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Michael Jackson · S10 E3
Everyone Who Copied Him
Usher, Justin Timberlake, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars — trace the DNA
Early 1990s, Atlanta. A thirteen-year-old named Usher Raymond appears on Star Search, and within two years LaFace Records signs him before he finishes high school.
Uptown Funk, Bruno Mars ft. Mark Ronson (2014). Official music video. The biggest hit of the 2010s is a direct line from Michael Jackson: the funk groove, the falsetto ad-libs, the synchronized choreography, and the undeniable physical charisma of an artist who grew up studying every MJ performance ever recorded.
Uptown Funk, Bruno Mars ft. Mark Ronson (2014)
Produced by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars over seven grueling months, with Ronson describing the sessions as some of the most stressful of his career. The MJ influence is most visible in Mars' vocal delivery: the rhythmic grunts, the falsetto leaps, and the way he turns every syllable into a physical gesture. Mars grew up performing Michael Jackson songs as a child impersonator in Honolulu, and the influence is not something he has ever tried to hide. Listen for the call-and-response vocal pattern in the chorus, a structure Michael used on nearly every hit from 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough' onward.
Sources
Mark Ronson interview, GQ, 2015
Bruno Mars biography and early career reporting
The DNA
Every generation of pop music since the mid-1980s carries Michael Jackson's DNA. Usher learned MJ's dance vocabulary as a teenager and built a career on it, becoming the most commercially successful male R&B artist of the 2000s. Justin Timberlake brought MJ's falsetto and rhythmic vocal style into the boy-band-to-solo pipeline. The Weeknd took the darker side of Michael's sound, the paranoia and the loneliness beneath the pop surface, and built an entirely new sonic world from it.
Sources
MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson, Steve Knopper, 2015
Rolling Stone, MJ influence retrospectives, multiple years
TAP TO REVEAL: Which massive pop star started as a professional impersonator at age four?
The Difference
The artists who absorbed Michael's influence most successfully are the ones who did not try to be Michael. Usher took the dance and the vocal style but made the content explicitly sexual in a way Michael never did. The Weeknd took the darkness but removed the hope. Bruno Mars took the showmanship but wrapped it in retro funk rather than pop futurism.
Sources
Rolling Stone, New York Times, and Pitchfork artist profiles and reviews
The Heirs
Can't Feel My Face, The Weeknd (2015)
Produced by Max Martin, this is the song where The Weeknd's MJ influence is most audible. The falsetto, the dark lyrical undertone beneath an irresistible pop surface, and the rhythm section that locks into a pocket MJ would have recognized instantly. It is the clearest example of what happens when Michael Jackson's DNA passes through a new generation and comes out sounding like the future rather than a tribute.
Can't Feel My Face, The Weeknd (2015)
The lyrics describe a toxic relationship (widely interpreted as a metaphor for drug use) wrapped in a melody so bright it masks the darkness completely. This is the exact trick Michael Jackson perfected on 'Billie Jean': a song about something deeply unsettling that your body cannot stop moving to. The Weeknd learned the lesson well.
Which artist famously performed as a Michael Jackson impersonator as a child?
The influence is undeniable. The music is eternal. But there is a conversation about Michael Jackson that no amount of talent or legacy can avoid, and it is the one this deep dive has been building toward since the beginning.
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