Troubled musical genius: Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's unique blend of soul, funk and rock made him the biggest pop act in the world.
Beyond this, his business acumen and intuitive understanding of the music market allowed him to showcase his remarkable talents.
Michael Jackson sold records by the million - and broke records too.
With the soulful vocal presence of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and the dance moves of James Brown, Jackson's appeal crossed both national and racial boundaries.
His first break came in 1968, when the Jackson Five signed to the Motown label, and he was just 11 when the group released its first single.
WORLDWIDE ALBUM SALES
Off The Wall: 19m
Thriller: 65m
Bad: 28m
Dangerous: 29m
HIStory: 18m
Invincible: 8m
Hits like I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, and I'll Be There, which all went to number one in the United States in 1970, made the Jackson Five the first group in pop history to have their first four singles top the charts.
Before long, the youngest member of the Jackson Five was beginning to outstrip his brothers.
A series of solo hits, including Got To Be There, Rockin' Robin and Ben - the maudlin, yet chart-topping, paean to a rat - had shown that the promise of early years had come to fruition.
By the mid-1970s, both Michael's, and his brothers', careers were beginning to stall. Motown has ended its interest in the group, which had re-signed - as the Jacksons - to the Epic label.
But it was while Michael was working on the film musical The Wiz, an all-black retelling of the Wizard of Oz - in which he played the Scarecrow to Diana Ross's Dorothy - that he met the man who would turn him into a superstar and transform the world of popular music.
Music producer, composer and arranger, Quincy Jones, who could already boast a formidable track record, having created hits for artists like Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and George Benson, took Jackson's raw talent and moulded it into an awesome new sound.
Video extravaganza
Their first collaboration, Off The Wall, released in 1979, became the first album to provide four top ten US hits for an artist: the title track, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Rock With You and She's Out of My Life.
Jackson the child wonder in 1972 on Top of the Pops
Four years later came Thriller, the album which would define his career. A heady mix of disco, R&B and funk, its nine tracks spawned seven hit singles and became the best-selling album of all time, with at least 55 million copies bought to date.
Having already experimented with video on Off The Wall, Jackson now took the new medium to new heights.
The John Landis-directed film, accompanying the album's title track, was a 16-minute big-budget extravaganza, featuring cutting-edge special effects and the voice of veteran horror actor, Vincent Price.
The Thriller video, and its companion, Beat It, also ended MTV's neglect of black artists, while making the mini-musical blockbuster de rigueur for any self-respecting pop star.
Besides his successful solo career, Jackson also recorded a series of hit duets with Paul McCartney, who had written the Off The Wall track, Girlfriend.
The two stars appeared on one another's albums with songs like The Girl Is Mine and the chart-topping Say Say Say.
Stripped-down sound
The relationship soured, though, in 1985, when Jackson outbid both McCartney and Yoko Ono to secure the ATV music-publishing catalogue, which included the rights to more than 250 Lennon/McCartney songs.
Not for the first time, Jackson's ruthless business streak had asserted itself.
The same year also saw the USA For Africa charity single, We Are The World, co-written by Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, reach number one in the US.
The Jackson phenomenon showed no sign of slowing down when, in 1987, he released the third, and final, Quincy Jones-produced album, Bad.
Thriller was the biggest-selling album of all time
With five number one hits, including Man in the Mirror and Dirty Diana, the album also featured a 17-minute video, courtesy of Martin Scorsese, to promote the title track and a year-long world tour, at the time the largest-grossing in history.
Dangerous, Jackson's 1991 outing, featured a more stripped-down sound than its three predecessors.
But the magic remained, and tracks like Heal the World and Black and White soon became worldwide hits, despite the tabloid headlines and court cases which now threatened to damage the singer's reputation.
But his 1995 album, a compilation of old hits and new material entitled HIStory, failed to ignite the popular imagination.
Controversy
Despite the biggest-ever publicity campaign for an album, estimated at $30m, HIStory enjoyed a brief appearance in the charts.
Whether this was due to the star's increasingly erratic behaviour, continuing speculation about his private life or just the public turning increasingly to rap and hip-hop, is a matter for debate.
But one track, in particular - They Don't Care About Us, with the lyrics, "Jew me, sue me" - outraged many people including Jackson's long-time friend and supporter Steven Spielberg, who saw it as anti-Semitic.
And his appearance at the 1996 Brit Awards ceremony in London, surrounded by children and a rabbi, proved too much for some, most notably Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, who showed his displeasure by storming the stage and interrupting the performance.
Jackson's live shows were big-budget spectaculars
Michael Jackson's final album, Invincible (2001) was released at a time when he looked anything but.
A swirl of controversy, including Jackson's repeated assertions that his record company, Sony, had asked for their money back - all $200m of it - and that the label's chairman, Tommy Mottola, held black artists back, effectively drowned out the music.
It seemed an underwhelming end to what had been one of the most spectacular of all musical careers.
In recent years, Jackson was plagued by money problems and shielded himself from public view.
Arrested in 2003 on charges of molesting a 14-year-old boy, he was cleared in June 2005 after a five-month trial.
As rumours of bankruptcy circled after the trial, Jackson moved for a period to the Middle East.
There he befriended the king of Bahrain's son, Sheikh Abdulla Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa, who helped fund Jackson's lavish lifestyle.
But the sheikh later sued Jackson for $7m (£4.7m), saying the star had reneged on a music contract that would have been used to pay back loans. The pair settled out of court last year.
Jackson was due to begin a series of sold-out comeback concerts, starting with an appearance in London next month.
Hundreds of fans queued at the O2 arena as tickets went on sale to the public and more than a quarter of a million people queued online.
In the end, around 750,000 tickets were sold for the 50-date residency - which Jackson had billed his "final curtain call".
Rehearsals for the show were under way when the star suffered a cardiac arrest at his home in Bel Air. He was later pronounced dead at the UCLA medical centre in Los Angeles.
WORLDWIDE册页销售
Off墙壁： 19m
Thriller ： 65m
Bad ： 28m
Dangerous ： 29m
HIStory ： 18m
Invincible ： 8m
Hits，如我想要您， ABC，您保存的爱，并且我在那里，在1970年所有在美国去第一个，做杰克逊在有流行音乐的历史的第一个小组他们第一四选拔上面图的五。
不久，杰克逊五的最年轻的成员开始超过他的兄弟。
一系列的独奏命中，包括得到在那里， Rockin Robin和本-容易流泪，图顶部，对鼠的赞歌-表示，早期诺言成熟。
By 20世纪70年代中期，两迈克尔的和他的brothers'，事业开始失去作用。 Motown在小组上结束它的兴趣，重签了-作为Jacksons -对史诗标签。
但是它是，当迈克尔在影片音乐会工作Wiz时，那的奥兹帝国历险记的一部所有黑改写本-在哪些他播放稻草人给戴安娜・罗斯的多萝西-他遇见了把他变成超级明星的人并且变换流行音乐世界。
山鸡老白黑我。我还是查字典吧晚上。哎。等等看看有好心人没有。
。。。。