Thriller is the best selling album of all time. It has 7 singles out of 9 tracks, and they all hit Billboard top 10. It won a record-breaking seven Grammy Awards at the 1984 Grammys, including awards in three different genres: pop, R&B and rock. That same year, Jackson won eight American Music Awards, the Special Award of Merit and three MTV Video Music Awards. It is one of only three albums to remain in the top ten of the Billboard 200 for a full year, and spent 37 weeks at number one out of the 80 consecutive weeks it was in the top ten. The album was also the first of three to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top ten singles, and was the only album to be the best-seller of two years (1983–1984) in the US. Thriller cemented Jackson's status as one of the predominant pop stars of the late 20th century, and enabled him to break down racial barriers via his appearances on MTV and meetings with President Ronald Reagan at the White House.
Jackson set another record with Bad, becoming the first, and currently only, artist to have five songs to hit number-one from one album. In July 2006, it was announced by the The Official UK Charts Company that Bad was the ninth biggest selling album in British history [THIS IS A BIG DEAL. THE BEATLES HAD MORE THAN NINE ALBUMS. THE KINKS. THE WHO. ETC].
Dangerous was Jackson's fastest-selling ever in the United States with four million shipped in under two months. This broke the sales record for Bad in 1987, in twice as many months, but the same circulation. Dangerous also debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Charts with 326,500 copies sold in one week of release. It also managed to stay in the Top 10 for a week in the 65th week, reaching #10 after Jackson received the Grammy Legend Award at the 1993 Grammy Awards. The album received a huge boost in sales in 1993 when he performed at the Super Bowl and was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. This meant Dangerous spent 117 weeks inside the Billboard 200, thirty weeks over Bad.
The success of these three albums has defined the way people view the world and music. Even if you weren't alive in the 80s, your parents were, and it shaped their lives. He is a legend. He is easily one of the most important and influential people to have ever lived; those who shape culture always are. If you don't care about him dying, you're probably not very smart or interesting. I don't care if you hate his music; recognize the talent, the ability, the impact. For the record, no, I am not a fan. I went through his discography the day after he died and it didn't really interest me. But saying that you don't care he died, that he was unimportant, is like not recognizing the Beatles, or Elvis, or fucking Shakespeare or Chaucer.
I'm not crying or anything, but seriously, people need to stop acting like this is something to go "ok" at and just forget about.
