenes documentary.
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