 This is it!!..
The kingdom of music lot its prince of pop on june 25th, 2009 with the passing away of Micheal Jackson. Jackson's contribution to the world of music and entertainment is insurmountable.
*Micheal Jackson is the 3rd biggest selling pop actor of all time, after The Beatles and Elvis Presley. He has sold more than 750 million albums out of which, 65 million were of Thriller, the biggest selling album of all times.
*His earnings from record ales, tours, merchandising and other business, interests are estimated to have exceeded $700m in his 40 year recording career. since the early 1980's his recordings have generated more than $300 million in royalties.
*He released 10 solo albums containing the original material: Got To Be There; Music & Me; Ben; Forever Micheal; Off The Wall; Thriller; Bad; Dangerous; History and Invincible. Besides solo albums, Micheal recorded 16 albums other with his brothers as both The Jackson Five and The Jacksons
* He won 13 Grammy awards. 10 were for his work as a solo artist, 3 were shared with producer Quincy Jones, his sister Janet and various artists who contributed to his Aid For Africa track, We Are The World. Thriller won 'Album of the year' and 'Best pop vocal Performance ' awards. Tracks like Billie Jean and Beat it each won him another pair of Grammys.
*Jackson was only 11 years old when he performed on television for the first time with The Jackson Five. They were regular on some of the most watched shows in the US.
*He was also known for the extravagant life and living. In 1987, Jackson bought a 2,800 acre property north west of Santa Barbara for $14.6m and named it 'Never land', after the imaginary land in JM Barrie's book Peter Pan. With in the grounds he built a private zoo and a fair ground with a roller coaster and a Ferris wheel.
* His music video Scream ( a track he sang with his sister Janet ) is the most expensive video ever filmed, at a record of $7million. The choreography was by Jackson and it was directed by Mark Romenak with the production being designed by Tom Foden. It earned 11 MTV music award nominations and won 3 of them.
*His song Black Or White was accompanied by a controversial music video, which, on November 14, 1991, simultaneously with an estimated audience of 500 million people, the largest viewing ever for a music video.
*Family has always been important to Micheal. He was the seventh of nine children. his brothers, Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon and Randy, all have careers as singers after they stopped performing together. His sisters Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, are also performers. He has three children: Micheal Joseph Jackson Jr, Paris Micheal Katherine Jackson both born to Jackson's second wife, Doberah Jeanne Rowe, and Prince Micheal Jackson (ii), the son of an unnamed surrogate mother.
*Despite being a musician, Jackson was also shrewd business man. In 1985 Jackson paid $47.5 million for the publishing rights to a catalogue of 4000 songs including at least 200 Beatles tunes. by 2005, the catalogue, was co-owned by Sony, was worth $500m. Paul McCartney originally advised him about the financial benefits of owning music catalogues.
*Just before his death, he was planning a massive tour of 50 concerts at the O2 Arena beginning on July 13. Originally announced as 10 concerts, further dates were added until around 800,000 people had brought tickets.
Extracted from Dawn newspaper July 4, 2009 ---------------------------------------------- | 
