MJ was pretty much the textbook definition of a pop legend. And with legends come awesome moments.
- The first Moonwalk Dance he did in 1983, which introduced the world to his signature dance. [1]
- Speaking of dances, in the video for "Smooth Criminal", he pulls off the "Anti-gravity" lean, where he leans very far forward while staying in one place. In the video, the effect was simply achieved by hidden wires, but for live performances, Jackson himself patented a mechanism where the performer would wear special shoes that attached to pegs on the stage, allowing a dancer to perform this move. But even then, it still required good core strength.
- His recorded output is so chock full of incredible pop music, it has its own page. It's a lot.
- Any video he did was an event of their own. Check 'em out on YouTube and you will understand why.
- The mother of 'em all is "Thriller," considered one of the most influential music videos ever made - with all the production value of a classic zombie movie, the sequence when Michael becomes a zombie and does a huge choreographed dance with the other zombies in particular is some seriously iconic stuff. For a brief period, they went so far as to give the video a theatrical release as a short film, ahead of Fantasia.note
- The Bad music video was directed by none other than the master himself, Martin Scorsese.
- Although it was unfortunate that the second concert took place on the night before 9/11, his 30th anniversary concerts at Madison Square Garden were amazing. Slash, Usher, Destiny's Child, and Whitney Houston also perform at the event and Michael reunites with his brothers onstage for the first time in 17 years. Keep in mind that this was his first full concert in the continental United States since the Bad tour all the way back in 1987.
- Since we're on the topic of concerts, any MJ concert was an absolute spectacle.
- The 1993 Super Bowl Halftime show. It may be a bit bare bones today compared to the newer Super Bowl halftimes, but keep in mind, before this, you either had college marching bands or crappy no-name singing groups performing.
- At the 2006 World Music Awards. Michael was honored with the Diamond Award, plus he gave what turned out to be his final performance in front of a live audience. Performing "We Are The World", Michael Jackson sung the song and danced along with the choir. The audience was cheering so loud during the entire performance that you could barely hear the music. Seriously, judging by the reaction, you what have thought that God himself came to Earth. It has to be seen to be believed.
- Michael Jackson rarely cursed in public; but when a news photographer shoved one of his fans to the ground in an effort to get closer to the singer, Michael snapped at him, "No, no, don't you touch my fans! Fuck you!" It really shows that Michael really loves and respects his fans.
- His Speech calling out Sony and Tommy Mottola truly deserves an entry. Watch the full video here.
- Him even saying that he doesn't mind for this video to be taped is just as awesome considering that this is one of his few angrier appearances in contrary to him being usually calm person.
- Michael and his sound team helped compose the soundtrack to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, to the point where a 16-bit version of "Black or White" was to be included in the soundtrack, but legal issues prevented this. Although Jackson ended up going uncredited due to him being unhappy of the limited audio capabilities of the Sega Genesis, his tracks are still there (although the only song confirmed so far to be explicitly composed by Jackson being Carnival Night Zone) and many parts of each song are either heavily sampled from or inspired by his Dangerous album and standalone tracks. The credits theme also became the instrumental basis for "Stranger in Moscow".
- Back in 2004 Eminem mocked Michael with "Just Lose It". Michael's reaction was to just buy the rights to Eminem's entire catalogue in 2007.
- Michael was famous for using "crowd choreography" in his videos. That is, a large group of people led by him doing the same movements. While the choreography itself is impressive, both in video or live, Michael made it seem effortless. All of his backup dancers were either straining to nail the moves or were just a second off. Michael managed to make his often intense choreography look like it required zero effort on his part.
- Michael's beatboxing ability needs to be heard/seen to be believed, "Tabloid Junkie" and "Stranger in Moscow" are the most obvious examples where it's left as is to form the base of the song but there's footage and stories of how he would recreate parts of his songs with such perfect accuracy it sounds like they were lifted straight from the album.
- Although it eventually worsened his addiction to Demerol and propofol later, Michael's 1999 performance of "Earth Song" in Seoul, South Korea, deserves a mention: like most other performances of the song, MJ is lifted up high into the air on a wired platform that would then slowly descend back to stage level. Unfortunately, in this performance, the wires gave out, and Michael dropped down fifty feet like a metric ton of bricks, wrecking both his back and legs in the process. However, Michael somehow remained standing, and not only managed to finish the song, but refused to be rushed to the hospital, and ended the concert off with "You Are Not Alone", before FINALLY collapsing from pain and exhaustion backstage. The man barely survived getting crippled or killed, but still wanted to send his fans home happy. That's dedication, if nothing else.
