Michael Jackson first hit the boards as a five-year old when Kennedy was president, achieved stardom under Nixon, incandescence with Carter and Reagan in the White House, notoriety with Clinton and died under Obama, the first black president, when still only 50. That is quite a span of American history, during which the country was much changed.

As an entertainer, he more reflected the times than created them. He was the poster kid for the explosion of black pop music’s popularity under the guiding hand of Berry Gordy and his Motown outfit. His hedonistic lifestyle fit perfectly in the 1980s and his weirdness, manifested by his search for perpetual childhood, with the decade that followed. Still, his music and dancing were often ahead of the times until the creative well ran dry in the Bush years (though his planned world tour might have revealed it had not).