From Thriller to the Algorithm...

There was a time when a superstar like Michael Jackson wasn’t just famous—he was inescapable. His work cut across age, race, geography, and class, landing simultaneously on radio, television, magazines, schoolyards, and living rooms around the world. The machinery that created that level of dominance was centralized: a handful of record labels, a few TV networks, MTV at its cultural peak, and a public that largely consumed the same media at the same time. When Thriller dropped, it wasn’t competing with a million micro-genres or infinite scrolling feeds—it was the moment. Greatness then meant consensus. You didn’t have to ask if Michael Jackson was a superstar; the culture answered that question for you daily.