I wonder where y'all were before 2009?, comparing him to others is not right, especially when he had what others lack and viceversa, he wasn't the best, no one is, you don't need to degrade others legacy and impact to praise MJ, the truth, when he was alive, he was no where near as famous, relevant and respected as his peers, are we gonna pretend that MJ was the biggest superstar in the world and more respected after 2001, as much as Madonna, Mariah, Bruce Springsteen, Bono ect, ect..had some flops in the 90's and 00's they were still seen as living legend, no one talked about MJ as a big star, simply because he wasn't anymore, America and the rest of the world mocked him all the time, it became part of American Culture to do so, MJ fans seemed to be trapped in his glory days that dare i say YES!, were BIGGEST than our favorites, 'Thriller' alone was the bigger era for any music act but after that it was a slow suicide, i won't discuss his bad days, it doesn't matter now, i'm writing this to remind you that until his death he was nobody, the medias rarely talk about him and it was all bad news, sometimes even invented, suddenly when he died, the myth revived, he was better than enyone else, he was the first to do many things, ect, ect...his impact is bigger than anyone else, his fans/record label took advantage of this to make him happen again and they succeeded, he is again the greatest thing again, i'm not mad, i was a fan of him when he was sane, it wasn't the horrible things people said about him what left me disappointed, it was himself, as much as i love his albums right there until 'Dangerous', he never leave his comfort some, he never proved himself as an artist, most of you will disagree because of the same thing of always (we can't compare other artists to him), of course his albums are Pop Masterpieces and his music is very appealing to everybody but he discography leaves much to desire, is far from satisfactory IMO. I always stay with the desire to hear an album of Michael that could have been as great as Abbey Road', 'Sign o' the Times', 'Ray of Light' or The Velvet Rope' as a music fan, i listen to almost all type of music from Rock to Pop, Janet is a better artist than he ever was, no because he couldn't do an album like 'The Velvet Rope' but because he didn't want to and that was when he lost me, he chose success over quality, he wasn't a perfectionist, he was afraid of what his trapped 80's fans and music critics would say about his mucic, he was afraid of low sales, he wanted to continue with the big sales reputation, what makes you think, he really had a complex of superiority that isolated him from people who maybe could have helped him to do great things that we won't see, lost of MJ fans hate Madonna but looking at things now, i think what he needed was a person like her in his life, at least in his professional life, she didn't have the God given talent that he possessed but she have the mind, the concept, the attitude, he chose to hate on her because she was a bitch, she was a whore, she hated Janet, ect, ect at the end of the day the people he chose are the ones who betrayed him and the ones that are doing the same thing to his childrem, his family, was his worst enemy, i will always remember him as my first idol even if that changed as an adult man, he was part of my childhood, stop the hate towards other artists, i don't think there will never be 4 biggest artist like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, MJ and Madonna, it doesn't matter which one is your favorite or if you don't like them, truth is you can't downplay or put in doubt their impact, legacy in music even if your favs aren one of those 4, they should be called the FAB FOUR, they are the real BEATLES.