Michael Jackson's Indelible Pop Legacy

Canny Contemporaries:

New Edition: New Edition's debut arrived just one year after Thriller, and if their chirpy chipmunk R&B didn't quite have the same stature as Off the Wall, Jackson's work with his brothers was a clear predecessor to New Edition's pre-teen R&B. Skeptical? Cue up "Candy Girl" and tell us you don't find yourself singing "ABC" halfway through. The rest of the record is full of the kind of bright, brash, hyperkinetic pop music that Jackson was riding to the top of the charts, just pitch-shifted upward to suit the Jr. High set (we'll momentarily ignore the fact that the record contains a song called, uh, "She Gives Me a Bang"). Michael may have been well out of his boy band phase, but New Edition — and, hell, DeBarge, the New Kids on the Block and even Hanson — proved there was still gold in the hills he'd once mined.

Janet Jackson: It seems almost too obvious to mention, but Janet was certainly eyeing her big brother when she made her 1986 masterpiece Control. Like Thriller, Control is a product of collaboration; where Michael had Quincy Jones, Janet relied on Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to shape her nervy, energetic pop. And, like Thriller, nearly every song on Control was a hit, from the corkscrewing floor-filler "Nasty" to the jubilant "When I Think of You." The two Jacksons competed for pop dominance throughout the 80s, the kind of sibling rivalry that yields the best kind of results: increasingly sharp and savvy pop music.

Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey: Houston and Carey may have mightier voices than Michael, but their debt to his dance-pop is unmistakable. Houston's debut contained the roaring Top 40 hit "How Will I Know," but it was her full embrace of Jacksonian rhythm on its follow-up that made her a pop superstar. Ditto for Carey, whose career came to life with the soaring, euphoric "Emotions." While both artists still tend to hew closely to the Big Ballad, their more energetic outings bear all of the King of Pop's trademark traits, and their willingness to apply their mighty pipes to decidedly radio-friendly fare fits Jackson's M.O. to a tee.