10 Thrilling Facts About Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson was a man known for many things, including his music, his pelvis-centric dance
moves, and the fact he was able to wear a fedora without looking like an idiot.
But a man as complex and unique as the King of Pop could never be summed up with a list
of just three things.
So here’s a list of 10, starting with …
10.
He Personally Leaked Some of the More Bizarre Stories About Himself
Jackson, in stark contrast with the innocent child-like persona he adopted in public, was
a calculating and efficient self-promoter behind the scenes.
For example, he is known to have leaked several stories about himself to the press to ensure
he continued to receive column inches in the world’s papers when he wasn’t actively
making music.
Stories known to have been planted by Jackson himself include the one about him sleeping
in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to make himself look younger; the news that he’d made a
bid to purchase the skeleton of John Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man; and the
fact he shared his bathroom with his pet monkey, Bubbles.
While these stories undoubtedly gave Jackson unprecedented levels of media coverage, it
eventually backfired when the press simply began making stuff up themselves, much to
his annoyance.
When the British media began referring to Jackson as “Wacko Jacko” he made the conscious
and probably wise decision to stop leaking false stories to the news about his personal
life.
9.
He Wrote All of His Songs With His Voice
Despite being credited as the sole writer on virtually his entire discography and having
a hand in the composition of much of the music to his back catalogue of hits, Michael Jackson
rather surprisingly had little affinity for music.
By this we mean that although Jackson understood how to compose a song, he could neither play
an instrument nor read sheet music.
To get around this, Jackson would instead compose his songs entirely in his head and
then “sing” them to session musicians while recording his albums.
To this end, Jackson carried around a tape recorder with him at all times, and when inspiration
struck – whether it be a musical hook or a guitar riff – he’d sing it into the
recorder or, in the event of a bassline, beatbox it.
Jackson would then layer all these elements together to create what amounted to acapella
versions of his songs.
Notoriously secretive, few examples of these recordings exist with there being, to our
knowledge at least, a single recording of Beat It in which you can hear Jackson demonstrate
this.
He also demonstrated the technique in court to shut down a plagiarism suit.
As an example of just how talented Jackson was at emulating the sounds of various instruments
with his voice, musicians who worked with him reported that he could “sing” chords
and layer his voice skillfully enough to eerily replicate an entire string section.
8.
He was an Actual King
For a guy known worldwide as The King of Pop, it’s kind of weird that few people ever
talk about that time in 1992 when Michael Jackson actually became a real king.
You see, in the early ’90s Jackson embarked on a tour of Africa, during which he encountered
a small kingdom on the Ivory Coast called Sanwi.
The people of Sanwi were enamored with Jackson and the tribal chief told him that mystics
had foretold that the singer was actually a direct descendent of the Sanwi royal bloodline.
So in a small, but nonetheless extravagant ceremony, the nation crowned Jackson King
(an official title he had to sign papers to confirm) and even allowed him to sit in a
golden throne set aside for royalty.
Jackson’s official title was later reduced to Crown Prince, and his kingly duties were
taken up by another man, but he was for all intents and purposes considered genuine royalty
from that point on.
Sanwi even held a royal funeral for him and declared two days of mourning when he died.
As for why you’ve probably never heard this, Jackson simply never talked about it.
In an interview with Ebony magazine in 1992, Jackson was humble about his new found status
as a king, telling an interviewer asking how it felt to be a real king:
“I never try to think hard about it.”
7.
He Earns More Money Dead Than We Will Alive
Now you’d think that being dead would, for most people, put an end to their ability to
make money.
Employers are notoriously picky when it comes to hiring people who aren’t alive.
Michael Jackson is an apparent exception to this rule, being recognized as the highest
earning dead celebrity, earning close to a billion dollars in 2016, more than seven years
after his death.
Jackson’s ability to earn unbelievably fat stacks of cash despite the normally insurmountable
hurdle of being dead is mainly due to sales and licensing of the vast catalogues of music
he owned.
Along with his estate owning the rights to his own hits and albums, which continue to
make millions, Jackson also bought the rights to his favorite songs during his lifetime,
so he earned money when people bought those albums, too (most famously, he bought the
rights to the Beatles catalogue in 1985, though Sony has since acquired full ownership, including
Jackson’s remaining 50% stake last year).
We don’t know if that’s smart or just selfish, but either way we’re mad impressed
that a skeleton earns more than us thanks to business decisions it made a decade ago.
Speaking of Jackson’s skeleton …
6.
His Death Broke Google
Like the Moon landing and losing your virginity, the death of Michael Jackson is an event where
you remember exactly where you were when it happened.
It was a global event that resulted in an almost immediate outpouring of grief.
We say almost, of course, because people had to check Google to make sure the news was
accurate.
That’s not us being facetious, by the way.
According to stats released by Google themselves minutes after news of the singer’s death
broke, so many millions of people tried to search his name that it brought the monolithic
website to its knees.
Yes, Michael Jackson’s death caused so many people to panic and google his name that it
broke Google!
Then again, this is hardly surprising given that a few months before his death news of
him touring again caused …
5.
People Scalped His Tickets (That Didn’t Exist Yet) for Hundreds on eBay
News of Michael Jackson’s death was partly shocking because it occurred just weeks before
he was due to embark on what he insisted was his last ever set of concerts at the London
O2 Arena.
The aptly named This Is It concert was set to be the singer’s last hurrah, and consisted
of 50 straight sold out shows at the same venue, with people flocking from across the
world to see it.
Initially the concert only had 10 shows booked, but the instantaneous selling out of tickets
and tidal wave of complaints the venue received for not having enough prompted Jackson to
schedule 40 more, all of which, again, sold out minutes after tickets going live.
Demand for tickets was such that Jackson’s official website offered fans a chance to
enter a pre-sale draw, essentially securing them a chance to purchase a ticket ahead of
time so they wouldn’t have to sit on the ticket website the day they were announced
and hit refresh over and over.
The offer crashed the website, with a reported 16,000 people trying to apply for the draw
every second for several hours.
This unprecedented level of enthusiasm saw people who managed to secure a place in the
pre-sale draw able to sell their tickets (which didn’t exist yet) on eBay for upwards of
$500 a piece.
Then again, it’s not surprising people were so keen to see Jackson perform considering
he once …
4.
Danced the Moonwalk So Hard Fred Astaire Called to Congratulate Him
Though he didn’t necessarily invent the Moonwalk (the genesis of the move is traced
back to dancer Cab Calloway, and is thought to have been perfected by mime Marcel Marceau),
he is arguably the person who showed the world just how cool it could look to see a man effortlessly
glide backwards like he was just pushed onto a greased air hockey table.
Jackson reportedly learned the move from a pair of dancers named Casper Candidate and
Cooley Jaxson, whom he saw perform it on the show Soul Train while sporting dangerously
awesome afros. Jackson perfected the dance move and debuted his enhanced version at Motown
25 to a visibly and audibly shocked crowd who couldn’t believe what in the hell they
were seeing.
Sitting at home watching the show was an 84-year-old Fred Astaire who, upon seeing Jackson glide
across the stage, picked up his phone and called him to gush over how amazing it was.
Jackson, a massive fan of Astaire’s, fanboyed down the phone for several minutes before
quickly rushing to a nearby bathroom and vomiting in excitement.
3.
The Glove was to Hide a Skin Condition
Few artists have a “look” as well defined and iconic as Michael Jackson’s.
Everything from his pimpin’ fedora to his needlessly high socks have become ingrained
in pop-culture as integral parts of the Jackson mythos.
Arguably his singular most defining item of clothing though was his single glove.
Custom made by the same guy who made the gloves for Kate Winslet in Titanic, Jackson’s sported
many different styles of gloves over the years.
While many assumed that glove was simply for style, because it admittedly does look pretty
fly, according to those close to Jackson it was actually used to hide the early stages
of vitiligo (a disease which caused the skin to change color and often starts with unsightly
blotches on the hands and feet).
While this became somewhat unnecessary in later years as Jackson’s skin tone changed
from a deep chocolate, to a creamy mocha, to that of anemic skim milk, the glove was
nonetheless an important tool used by the singer to hide something he felt self-conscious
about.
2.
He Composed an Unknown Amount of the Soundtrack for Sonic 3
Released in 1994, many fans of the blue hedgehog consider Sonic 3 to be one of the best games
in the series, partly because it lets you play as Knuckles and partly because that soundtrack
though.
Well for any fans of the game, you may be pleased to know that Michael Jackson had a
hand in creating it, though exactly how much is hotly debated.
The story goes that during development, Sega brought in Jackson to compose the soundtrack
for the game, a move that was seen as being in no way weird in the ’90s.
Shortly after production on the game began, though, the first allegations of child abuse
were leveled at Jackson, prompting Sega to distance themselves from the artist.
Today the company denies Jackson had anything to do with the game or its music.
This doesn’t exactly fit with other reports, though, which claim that Jackson had a direct
hand in creating a number of tracks for the game, but ultimately became frustrated with
the limited range of the sound chip in the Sega Genesis, leaving the project of his own
volition.
As a result the extent of Jackson’s involvement with Sonic 3 isn’t clear, but for anyone
curious, the songs often thought to be the ones most likely to have been composed by
Jackson, at least in part, are Carnival Night Zone, Hydrocity Zone, and Ice Cap Zone.
1.
He Promised to Write a No. 1 Single… for Bart Simpson
Michael Jackson was a massive fan of The Simpsons, famously lending his voice to the episode
“Stark Raving Dad“, which features a man who delusionally thinks he’s Michael Jackson,
voiced by… erm…
Michael Jackson.
It’s noted that Jackson personally reached out to the staff of the show to ask for a
bit part and took his role extremely seriously, taking part in line readings with the rest
of the cast and refusing the use of a special trailer set aside for him.
During his time with the Simpsons staff, Jackson explained to Matt Groening that Bart was his
favorite character and that he wanted to write the troublesome 10 year old a number 1 hit
single.
Groening laughed, assuming Jackson was joking.
He wasn’t joking.
Jackson, true to his word, went home and composed the basic idea for the song, Do The Bartman,
a rap single from the point of view of Bart Simpson.
Due to contractual obligations with his label at the time, Jackson had to remain uncredited
as a composer, but went against his label’s stipulations and performed back vocals to
the track because it’s not like anyone was going to believe the King of Pop would slum
it with the voice cast of cartoon.
Jackson, seemingly just because he could, also got Bart to namedrop him in the song
he was singing in for no apparent reason.
Sadly for Jackson the song never became a number one hit in the US, only topping the
charts in territories like Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Though that’s mostly because it was never actually released as a single in
the States.