Some people are saying that Michael Jackson 'broke the colour barrier.' Why do they say this, when people like Sammy Davis Jr, Jackie Robinson, etc., broke it decades ago?
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ANSWERS: 5
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They also say this about Jackie Robinson, so MJ shouldn't get credit for being the first. As for Sammy Davis. Jr., things were kinda wierd during his limelite days. He was accepted by many, but not accepted universally. The big slap in the face, I think, was when he was told he couldn't attend the JFK innauguration ball, and he was also told to postpone his wedding until after the Kennedy innauguration because the interracial marriage could have hurt Kennedy's chances for election becuase they were friends. If it were not for this, I would have said that Davis also broke the color barrier. Michael Jackson is not the first or the greatest. Let's give that one to Jackie Robinson!
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They are referring to pop/rock music, where MJ had many truly cross-over smash hits, unlike previous black performers.
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They say this because the music channel MTV in the U.S. had, for it's first year and a half of operation, refused to play videos by black artists because "black music wasn't rock enough" for MTVs target audience. Early in 1983 Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" video became the first video by a black artist to be shown in "general rotation" on the channel. The airing of "Billy Jean" and the subsequent airings of "Beat It" and "Thriller" help push sales of the "Thriller" album making it the biggest selling pop album of all time. Many people claim that MTV was forced to air the video by the fact of the single's popularity on radio, however this was not so. Walter Yetnikoff, the president of CBS Records, threatened to pull all CBS artists off MTV before MTV would agree to play the "Billy Jean" video. It went on to become the most popular video in the rotation. Hope this helps.
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I agree; and I don't understand it either. And although MJ was an excellent performer; I think they have made him much more then he was.
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It has to do with MTV. MTV was not showing a lot of black videos before MJ, and, from what I read somewhere, he and his record company pressured MTV (a relatively new network) into showing them. They took off so well, that they realized that blacks COULD sing and dance and kids of ALL colors would like it, many copying it. From that point on, MTV began showing more black videos. Also, for a time in there, kids were buying pretty much their own race's music. After MTV started showing MJ and more black videos, the color-line blurred. THAT'S breaking a color barrier.
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