Michael Jackson: The King of Pop

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Kimberly Potts on Aug 18, 2009 at 8:17PM

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The King of MTV

Part of the reason for Jackson's dominance and Thriller's success is owed to the memorable videos that accompanied hits like "Billie Jean," "Beat It" and the Paul McCartney duet "The Girl Is Mine." Though at first MTV failed to put Jackson's videos into rotation—critics would claim it was because he was a black artist—an exec at Jackson's label threatened to withhold all his other artists' videos from MTV if the new cable network didn't play MJ's videos. Once "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" began to air regularly on MTV, the network began to take off.