The Turning Point for Michael Jackson - Article Example

The Turning Point for Michael Jackson Michael Jackson was born in Indiana on 29 August, 1958 in Indiana. His father was a guitarist but he quit his music career to fend for his family. From an early age, he molded his sons into a musical group. Michael emerged as this group’s lead vocalist and was a stunning performer. The group started working on opening acts for R&B artists such as James Brown and others. Subsequently, the group moved to the city of Los Angeles where they started working on their music careers and dancing. The group was introduced to the music industry in August 1969 and later on served as opening acts for the Supremes. Their albums became number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in January 1970. As such, the paper will analyse and focus on the turning point for Michael Jackson. Jackson launched his solo career at an early age of 13 years. His first single album in 1970 made it to the charts. He continued producing single records and working with his brothers. Despite great success in their music careers, they had problems with their recording company (Herbert 112). As such, there was tension between their father and Gordy concerning the management of the children’s careers since the family wanted more control of their recordings. This led to many of the Jacksons breaking ties with the recording company. However, Jermaine Jackson remained with the company and continued to pursue his solo career. Jackson’s group entered into a recording contract with Epic Records after breaking form their previous company. Consequently, they recorded the Destiny album that made them renowned songwriters. Next, Michael worked with Quincy Jones to produce his next solo album that cast him into the lime light globally. The overwhelming positive response helped him launch his next album named Triumph in 1980, which sold more than a million copies. In 1982, he produced another album named Thriller. The album Thriller produced seven hit songs and subsequently became the world’s best-selling album during that period. His most elaborate video Thriller was horror-tinged and had complex dance moves and special effects. This video was a great success and received 12 Grammy nominations. As expected, it went ahead and scooped eight of these nominations (Herbert 318). Before 1984, Michael Jackson was a force to reckon with in the music industry. He also dominated the entertainment industry in the next decade. The Thriller album broke the records in all parts of the world. His performance of the moon dance was stared with open jaws by audiences globally. The moon dance implied that Michael had magic and could do no wrong. However, this changed with a terrible accident that shattered his self-image and consequently made him to become more conscious of his appearance. This accident almost ruined his health forever. Meanwhile, the entertainment industry especially the recording industry viewed him as its savior. The total revenue in this industry increased to $ 4.1 billion. This was credited to Jackson’s career. He was credited as a songwriter who set the world beats for a decade, a dancer with the fanciest feet in all streets and a singer with the ability to cross all boundaries of race, taste and style. During his Motown appearance, he made a final tour with his brothers; The Victory Tour, in support of the Thriller album. The album did not need a tour. People saw this action as an act of generosity towards his siblings who were to benefit from the tour as it was clear that the audience was coming to see Michael and not his brothers. He also signed a contract deal with Pepsi at the close of this tour. The contract was valued $ 7 million and was aimed at Michael being used to advertise Pepsi products. On January 27th, 1984, Michael Jackson had the accident that defined his turning point. He was performing in an audience of more than 3000 fans when a spectacular huge fire erupted behind him. Fire sparks engulfed his body during the accident resulting to his hair getting on fire. He attempted to control the flames by whipping his Jacket over his head while his brothers and other staff on site rushed to assist him (Herbert 201). All this time, Michael kept so calm that some parts of the spectators/ audience thought that it was an act. He was very calm and even assured the audience that all would be well as he was put on a stretcher and taken away to hospital. He was rushed to Brotman Memorial Hospital where Surgeon Steven Holman, who was trained in handling burns, attended to Jackson. From the fire incident, Jackson had sustained severe burns and his hair was badly burned. He was in total pain and discomfort. In fact, it took more than two weeks to determine the total hair loss he suffered. He suffered second degree burns that scarred his hair follicles. This accident left him with a permanent head bald. As a result, he had a corrective laser to surgery to mend his scalp. He made a recovery from this accident but not without a lot of changes in his life. For example, He returned to visit the burns department of the hospital very often. This was to demonstrate his support and concern for patients who suffered from terrible fire/burn injuries. He also donated $1.5 million that he obtained from the Pepsi commercial contract to the Michael Jackson Burn Centre for children. The accident as mentioned earlier was a turning point in his life and thus, he made a lot of adjustments as a result. It made him more conscious of his self-image and appearance. Shortly after the accident, he undertook a corrective surgery that corrected a third of his nose. This was the beginning of a series of other corrective plastic surgeries (Herbert 113). His first rhinoplasty was not completely successful. He complained of difficulties in breathing that affected his career negatively. He was taken to Dr Steven Hoelfflin, who performed a second rhinoplasty and other series of corrective surgery that followed. This resulted in his addiction to painkillers. His friend, David Gest, a music producer said that Michael’s personality changed after his fire accident. He said that Michael was always in constant pain and he further became unbalanced. The pain and the trauma that resulted from his accident affected him negatively. Before the accident, Michael had a strong hold of his career and was shining. He lost some of this grip of his career as his personality was changed by the trauma and the pain he suffered from his accident. He therefore, had to be addicted to painkillers. The drugs were intended to minimize his pain and hence allow him to concentrate on his career. Michael was eventually paid his contract money by Pepsi and he donated the money to charity together with the money he obtained from the Victory tour. In the public, Michael remained calm and there was no evidence of change in him. He proceeded to receive the eight Grammy award for Thriller (Herbert 318). He also travelled to receive an award from President Reagan for his support for charities that helped people addicted to alcohol and drug abuse to overcome their addictions. As such, after the accident Michael developed a lot of interest in charities. He realized that life can be very short and accidents do happen when they are least expected. He took it upon himself to aid charities that help victims of various circumstances such as accidents, especially fire burns, alcoholism and drug abuse. During this time, he was battling an addiction to painkillers and thus he was able to understand how people can be addicted to drugs. His passion for burn injuries was so great that he had a Michael Jackson Burn Centre for children. His award from the president seemed like the epitome of his fame. However, for a man who was suffering from self-image inferiority and was very conscious of his appearance, this experience was very devastating. As irony would have it, around this time the production of Michael Jackson’s dolls began. The implication of this production was that while Michael’s real self-image was fretting and under threat of being scarred forever, his fans capitalized on an idealized representation of the original star’s image. And yes, his image was more striking every time he underwent a corrective surgery! As a result, he adopted a military uniform outfit in many occasions where he had to appear in public, at times during performances while in other times, he adorned it in real situations. Michael had a hard time trying to maintain his self-image that the fans and audiences were used to. This was a difficult assignment as he was going through a lot of psychological turmoil. This mental strain resulted from the many changes he was going through after his accident and the pressure to remain the same to his audience (Herbert 115). As a way of dealing with his devastating situation, Michael joined with other artists and wrote a song; We Are The World in support of the great famine that was experienced by Ethiopia in 1985. Lionel Richie penned the charity song while Quincy Jones acted as its producer. Michael was very passionate about this project to save a starving population. The record was quite sensational and inspiring. It illustrated the suffering of people around the world. With its mass appeal and a charity theme, the song became the fastest selling single and sold more than 7.5 million copies. Other charities contributed towards this project to feed the Ethiopians as well. Michael continued to support other charity works as his way of giving to the society and a way of withdrawing attention from his problems by doing good acts to others. In the late 1980s, Michael crested a fantasy retreat ranch called Neverland in California. He installed amusement rides and reared exotic pets such as chimpanzees. Some people thought that the star was trying to explore a second childhood. At times, he opened the ranch for children events. There were rumors that he was bleaching his skin so as to become white man and he also slept in special chambers so as to increase his life span. Amidst these rumors, he released a music video; Black and White, which was seen as controversial. During the end of the video, Michael made sexual gestures and violent actions that caused or inspired a lot of criticisms. People started speculating that he was a violent man. Following a rare interview with Oprah Winfrey, Michael opened up about his father’s abuse. This led to some people believing that Michael was a violent person. Michael was still suffering mentally and continued to undertake corrective surgery throught most of his life. He was seriously addicted to painkillers. In 1993, there were sexual molestation allegations against him. A 13 year old boy claimed that Michael fondled him in his Neverland ranch. This was not surprising as he was known for holding sleepovers with boys in his ranch. The police dismissed the case due to insufficiency of evidence to support the claims (Herbert, Pg112-318). He settled the case with the boy’s family out of the court. He continued to receive legal suits and claims that he was molesting young boys and giving them drugs to cooperate. He however claimed his innocence in all these claims as there was no evidence. However, these suits were dipping into his finances and he was experiencing liquidity problems. His music career started declining in 1995 following his sexual molestation allegations and the fact that his health was becoming seriously deteriorated. His fan base started declining and he was experiencing difficulties in maintaining his career due to health issues. However, he managed to produce two hit records, Scream and You Are Not Alone. He did this duet with his sister Janet. This duet won them a Grammy award. His next video called They Don’t Care About Us brought him a lot of criticism mainly because he used anti-Semitic terms. By 2002, Michael’s addiction was getting the better of him. As he was releasing his next album; Invincible, people knew him as an eccentric man. His quirks were more reported in tabloids and drug abuse than in his music and performance. His career was overshadowed by his peculiar behaviours. He appeared in public events wearing surgical masks and hid his children’s heads over veils. He made headlines when during an MTV awards show where he appeared confused and mentally disoriented. He was later seen dangling his son over the balcony. This caused a lot of criticism and former fans and media suggested that his children should be taken away from him by Child Protective Services. His woes increased in 2004, when he was arrested to answer ten child molestation claims. He was charged with attempt to molest a 13 year old boy and administering alcohol to facilitate this sexual abuse. The trial in 2005 caused a media frenzy and Jackson lost many fans and his career faced eminent death despite being acquitted of all the charges. His reputation and finances were declining too. He became bankrupt during this time and thus was unable to meet his utility bills. To save his career, Michael took drastic measures. For instance, he announced that he would take a series of performances in London to save his career. He planned to stage 50 concerts during the tour. However, he was fragile and therefore his mangers were concerned that he wasn’t strong enough to do this. On June 2005, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died shortly after. Sadly, Jackson died before he could undertake the tour meant to revive his music career. After his death, a coroner’s report that gave details of his death was released. The findings of the report indicated that Michael died from acute intoxication of propofol. The overdose was combined with painkillers including Demerol lorazepam, diazepine and midazolam that shut his weakened heart. Jackson was used to take this medicine so that he would fall to sleep. He was specifically addicted to propofol after his accident and referred to it as his milk. His accident led to his addiction and changes that included body correction surgeries and change in personality. That accident in 1984 was a turning point in his life that brought the best and the worst of him, both in his career and personal life. References Herbert, E. (2009). Michael Jackson-King of Pop: 1958-2009. John Blake Pub. Pg112-318 Read More