Today 4:10 PM PDT by Joal Ryan
Michael Jackson George Rose/Getty Images
The crowns fit: Michael Jackson was the King of Pop; Elvis Presley was the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Both men commanded the pop-culture landscape, as much as the charts. Both men influenced their industry, as well as scores of artists.
And both men died unexpectedly and barely into middle age.
Jackson, whose lifetime of hits helped sell more than 750 million albums worldwide, whose smooth moves revolutionized dance as much as pop, and whose penchant for headline-making helped burnish his brand, and, following child-abuse allegations, helped tarnish it, as well, died today after being found unconscious at his Los Angeles home, multiple sources confirm to E! News.
Jackson suffered a heart attack, according to father Joe Jackson, and never recovered.
Music's eternal Peter Pan was 50. In the end, the King of Pop outlived Presley, whose daughter Lisa Marie Presley Jackson would wed, by eight years.
"I'm very proud that we opened doors, that it helped tear down a lot. Going around the world, doing tours, in stadiums, you see the influence of the music," Jackson told Ebony magazine on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his landmark album, Thriller.
"When you just look out over the stage, as far as the naked eye could see, you see people. And it's a wonderful feeling, but it came with a lot of pain, a lot of pain."
Released in 1982, Thriller represented the pinnacle of Jackson's recording career. Back before albums were cherry-picked by iTunes-downloading consumers, Thriller produced seven hit singles—and there were only nine songs in the collection all told. The album of "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and more won Jackson a record seven Grammys, and sold more than 104 million copies worldwide.
Born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary, Ind., Jackson became a star at age 11 as the number-one focus of the Jackson 5. The sibling group, which costarred Jackson's brothers Jackie, Marlon, Tito and Jermaine, enlivened the Motown scene with the hits, "I Want You Back" and "ABC."
In 1979, Jackson released his first solo album, Off the Wall, an influential work in its own right, that produced hits such as "Rock With You."
In the early 1990s, Jackson, who'd increasingly positioned himself as a kid-championing, if not kid-friendly, performer, suffered a near-knock-out career blow when he became the focus of a child-molestation investigation. Criminal charges were never filed in the matter; Jackson reached a reported $23 million settlement with his young accuser in 1994.
On the charts, Jackson rebounded with the 1995 hit, "Scream," a joint howl with Janet Jackson, the most famous of his siblings.
But in 2003, Jackson was in trouble again. Authorities in Santa Barbara County, home to Jackson's Neverland Ranch, raided the fairyland complex. Another child-molestation case. This time, Jackson was booked and charged.
A salacious 2005 trial followed. In the end, Jackson was acquitted of the charges.
More to come...
(Originally published June 25, 2009 at 2:55 p.m. PT)
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