Michael Jackson was the most influential artist of the 20th century. That might sound shocking to sophisticated ears. Jackson, after all, was only a pop star. What about the century's great writers like Fitzgerald and Faulkner? What about visual artists, like Picasso and Dali, or the masters of cinema from Chaplin to Kubrick? Even among influential musicians, did Michael really matter more than the Beatles? What about Louis Armstrong, who invented jazz, or Frank Sinatra, who reinvented it for white people? Or Elvis Presley, who did the same with blues and gospel, founding rock in the process?...
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