Michael Jackson: The Essential Moments

"Black or White" 1991

After a few years away, Michael came back strong with this first single off Dangerous, as if the worst was behind him and there was all the time in the world for him to keep creating effervescent pop hits like this one. He could grab your heart with a line like "I believe in miracles/And a miracle has happened tonight," but he could also grab your body with those hyperactive guitar stutters and herky-jerky funk beats.

"In the Closet" 1992

His early-nineties work is the only time MJ capitulated to music trends, hopping the new jack swing beats of Teddy Riley, yet he sounded right in the pocket. With a mysterious female spoken-word vocal (was that Madonna? Princess Stephanie? La Toya?) and a Naomi Campbell video, this is a one-of-a-kind item in his songbook.

Accepting a lifetime achievement award from sister Janet, MJ gave the world the last thing anyone expected: a moment of genuine human emotion. His hug with Janet coaxed tears out of anyone who'd ever cared about him. He looked lucid, spontaneous, even playful. ("Me and Janet are two different people!" — hey, this guy is funny? Who knew?) He seemed to realize how much people loved him, and it was cathartic to see him able to reciprocate. It was a final display of his charm, right before the whole act came crashing down.

"Blood on the Dance Floor" 1997

>

His last angry gasp and a true oddity: an album by Michael Jackson that barely anybody heard. A barrage of quasi-industrial remixes and freakouts, disconnected from any concept of pop music as it existed outside his skull, this was never a hit. But it exposes the paranoid rage driving his music at the end. It was only after his death that people noticed "Morphine," an ode to Demerol addiction.

"You Rock My World" 2001

His last choice of an old Hollywood playmate was Marlon Brando, which made it harder to ignore that Michael had turned into Colonel Kurtz at the end of Apocalypse Now. He bid his audience one last farewell with a 30th-anniversary special, and made his last visit to the Top 10 with one of the least memorable things he'd ever recorded. There would be other headlines after this, but here is where the music ended.

From our special commemorative Michael Jackson issue, available now.

ESSENTIAL MICHAEL JACKSON COVERAGE