American singer Michael Jackson (1958–2009) debuted on the professional music scene at age five as a member of the American family music group The Jackson 5 and began a solo career in 1971 while still part of the group.[1] Jackson promoted seven of his solo albums with music videos or, as he would refer to them, "short films". Some of them drew criticism for their violent and sexual elements while others were lauded by critics and awarded Guinness World Records for their length, success, and cost.[2][3]
In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular culture and the first African-American entertainer to have a strong crossover fanbase on MTV.[4] The popularity of his music videos that aired on MTV such as "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller"—credited for transforming the music video from a promotional tool into an art form—helped bring fame to the relatively new channel. The success of these music videos helped shift MTV's focus from its original "rock 'n' roll only" format to pop and R&B and saved the channel from financial ruin.[4][5]
Michael Jackson's "Thriller" short film marked a growth in scale for music videos and has been named the most successful music video ever by the Guinness World Records.[6]
The 18-minute music video for "Bad", directed by Martin Scorsese, depicts Jackson and Wesley Snipes as members of an inner-city gang. Jackson paid cinematic tribute to West Side Story with the choreography.[7] For the "Smooth Criminal" video, Jackson experimented with an anti-gravity lean, in which the performer leans forward at a 45-degree angle, beyond their center of gravity.[8] Although the music video for "Leave Me Alone" was not officially released in the United States, it won a Golden Lion Award in 1989 for the quality of the special effects used in its production and a Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Short Form in 1990.[9] Jackson received the MTV Video Vanguard Award in 1988, which was renamed the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in his honor in 1991. He won the MTV Video Vanguard Artist of the Decade Award in 1990.[10]
"Black or White" was released on November 14, 1991.[11] It featured Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper, George Wendt and Jackson. The video helped introduce morphing, seamlessly changing one image into another, as an important technology in music videos.[12][13] "Remember the Time" was an elaborate production, with a complex dance routine, set in ancient Egypt featuring appearances by Eddie Murphy, Iman and Magic Johnson.[14] The video for "In the Closet" featured supermodel Naomi Campbell in a courtship dance with Jackson.[10]
The music video for "Scream", directed by Mark Romanek and production designer Tom Foden, is one of Jackson's most critically acclaimed. In 1995, it garnered eleven MTV Video Music Award nominations—more than any other music video.[15] A year later, it won a Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form; shortly afterward, at $7 million, Guinness World Records listed it as the most expensive music video ever made.[16] "Earth Song" was accompanied by an expensive environmentally-themed music video showing images of animal cruelty, deforestation, pollution, and war. Using special effects, time is reversed so that life returns, wars end, and the forests re-grow.[16][17] Released at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, Michael Jackson's Ghosts was a short film written by Jackson and Stephen King and directed by Stan Winston.[18] The video for Ghosts is over 38 minutes long and broke the Guinness World Record as the world's longest music video.[3] The music video for "You Rock My World", which is thirteen and a half minutes long, was directed by Paul Hunter and released in 2001. The video features appearances by Chris Tucker and Marlon Brando.[19] The video won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Music Video at the award show's 2002 ceremonies.[20]
The singer's first music video as a solo artist shows a smiling Jackson dancing and singing "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" in a black and white tuxedo with a black bow tie while appearing chroma keyed over a background of abstract geometric figures. At one point, Jackson is seen dancing in triplicate, which was considered innovative at the time.
The song's music video features Jackson sitting on a stool in a darkened room, lit by a single spotlight, singing. Use of split-screen technique shows Jackson simultaneously from two different angles during the second and third verses.
The short film for "Billie Jean" is considered the video that brought MTV, until then a fairly new and unknown music channel, to mainstream attention. It was one of the first videos by a black artist to be aired regularly by the channel, as the network's executives felt black music was not "rock" enough.
The music video for "Beat It" helped to establish Jackson as an international pop icon. It cost him $150,000 to produce when CBS refused to finance it. The video was filmed on Los Angeles' Skid Row, mainly in locations on East 5th Street.
In the short film, the duo plays "Mac and Jack", a pair of con men who sell a "miracle potion". Filmed at Los Alamos near Santa Barbara, California, the video cost $500,000 to produce and features cameo appearances by Paul McCartney's then-wife, Linda, and Jackson's older sister La Toya.
Released over a year after its parent album, Thriller is one of Jackson's most successful music videos. It was filmed at the Palace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles with Ola Ray co-starring as Jackson's love interest. The zombie dance in the video remains a Halloween favorite today.
This music video shows Jackson with other members of the supergroup United Support of Artists (USA) for Africa recording the charity single in a studio.
The video is an 18-minute short film written by novelist and screenwriter Richard Price. Jackson portrays a private school student named Darryl, who is home on vacation. Darryl meets up with his old friends, including gang leader, Mini Max, played by Wesley Snipes. Darryl wants to prove to his friends that private school has not changed him—he's still "Bad". To do so, he takes his friends to a subway station to rob an elderly man, but Darryl has a change of heart and Mini Max chastises him for it. The camera then pans away to show Darryl surrounded by a different gang, who all break into song and dance to prove "Who's Bad".
The short version of the video is 6 minutes and 34 seconds long; the full version is 9 minutes and 33 seconds in length. The video begins with a group of men attempting to get the attention of women. Jackson's character appears to stand apart from the group in his approach to attracting the attention of their female counterparts. Former model Tatiana Thumbtzen plays Jackson's love interest in the video. After playfully chasing her throughout the video and captivating her through dance, the video ends with them in a warm embrace. Joe Seneca and Sean Cheesman have minor roles in the video.
This video differs from Jackson's others because he does not appear in it, apart from a brief clip toward the end where he can be seen donning a red jacket and standing in a large crowd. It features a montage of clips of children in Africa, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, kids at graduation, and other historical figures.
Joe Pytka directed the five-minute music video for this song. Model Lisa Dean appears in it. A second seven-minute-long accompanying video of a live performance (not to be confused with the actual music video) was filmed in early 1988 before a live audience during a Jackson show at Madison Square Garden.
In the music video, Michael Jackson and the dancers immediately around him perform a seemingly impossible forward lean. To accomplish this maneuver, a hitching mechanism that Jackson co-patented was built into the floor of the stage and the performers' shoes, allowing them to lean without needing to keep their centers of mass directly over their feet.
Jackson filmed a promotional video for the song, seen first as a segment in the anthology film Moonwalker (1988). It is directed by Will Vinton, who produced it with Jerry Kramer, Michael Jackson, and Frank Dileo.
Fueled by Jackson's anti-media anger, the video sees the singer ride through a funhouse of newspaper clippings reporting on his eccentric behavior. The video took nine months to produce: the filmed footage was cut into stills, which were then edited using stop motion animation.
The video features most of the Jackson family members, including Michael. Some scenes include the Jackson family playing pool and the Jackson brothers playing football. It also shows the Jackson family singing the song together. The video was shot in March 1989 in Hayvenhurst, Encino, Los Angeles.
The video features Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper, and George Wendt. An extended version contains a scene where a black panther transforms into Jackson and dances, followed by a brief appearance by The Simpsons characters Bart and Homer Simpson. This was the second time John Landis and Jackson worked together, the previous time being Thriller. Vincent Paterson choreographed it.
A nine-minute video directed by John Singleton and promoted as a "short film" was released to promote Dangerous. Choreographed by Fatima Robinson, it is set in ancient Egypt and features what has been described as "elaborate special effects" and appearances by Eddie Murphy, Iman, The Pharcyde, Magic Johnson, Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr., and Wylie Draper. The video features Jackson's first on-screen kiss, with Iman as Nefertiti.
This sepia-colored music video features Jackson performing sensual dance routines with supermodel Naomi Campbell. The spoken vocals by Princess Stéphanie of Monaco were re-recorded by Campbell for the video. The clip was filmed in Salton Sea, California.
Rap duo Kris Kross and Michael Jordan make cameo appearances in the video. Both Jordan and Jackson teach one another their special talents—Jordan's basketball skills and Jackson's "moonwalk".
The music video features children living in countries suffering from civil unrest, especially Burundi. It is also one of only a handful that does not feature Jackson.
The music video features Jackson performing the song during his Dangerous World Tour and footage from Free Willy. A second video, also directed by Vincent Paterson, appeared initially in Dangerous: The Short Films and contained the full length of MTV's 10th Anniversary special performance of the song intercut with the Dangerous World Tour footage and footage of Jackson's fans.
Jackson and Murphy instantly materialize from a cosmic cloud in this video. The pair playfully sing and dance as peace signs and music notes scroll across the screen behind them. This was the second time Murphy and Jackson had worked together, the first being for the music video for "Remember the Time".
The footage in the music video features scenes of Jackson and Ryan White together, as well as brief coverage of White's funeral. Home movies, provided by White's mother Jeanne, are also seen in the short film.
The music video is 4 minutes and 46 seconds long and was choreographed by Travis Payne, LaVelle Smith Jr., Tina Landon, Sean Cheesman, and Sacha Lucashenko. It features a dystopic, playful spaceship dance-off between Jackson and his sister Janet. The video cost $7 million to make.
The video features temple scenes that are an homage to Maxfield Parrish's 1922 painting Daybreak and theater scenes that were filmed at the Pantages Theatre, in Los Angeles. Lisa Marie Presley, Jackson's wife at the time, appears in an affectionate semi-nude scene with him.
The video was filmed in three geographic regions (the Americas, Europe, and Africa). The first location is the Amazon rainforest; the natives who appear in the video are not actors. The second scene is a war zone in Karlovac, Croatia, with Croatian actor Slobodan Dimitrijević and the area's residents. Tanzania is the third location, where scenes of illegal poaching and hunting are incorporated into the video. The final location is in Warwick, New York, where a forest fire is simulated in a cornfield.
This video is one of two made for the single. The first was filmed in Salvador (Pelourinho) and Rio de Janeiro. Jackson collaborated with 200 members of the cultural group Olodum, who "sway ... to the heavy beat of Salvador's samba-reggae music". There is a short (4 min.) and extended version (7 min.) of this video. The extended version of this video, which features more scenes of Olodum playing music with Jackson, was first included in the 1997 video album HIStory on Film, Volume II.
One of two music videos made for the single, this one was filmed in a prison. Jackson is seen handcuffed. It also contains actual footage of police attacking African Americans, the military crackdown against the protest in Tiananmen Square, the Ku Klux Klan, war crimes, genocide, execution, martial law, and other human rights abuses.
Shot in Los Angeles, this video is based on Jackson's personal life, portraying him walking around looking for new people to talk to, which he did in real life.
In the video, Jackson shows sexual attraction towards a dancing woman in a salsa dance hall. Carmit Bachar, a member of The Pussycat Dolls, is featured as a dancer.
Released on May 20, 1997, as part of the HIStory on Film, Volume II video album. Second music video for "Blood on the Dance Floor" featuring shots not seen in the original video.
Four-minute cut-down of Jackson's 1996 short film of the same name. In the video, Jackson plays an eccentric man with supernatural powers trying to be forced out of a small town by its residents and judgmental mayor (also played by Jackson).
The video was filmed in six different locations, five of which were in California and another in Nevada. People featured in the video include members of a real-life gospel group.
A video made up of scenes of Jackson rehearsing for his This Is It concerts as seen in his posthumous documentary film Michael Jackson's This Is It. The video was uploaded to YouTube on November 25, 2009.
The video premiered posthumously on the webpage of Spike Lee's production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. Almost five minutes long, it features scenes of Jackson's hometown and former residence in Gary, Indiana, along with photos and videos of him and tributes from his fans around the world.
This song's music video is formatted similarly to the original "We Are the World". It opens with the title and the recording artists' signatures surrounding it. Clips of them performing their parts in the recording studio and archive footage of Michael Jackson performing his part of the song form the basis of the video. The video is intercut with clips showing people in Haiti after the earthquake.
Released in its incomplete form, this video features Jackson dancing on tabletops for a group of fans standing on an elevated stage watching him perform.
There was a casting call posted on Jackson's official website looking for fans to participate in this video. The video is a compilation of archived Jackson performances and fans paying tribute to their hero, while Akon is featured singing throughout.
"The Behind the Mask Project" is a music video edited together from homemade fan video contributions from around the world set to the song "Behind the Mask".
The video shows previously unseen footage of Barry Gibb recording an unreleased track of the song with Jackson in 2002. The video was initially released on Gibb's website after the release of the song.
Premiered on May 14, 2014, the video features a crowd of young dancers with Justin Timberlake singing along and performing some of Jackson's signature moves over different backdrops inspired by and showing Jackson's videos and live performances.
Published on May 14, 2014, to Jackson's official VEVO page. Inspired by the short film for "Smooth Criminal", dancers from Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour celebrated the release of the Xscape album with this music video choreographed to "Blue Gangsta." A shortened edit of the 2010 leaked version of the song was used in the video.
A shortened video lasting only 2 minutes and 13 seconds mainly composed of Jackson's archive footage set to the song, mostly as it appeared in the duet video with Justin Timberlake, with some added CGI visuals showing a Jackson artwork and some of the song's lyrics. Published on May 15, 2014.
Premiered on June 19, 2014, this version mostly features clips from Jackson's music videos along with some of Jackson's live performances. The crowd of young dancers from the duet video also appears singing along and performing some of Jackson's signature moves.
The video weaves rare clips from Jackson's "In the Closet" video shoot. A second music video was released on Michael Jackson's Vevo page, with choreographed dances performed by the dancers of Cirque du Soleil's "Michael Jackson: One".
It is a mash-up video composed of clips from previous Jackson videos—"Blood on the Dance Floor", "Ghosts", "You Rock My World", "Leave Me Alone" and "Black or White". Some of the clips from previous videos now appear in black and white.
The video features masked dancers in a nightclub paying homage to Jackson. The video originally leaked in 2013 but wasn't officially uploaded to Jackson's YouTube channel and other official music video platforms until August 2018.
Despite its initial 1978 release, Universal Pictures released the first performance of the song on The Wiz as a music video to YouTube in March 2020. Diana Ross as Dorothy and Jackson as the Scarecrow sing the song as they make their way down the Yellow Brick Road to meet the "Wiz."
The music video features clips of Jackson's live performance of the song during the Dangerous World Tour integrated with imagery from the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a message of encouragement and comfort.
The video shows Jackson with the members of USA for Africa recording the single in 1985 with interspersed scenes of live performances of the song. Lionel Richie, the song's co-writer with Jackson, released this version to communicate a message of global solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic and to raise funds for aid efforts.
Director Spike Lee put together a third music video for the song that incorporates pieces of both the previous Brazil and Prison videos, as well as footage from various Black Lives Matter protests occurring around the world in 2020.
Contains the music videos for HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I and Jackson's remix album Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, as well as content featured in Jackson's previous video collection
Contains concert performances of the Bad world tour, with Jackson mostly performing songs from the album Bad on the date and venue listed on the video album title
"Stark Raving Dad" (1991) was the first episode in the third season of The Simpsons. Jackson performed the speaking voice of Leon Kompowsky using the pseudonym John Jay Smith.[140] The producers of the show were legally prevented from confirming that Jackson guest-starred, although many media sources assumed it was him. The episode was written specifically for Jackson, a fan of the show, who had called Matt Groening, the show's creator one night and offered to do a guest spot.[141] The offer was accepted and Al Jean and Mike Reiss wrote a script based on an idea pitched by James L. Brooks.[142] Groening and co-executive producer Sam Simon also contributed significantly to the writing of the episode.[142]
^Reed, J.D.; Stanley, Alessandra; Koepp, Stephen (July 18, 1983). "Music: New Rock on a Red-Hot Roll". Time. July 18, 1983. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved April 30, 2017.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Time122: 3.
Lewis, Jel (2005). Michael Jackson, the King of Pop: The Big Picture : the Music! the Man! the Legend! the Interviews!. Amber Books Publishing. ISBN978-0-9749779-0-4.
Marsh, Dave (2004). Bruce Springsteen: Two Hearts. Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-96928-4.
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