Trains of Thought...

Anyway, on to the matter at hand. I had to jump on the "bandwagon" to express my thoughts on his influence and its been a long time since i blogged...

On the 25th June 2009, the world lost perhaps its greatest musical icon. To some his title of the King of Pop is undisputed, to others he was a wierdo who should have been locked away and they can not begin to contemplate why there is such fuss over his death. Admittedly, Jackson did not have a personal relationship with myself or the millions of other people that will undoubtedly mourn his death, but to millions around the world it will feel they have lost someone. Yes, it is weird that people should feel this way about a person they have never even had a conversation with, however from the age of 5 Jackson gave 45 years of his life to everybody else in the world, in doing so he will never be forgotten. MJ is the best artist ever and his influence on not only the music industry, but the world will forever live on.

His songs have been a soundtrack to so many people's lifes. People have been heartbroken to his songs (She's out of my life), Love sick to them (Remember the time/The way you make me feel etc), been mesmerised by the videos (Thriller/Smooth Criminal, Crooned to them on nights out (Blame it on the Boogie), and most importantly danced the night away to a number of his songs. His influence on the world of music (which is one of the greatest pleasures in life) has been phenomenal, for 4/5 decades his songs have been played acrossed the world and the tragedy of him dying when he was on the verge of another world tour has brought millions of people together. In addition to the effect he made on his adoring fans, many of todays current artists owe their careers to the influence that MJ had on them. The picture below explains how Jackson's influence on Hip Hop alone was huge....

It is highly doubtful that any other artist in the world (alive or dead) has helped other artists as much as MJ just by producing such legendary music themselves. And then there is MJ's legendary dancing and great conceptual videos, his dancing/choreography in videos such as Bad and Smooth Criminal set standards that many artists try and live up till this very day. The videos for these two songs also established a different type of music video, no longer would videos just involve the artist singing their song, Jackson showed that Music Videos were as important as the song and he brought his songs to life with the help of some of the best movie directors in the world.

MJ helped break racial barriers when he became the first black artist to be played on MTV. In doing so he helped pave the way for every black artist to come after him, he transceded music and dance all over the world, whilst also being a humanitarian who gave huge amounts of money to charities and those less fortunate. MJ is the best artist EVER and his influence on not only the music industry, but the world will forever live on.