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we ran this initially for Michael Jackson’s 50th birthday last year but it is as appropriate of a celebration of life as any you’ll read today. Enjoy the genius-all of byt.

Loving Michael Jackson, contrary to popular belief, is NOT creepy, but Michael Jackson loving you is.
Today, on Aug. 29th 2008, MJ turns half a century old (Madonna and Prince both bit the bullet this year), with 40 of those being spent in front of a camera, and the world is in a tizzy:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!

To celebrate we are going to do the following:
1. make all the thumbnails on BYT black and white today
AND
2. pick a few of our favorite songs (which is like Sophie’s choice because, lets face it, the man has made some of the best pop ever) from different milestone periods and then let you play the game back:

So-here we go

JACKSON 5 (aka cute, black and religious phase)
Don’t even try to deny “I want you back”. With a Bill Cosby in bad mustache opening speech:

Then a few distractions and “The Wiz” whiz by and we are in 1979 and facing “Off The Wall”, from which, while some of you may go with “Don’t stop till you get enough” I am going to go with “Rock with you” as my pick. Visually, Michael is 21, still with a fro and starting for the first time ever to sport the white socks.

Hey!  It seems like everyone forgets about the glorious later years of The Jackson 5 (aka The Jacksons) after they split from Motown.  First there is one of the greatest MJ songs ever, ‘Shake Your Body’, and then hands down the most ridiculous video of all time, 1980’s ‘Can You Feel It?’. You have to wonder why nobody involved in the production of this obviously elaborate effort felt the need to speak up “excuse me… maybe we should turn the special effects noises down just a notch, yeah?” -cale

Then, naturally we roll into the “afro to jerry curl” visual moment and “Thriller” happens. Some may argue this is a really hard album to pick a favorite song from BUT who are we kidding? Yes “Thriller” has the video, yes “Beat it” won all the awards”, yes, every single one single on there is what artists hope for all their lives for but there is ONLY ONE “Billy Jean”

BONUS:1984 Grammy footage in which Michael (on a date with Brooke Shields, which is where we got our header photo) beats out Lionel Ritchie (for “All Night Long”), Prince (for “1999″) and Billy Joel (for “Uptown girl”) for best pop male vocal. It was a good year:

Signs of impending doom abound, and are painfully obvious by the time Michael and Lionel bust out “We are the world”, the song that, lets face it , is the equivalent of jukebox suicide everytime you play it.

86 and onward (or some may say “Captain EO” and onward) it is all monkeys, oxygen chambers, skin bleaching and hating on one’s own nose. By the time “BAD” comes out and I am in 2nd grade, he looks like a pretty girl in a leather jacket on the cover sleeve. “The way you make me feel” though makes up for it:

In 1991, already completely ensconced in Neverland, hanging out only with Macaulay Culkin and Elizabeth Taylor, Michael comes out with “Dangerous”. Every single video from this is an all time classic (remember the time with the whole Iman and Eddie Murphy Egyptian excess, the insane genius of “Black and White”) but the song I make everyone play is “In the Closet” which also comes with a sort-of-sexy video with Naomi.

I am not going to get into the whole molestation charges business but I AM GOING TO GET into the Lisa Marie marriage (remember the kiss???!!!) and then HIStory, which features the EXTREMELY PAINFULLY CREEPY “You are not alone”

No one in the world could really recover after that, and Michael didn’t really either.
While “Murder on the dance floor” was decent and he kept busy with more pretend marriages and babies and monkeys, things were just never the same again.
Which, if you think about it, is sort of heartbreaking.
I do however, love “You Rock My World”, from Invincible, even if it does feature Chris-whatshisname in it and did not sell as many records as they hoped.
So, I will close with it.
On a high low note.

Now, go eat some cake.

Wait! I want to add another video, some clips from one of the greatest South Park episodes ever:

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