Hab gesucht aber das Thema hier noch nicht gefunden, deswegen hier für Euch das Cover des Australischen Rolling Stone Magazin:
Und der Artikel (leider nur in englisch, ich hoffe ich komme in den nächsten Tagen zum Übersetzen, sonst kann gerne wer anders...)
FULL ARTICLE: Rolling Stone Australia (Issue 731) October 2012
Michael Jackson: The Rise Before The Fall
In 1986, Michael Jackson presented his then manager Frank Dileo and accountant John Branca with a mission statement telling the two men that he desired for his "whole career to be The Greatest Show On Earth". To help guide these members of the Jackson inner circle toward this destination, he handed the pair an autobiography of PT. Barnum, a book the performer had read numerous times. Born in 1810 in Bethel, Connecticut, Barnum was the Godfather of the public spectacle writ large. He was both a scam artist and the originator of The Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus, a traveling spectacle on a scalesufficient to still draw thousands of people to New York's Madison Square Garden each April. Of his own ambition to be remembered as the ultimate show-business impresario, Barnum - a man known as "the prince of humbugs" - is quoted saying, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding will make nothing else of me."
"This [book] is my bible, and I want it to be yours," Jackson told Dileo & Branca.
Had Michael Jackson spoken these words prior to releasing his fifth solo album, 1979's Off The Wall, the logic of his desire would be as clear as the tone of his singing voice. A child star with the Jackson 5, over the course of four solo albums (the first of which Got To Be There, was recorded when Jackson was just 13) the performer had gradually been stearing himself away from the perception that his fame was rooted in his role as the cute kid in a family band ruled by a tyrannical and abusive father. This pursuit, though, had yielded only the pale and frail shoots of promise. His fourth solo album, 1975's Forever, Michael,had peaked at a mere 101 on the US Billboard Album Chart and had failed to register on a chart anywhere else in the world.
Off The Wall would change all that. Soaring in the slipstream of the number one single "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", the album was a hit in the fullest sense of the term. Someone asked to guess the point in Jackson's career when he and his team engaged in a P.T. Barnum-inspired, image-changing think tank could be forgiven for assuming it was prior to the release of Off The Wall.
But even success would be eclipsed by the shadow of it's successor, 1982's Thriller. A perfect storm of an album, the nine-song set was launched into the stratosphere by the unquestionable brilliance of singles such as "Billie Jean", "Beat it" & "Thriller". The last was bolstered with an extended video clip created by Trading Places director John Landis - a clip Jackson's label Epic, initially resisted, believing the parent album to have run it's commercial course - not to mention production at the hands of Quincy Jones that even today lends the work of freshness and vitality.
The result was that The Man whose face adorned the cover of Thriller became without question the world's most recognizable pop star. This in itself was a monumental achievement. For if the 1970s were the decade that saw the rise of the rock group (with acts such as Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac & Pink Floyd filling stadia in the US, Europe & beyond), the 80s were a period that belonged to the solo superstar, with songwriters such as Billy Joel & Steve Winwood rising to international prominence in a heavily stylised fashion. The decade also saw the emergence of performers who understood that the stage they aspire to dominate was no longer merely a place of song. Artists such as Madonna and Prince were savvy to the emergence of the cult of the celebrity, of multimedia presentation, and a required sense of both omnipotence and mystique.
Compared to Michael Jackson, however, the 1980s were a period when even Madonna dined below the salt. As if to support this notion, in 1985 Jackson co-wrote "We Are The Wold" with Lionel Ritchie, a single released to raise funds to combat famine in Ethiopia, and which featured contributions from among others, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Willie Nelson and Cyndi Lauper. Prior to the recording of the single that would out its initial print run of 800,000 copies in just three days, producer Quincy Jones placed a call to Jackson and Richie saying, "My dear brothers, we have 46 stars coming in six weeks and we need a damn song."