In 1979, Jackson released "Off the Wall," an international chart-topper that produced four Top 10 hits, including "Don't Stop 'Til You get Enough" and "Rock with You." The Jackson/Jones collaboration spent 48 consecutive weeks on the Top 20 charts, with song lyrics and music written by Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, to name a few.

The next year, Jackson won his first awards for his solo work. He won Favorite Soul/R&B Album (for "Off the Wall"), Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Single (for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough") at the American Music Awards. That hardware would be followed by two Billboard Awards for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male (for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough").

The Jackson 5-less Michael Jackson was a true phenomenon, said Al Payne, operations manager for Radio One in Richmond, Va.

"When Michael broke out on his own, it was obvious that he would take the world by storm," Payne told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "From his moves to his showmanship to his Quincy Jones-infused grooves, Michael was and really always will be a major force in R&B."

That force hit with vengeance in late 1982 on the wings of "Thriller," the biggest selling album in history, with worldwide sales totals that surpass 104 million. It delivered a slew of classic tracks - the first album to garner seven top-10 Billboard Hot Singles - including the title cut, "Beat It" and "Billie Jean," which was the first music video by a black performer to be aired on MTV.

Ironically, Jackson's entry into music video history would not come easily, despite his subsequent mastery of -- and influence on -- the medium.

An October 2005 article in Blender, lauding "Billie Jean" as its top pick of "The 500 Greatest Sings Since You Were Born, details how CBS Records heads Walter Yetnikoff "went ballistic" at the music channel's refusal to air the video. "I said to MTV, 'I'm pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and f---ing tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy.'" "Billie Jean" was promptly put in heavy rotation, and neither Jackson nor MTV ever looked back."

Even the critically-acclaimed, often-referenced video for "Thriller" was a groundbreaking piece of filmmaking: Directed by John Landis, it was 13 minutes long and even led to a VHS release entitled, "Making Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'," which become the best-selling music home video ever.

Davis says she can still remember racing home to catch one of Jackson's music videos, regardless of how many times she had already seen them.

"I was sitting in front of MTV everyday trying to catch the entire 'Thriller' video," Davis told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

The relatively new concept of music videos didn't hurt record sales; "Thriller" was the No. 1 song for 37 weeks and as a certified Platinum album 27 times over, stayed on the Billboard charts for 122 weeks - or slightly more than two years.

At an age where most people are beginning to find their way professionally, Jackson was being lauded in ways that many veteran musicians never see. The New York Times called Jackson a "musical phenomenon" when he was just 25, saying, "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else." While Jackson was easily a crossover act, appealing to white audiences as well as blacks, his success also helped black artists get mainstream radio play for the first time since the 1970s.