We've just heard the utterly surreal news that Michael Jackson has died. As many commentators will say over the next few days, there has been no pop star more emblematic of the power of transcendent pop music, the American dream, and the terrible shadows that underscore them both.
At his peak, Michael Jackson was a pop performer that no-one could touch. These are the clips that prove it.
When Michael Jackson performed Billie Jean at Motown's 25th anniversary (see above), he was doing it in the presence of the all-time greats. He pulled out of the bag a dance performance so incendiary that even Fred Astaire tipped the hat - with the telling comment, "You're an angry dancer. There's rage in your feet."
Where it all began: the Jackson Five performing I Want You Back, on what is generally recognised as one of the all-time great vocal performances, delivered by a boy of 11. We now know that the Jackson Five's impeccable routines were beaten into them by their father Joe; that dreadful conflation of pleasure and abuse would become a motif in Michael Jackson's life.
Don't Stop Til You Get Enough video
In 1980, Michael Jackson released Off the Wall, an ecstatic combination of soul and disco that marked his emergence as a solo artist. Produced by Quincy Jones, its greatest moment was the lead single Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, so immaculately performed and arranged that it pushed pop into the realms of the sublime.
With routines Jackson himself created, this has been paid homage to ever since. The whole premise of it - that Jackson was really a zombie, a werewolf, a creature of the night - in retrospect seemed to dramatise the intense undercurrents that ran through his life.
