Michael Jackson revolutionized music videos from 1979-1997, turning them into short films that told stories and promoted his albums. His videos for Thriller, like "Billie Jean", used special effects and storytelling to make videos a major promotional tool. Later videos for Bad and Dangerous had even more elaborate storylines and production value. By 1995, his videos addressed social and personal issues, though some were controversial. Overall, Jackson's videos helped promote his albums and cemented his legacy as the King of Pop.

1. STAR
THEORY 1X
A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK – TOLU AWOJOBI

2. THE STAR I WILL ANALYSE
The artist that I will be analysing is Michael Jackson, and I
will be analysing his music video career spanning 20 years,
from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

3. INTRODUCTION
Michael Jackson was a pop icon whose influence on modern
day pop music is still seen today and is nearly immeasurable.
One of the mediums of pop music (and music in general) that
he influenced was music videos, by making them into short
films and by doing so making them a major promotional tool
for all artists in today’s industry. This is something that has
also helped the parody industry, with a lot of his most
famous and well known work having accompanying
parodies. These music videos benefitted Michael Jacksons
career by labelling him as not just an incredible singer but
also a creative individual with a clear vision for how he
wanted the audience to receive his music.

4. 1979 – OFF THE WALL:
BACKGROUND
If you track the evolution of Jackson’s music videos, you
really are to start in the late 1970’s with the release of his 5th
studio album, Off The Wall. This was his first release for
record company Epic, and with this album Jackson firmly
established his credibility as a solo artist.

5. 1979-1980 – OFF THE WALL:
FIRST MUSIC VIDEOS
However, the music videos he did for the lead singles for this
album, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough & Rock With You,
were far from outstanding. These videos were very typical of
the time, with the artist standing in the centre of the shot,
performing the song with a colourful background behind him.
This not only shows the lack of creative control the artist
would have on their music video in this time and previous,
but also how the music video was rarely used to its full
potential as a promotional tool.

6. 1982 – THRILLER: BACKGROUND
The 1980’s saw the revolution of pop music by Jackson, and
along with it, the music video. This decade showed Jackson
begin to depict short stories in his music videos in order to
illustrate (Goodwin) the meaning of the music video to the
audience in not only a creative way, but the way that he
intended the audience to see.

7. 1983 – THRILLER:
BILLIE JEAN
With Jacksons 6th album, Thriller, being
already incredibly popular with fans and
critics alike, the music videos that were
used in order to promote this album
helped to propel the Thriller album to bestselling album of all time status. This was
done through all three videos for the
album, the first being Billie Jean, which
was the first video of Jackson’s to feature
a story line, as well as (for that time) state
of the art special effects. Billie Jean had an
amazing effect on the music video, which
helped to not only illustrate the true
meaning of the already successful single,
but also to showcase Jackson’s talent as a
solo artist.

8. 1983 – THRILLER:
BEAT IT
The next video was Beat It, a direct
attempt to get on then up-and-coming
TV channel MTV. The success of the
single and video being played on MTV
paid off for both the channel and the
artist, with the channel being boosted
to national and international attention,
and for the artist, and specifically the
artists’ race, the chance for black
people to be played, and eventually
receive heavy rotation, on MTV and
other TV channels.

9. 1984 – THRILLER:
THRILLER
With the release of the 12 minute video for the title single, Michael Jackson’s
success reached heights that had never been touched in the pop world previous
to this, but in particular this video helped solidify Thriller as the best-selling
album of all time, as it helped raise the album back to the top of the charts, after
it had previously fallen out of the number one spot after an already record
breaking term. Thriller also connoted the first time a well known & successful
feature length director had directed a music video, with John Landis directing
the video for Jackson.

10. 1987 – 89 – BAD: BACKGROUND
Michael Jackson’s videos also proved to help him
continuously change his image and style, as he
did in the late 80s with the release of his follow up
album to the landmark Thriller, Bad. The release of
the album was preceded by the title songs release
with an accompanying short film, which
showcased even more creativity on Jackson’s
part, as did the rest of the music videos from the
album, which are 8 in total, and all of which follow
a story line bar one (Liberian Girl).

11. 1987 – 89 – BAD: STORYLINES
These videos also began to have even more extravagant stories than
previously, with the video for Bad being 18 minutes in total, and others
such as Smooth Criminal set in a 1920s gangster bar. These videos
were the mainstream music videos to feature large scale special effects,
with the music videos for Speed Demon & Leave Me Alone being shot
almost exclusively in animation, with the exception (at times) of
Jackson. This album also features his first montage video, for the song
Man In The Mirror, which is more of a throwback to the last decade of
music videos which had a simple presentation of the artist and his
song.

12. 1987 – 89 – BAD: VIDEOS AS
A PROMOTIONAL TOOL
The videos from Bad show the ability of Michael Jackson to successful
use the music video as a promotional tool, with these music videos
receiving world premieres on many TV channels. This also was the
beginning of the parodies of his music videos, with Weird Al Yankovic
parodying the lead single. These music videos were collected and
presented in a feature film called Moonwalker, released in the late
1980s. This film conveyed to the audience how powerful music videos
can be used to give an artist creative control and power over their own
music to employ their vision. You can see the influence of this in
today’s culture, with artist like Chris Brown and Beyoncé creating
albums with videos for each song.

13. 1991 – 93 – DANGEROUS:
BACKGROUND
Jackson’s 9th studio album, entitled
Dangerous, began the same way as bad did,
with a world video premiere for the lead
single Black or White. The video shows how
music videos can set expectations for an
artist’s creativity and expected
performance, as this video received the
highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time to
view his follow up to the videos of Bad.

14. 1991 – DANGEROUS: BLACK OR
WHITE
This video, which reunited him with Thriller director John
Landis, began to show Jackson not only illustrating but now
amplifying the meaning of his songs, which is particularly
evident in this video. This was also the beginning of the
controversy that would follow his videos, as there was an
immediate back lash towards the last few minutes of the
video for its sexual provocativeness.

15. 1991 – 93 – DANGEROUS:
OVERVIEW
This album eventually had a video album, with 7 videos of
original footage being shot in promotion for the album. Video’s
such as Remember The Time show Jackson’s increasing budget
which helped to support his artistic vision, while other videos
like Will You Be There conveyed the music videos ability to
promote different media texts, as it was used on the soundtrack
to motion picture Free Willy, and consequently featured footage
from the film in video.

16. 1991 – 93 –
DANGEROUS: CONT.
Jackson also used music videos to direct his appeal at
different demographics, with the video for Jam being a direct
appeal to the urban community, and even featured Michael
Jordan, who was nearing the height of his popularity at the
time, and Give In To Me an appeal to the rock community.

17. 1995 – HISTORY: OVERVIEW
With Jackson’s next album, HIStory, he used his music videos in
order to get his feelings across, something which he had not yet
done. In the video for Scream, which was the most expensive
music video of all time, Jackson began to incorporate
disjuncture in his videos. Scream featured a clearly angry
Jackson, though the setting of the video (a spaceship) had
hardly any overt link to the lyrics of the song, though if one was
looking deeper into the meaning of the song they may find the
link.

18. 1995 – 96 – HISTORY: CONT.
Also, more controversy began to follow Jackson’s videos,
which lead to the first video for Jackson’s single They Don’t
Care About Us not being allowed to be released as it featured
penitentiary violence, and therefore having to be reshot and
released separately. He also used music videos to touch on
subjects such as the state of the earth, and to help raise
awareness for problems such as deforestation and pollution,
with the single Earth Song.

19. 1997 – GHOSTS FILM
Though Jackson’s output slowed due to legal and health
troubles, Jackson still managed to release more upscale
music videos in the 90s, including a half an hour short film
which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, entitled
Ghosts

20. CONCLUSION
In total as a lead artist, Jackson has released 30 videos in his
lifetime, with 11 of these helping propel his singles to the
number 1 spot on the chart.
His influence on both pop music and music videos of all
genres is undeniable and goes beyond what can be
documented.