Case Study Michael Jackson

Early on in Michael Jackson's career he was not a solo artist, he was actually part of a group with his brothers called the Jackson five and they all used to perform in a band and sing together although the person which was mainly at the forefront of this was actually Michael, he was the main person that was signing throughout the band and the other brothers were mainly in the back as backup signers or instrument players. One of the most songs which Michael did while part of the Jackson 5 was Rockin' Robin, this music video only had limited sophistication and had pretty bad lip syncing.

The main song in which Michael appeared and sung on his own was in a music video for "rock with you", the main interests of this music video was him signing but was also his costume and is the first time in which Michael's iconic costume choice was made apparent and is the first time in which he demonstrated to the world that he picks quite different and abstract costumes to perform in. The second music video which he performed in was titled "Billy Jean" and was Michael's first main music video in which he doesn't just sing but the combination of the music video and the song tell a story and is about more than just lip syncing, this idea of a story based music video also carries over to "Beat it" along with a elaborate choreographed sequence at the end.

Michaels biggest and most well known music video however is probably "Thriller" and is known as one of the biggest and most popular music videos of all time, there were a lot of different aspects which went into creating the music video and a lot of features which made it stand out such as elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue the idea of a long term music video where a mini movie was made for a song and then edited down for a shorter version where it was just the song sequence and not the entire thing, the entire thing runs a whole 14 minutes whereas the shorter version which was the main one to be shown on MTV ran just a little under 5 minutes. The entire video cost about $500,000 to make altogether Jackson's record company had not intention of paying for it as they had already financed for two of its songs, according to John Landis Michael's really wanted this to follow through so even offered to pay for it himself however in the end they made a deal with Showtime and MTV to cover the costs, At the first MTV music video awards in 1984 Thriller had won rewards for the best performance video, best choreography and viewers choice. With the famous graveyard dance scene Michael started the trend of group dance scenes within pop videos, the thriller music video however does owe a debt to Alice Copper who in 1975 created a movie based on his stage show of the "welcome to my nightmare" tour. Most homes had video cassette recorders in 1983 and sales of these videos were big business, it was possible to buy a VHS of Michael Jackson's thriller which also included a making of segment and a behind the scenes documentary, this tape was later certified by Guinness world records as the best selling music video of all time as it sold 9 million units. After the events of Thriller Michael was the biggest pop star in thew world all of the videos which he made from then on also made the news, his next one he made was for the song "bad" and was a major event being shown for the first time on BBC, people wanted to see his new image and the dancing which was choreographed, In this video Michael's appearance has not changed that much as he still wears a jacket and the same kind of shoes however the video seems a lot more aggressive and adult as compared to the fun nature of thriller. One of his final music videos which he produced was for the song "black and white" and was very expensive as well as inventive and was used by Michael as a way of trying to resurrect his career after receiving many accusations of being strange and the problems of his image and him now having white skin and this video portrayed a serious message as compared to his others and it was about skin tone and that it does not matter which kind you have. As time went on Jackson's music videos became much more complex and much longer with the video becoming as important as the song itself, Jackson mainly used his pop videos to reinvent his image, tell a story and to address serious issues.
This image on the left portrays what king of message that Michael was trying to give through his Black or white music video with the costume that he wore and the kinds of props which he used.