The Walking Dad posted:

Thriller and the 80s era of MJ loomed so large over the entire corpus of modern music and the tabloid frenzy of the 90s and 00s was so outrageous and consuming that it wasn't until this year that I actually sat down and revisited his post Bad catalog.

So good. It is amazing that with everything that was happening and all the attention and drama surrounding him that he managed to be so prolific beginning with History and ending with Invincible. I'm sure others would disagree but there really aren't any bad tracks. He is the only make pop artist that could ever express rage credibly. Songs like Morphine just get lost through the cracks, but to listen to it today it's absolutely haunting, and he took pop music in directions that others would never even dare to touch, and he pulls it off.

I think it's fun because I was born in 1986, so these songs have always been on the edge of my consciousness and I remember watching the debut of the "black or white" music video on tv like it was some sort of event. I guess post Berlin Wall and before the advent of the internet, MJ was the first piece of international culture. Artists like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry might have a high profile, but it's hard to imagine the world having another MJ.