Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson wanted to become a singer because his mom used to sing to him as a child. He believed he got his talent from his mother Katherine and God.

When Michael and his brothers were signed to Motown as the Jackson 5, he and his brother Marlon lived with Diana Ross until their father Joseph bought their house in Los Angeles. I always thought it was just Michael that lived with Diana. I didn’t realize that Marlon lived with her too.

Michael and his siblings used to dance around the house in their socks when they were kids. I think that is cute that they were able to do that together.

Despite how great a dancer Michael was, he never had a formal training. He was naturally able to dance. It took Michael a short period of time to learn the dance steps he performed in his video “Thriller”.

Speaking of Michael’s dancing, he learned the moonwalk from breakdancer Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers from the 80s movies Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Michael learned the dances he performed on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special in less than a year.

Did you know that Michael used to love to read? I have that in common with Michael because I love to read too. He and his mother used to go to bookstores all of the time and pick up books to read.

Michael wasn’t the first artist to write “We Are The World”. Quincy Jones wanted Stevie Wonder to write the song, but Stevie ended up not doing the song. Michael was Quincy’s second choice to write it. That was a good decision because the song is one of the biggest singles of all time.

Have you heard that Michael was the closest to his sister Janet Jackson? When he was growing up, he was closest to his brother Marlon. When they got older, Michael was closest to Janet. I think that might be because she didn’t need anything from him the way his other siblings did. They had things in common since they were both successful.

Michael thought that Janet was a fierce performer. He knew that they had similar styles, but he really enjoyed her work.

Speaking of Janet, Michael wanted to do another track with her before they did “Scream”. She turned him down because she didn’t want people to think that she was riding on his coattails. She did do backing vocals for him on his “Thriller” cd. She sings in “P.Y.T.”

If you can believe it, Michael considered his cd “Bad” a flop. It didn’t sell as many copies as “Thriller” which is why he considered the cd a flop. It wasn’t a flop by any means. The cd sold over 25 million copies in the United States alone. Singers can’t sell that many cds now. He was only competing against himself for record sales.

Michael’s cd “Dangerous” was his second highest selling cd.

Michael considered “Childhood” his most honest song. I’m not surprised since he was robbed of a childhood thanks to Joe Jackson.

In case you didn’t hear, “Billie Jean” was allegedly written about Paula Abdul’s relationship with his older brother Jackie. There were reports that Paula and Jackie were having an affair and she was pregnant. Jackie was married to his first wife at the time that he was allegedly having an affair with Paula. In related trivia: Michael wrote “Billie Jean” in five minutes. He also wrote the song in his car while he was traveling with his brother Marlon.

Paul McCartney wrote “Girlfriend” from the “Off The Wall” cd specifically for Michael. They went on to do two other songs together. I knew that they did “The Girl is Mine” and “Say, Say, Say”, but I didn’t know he wrote “Girlfriend”.

In the movie The Wiz, Michael was originally only supposed to sing in one song, but another song was added in for him to sing.