The Many Faces of Michael Jackson: Introduction

On the same day Michael Jordan laced up his hightops and made his much ballyhooed return to the basketball court, a second MJ returned to the racks of record stores. Michael Jackson's Invincible is the artist's first album of entirely new material since 1992, the same year the first MJ guided the Chicago Bulls to a second consecutive NBA title.

Featuring the already-falling-off- the-charts single "You Rock My World," Invincible may very well be the last hurrah from a man whose output has declined in quality (slowly, at first, then suddenly) since Thriller, the album that saved the music industry. But Thriller wasn't just about great music. The album that marked Jackson's rocket ride into the fame stratosphere also marked his debuting of the event video. The coincidence of these two phenomena isn't lost on Sean Weitner, who weighs in with an exhaustive analysis of Jackson's music video output.

But while Thriller is generally regarded to be Jackson's greatest commercial success — with Off the Wall being his greatest artistic success — who still owns the landmark album? Bob Cook is willing to bet his lunch money that more than a few copies never survived the great American LP-to-CD upgrade. In fact, it could be argued that Jackson's greatest contribution to the world of pop music isn't musical at all. Instead, it's the artist's ability to tenaciously cling to stardom and wring millions from record company execs even as his career is on the decline.

Yet the zenith of Jackson's popularity isn't represented by any one album. Rather, Andy Stilp says, it all started going downhill when Jackson's hair caught fire during the sixth take of a mega-budget Pepsi commercial. The flare-up on Jan. 27, 1984, is notable in particular as one of the first events to draw public attention to Jackson's life outside of making albums. After years of accusation, innuendo and rumor, Jackson's public credibility is hanging by a thread. His fellow celebrities want nothing to do with him, and it's hard not to feel sorry for the man while laughing at him, Clay Risen says.

Stephanie Kuenn, however, thinks Jackson's songwriting is at fault more than his behavior. It's no coincidence that Alien Ant Farm's cover of Jackson's past hit, "Smooth Criminal," is outperforming his current single, "You Rock My World." The songs just don't stack up.

Yet black music expert Craig Werner says in an interview with Weitner that Jackson's suffering because he has no peers in the world of pop, and that what Jackson needs to do to get back on top of the pop world is to let the commercial aspect go and embrace what got him to the top to begin with. But is the record-buying public ready to give him one more chance?