YEAR
2001
INDUCTED BY
N*Sync
CATEGORY
Performers
Michael Jackson was a creative visionary and gifted performer who redefined what pop could—or should—sound like.
The future King of Pop carried soul and R&B into the mainstream in the ’70s with the Jackson 5, and then leveraged music videos and smart collaborations to become a beloved global superstar in the ’80s.
Michael Jackson
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Mikal Gilmore
There was one unmistakable moment when Michael Jackson entered the American mind as an embodied possibility of not just our pleasures but also our ideals.
That moment came in early 1983. Jackson’s music was already in the air by that time – in fact, it was transforming the air. Everywhere you turned, you would hear an animating sound. It began with taut, maddened, funk-infused guitar lines that scrambled against the upsweeping curve of a string section in a heady depiction of emotional panic.
