Video Fix - 5 Michael Jackson Videos That Changed Music Videos Forever

 Today marks 2 years since the death of music icon Michael Jackson. While his music and legacy will live forever, his impact on music videos is something that will probably be around after the rapture. This is because before Michael Jackson came along, music videos were, well....boring. They typically only consisted of an act performing on stage or in different settings; they were simply performance pieces. They rarely had plots, story lines, dialogue and special effects and record labels were unaware of the major promotional push they could give a song.

So fast forward to today and music videos, and more importantly elaborate ones, are more common than past due bills. We've got Lady Gaga making mini movies for music videos, Beyonce making videos for almost her whole album, Katy Perry flying around space in her clip for 'E.T.' and if you've seen Chris Brown's latest video featuring Justin Bieber you know that's one hell of a video.

So I think you get it now: Before Michael Jackson music video's sucked. But what was it about Michael Jackson's video's that changed everything? That made people say, wait, music videos can be highly entertaining? Well lets take a look back and see. The following are 5 Michael Jackson video's that not only made MJ a legend, but made music video's in general POP. Read More to check the videos out.

First up is 'Rock With You'. On the surface it looks a bit cheap and uneventful. But once you look beyond the surface you realize MJ is doing something in that disco-ball outfit for the entire video: DANCING. This pretty much ushered in the dance video craze. Pop singers dancing in a music from the time it starts to the time it ends was somewhat unheard of before MJ.

That's clearly not the case as singers like Britney Spears and Ashanti have made video's that included an alternate all dance edit. Then of course there is Beyonce's pop-culture moment that is the 'Single Ladies' video. Yep, so the next time you see you fave singer shaking a tail feather in their video, stand up and do a dip for MJ.

Next is 'Billie Jean'. This video is epic for several reasons: The street tiles lighting up under his feet, those often-imitated-never-duplicated dance moves and most importantly...That S-Curl! The video was everything to everyone in 1983, and in its video MJ introduced a new element almost never seen in a music video: Celebs eluding the paparazzi.

If you stop being mesmerized by the street tiles lighting up, you'll notice there's a pretty good plot going on. Michael is being stalked through out the video by some random paparazzi guy. MJ avoids him until the end when the stalker finds MJ creeping into some chicks bed (Billie Jean perhaps?) But MJ vanishes before the paparazzi guy can do anything. This video officially started the paranoid, "OMG-Paparazzi leave me alone!" video craze that we see often. Just this week Britney Spears dropped her new video for 'I Wanna Go' and in the clip Britney battles evil paparazzi members in the streets of L.A.

The third video on our list of 5 Michael Jackson Videos That Changed Music Videos Forever is 'Thriller'. Now do I really need to go into why this video changed music videos forever? I'll keep it brief: MJ made a music video a mini movie. The trend of turning a music video into a mini movie is still going strong today. Remember R. Kelly's 'Trapped In The Closet' series? Or Lady Gaga and Beyonce's lesbian-like relationship in the video for 'Telephone'? Or most recently the hilarious cameo heavy video for Katy Perry's campy track 'Last Friday Night (TGIF)'. Yea, MJ did it first...and better.

By 1992 the release of MJ videos had become an event, so much that his video's were premiering on prime time TV. Michael's video for 'Remember The Time' was a pretty huge deal and premiered on MTV, BET and FOX. Like 'Thriller' it was a mini movie. But Unlike 'Thriller', 'Remember The Time' boasted a massive budget, A-List co-stars and what is arguably MJ's most technical and biggest dance routine ever.

Basically what MJ did was take the concept of 'Thriller', a mini movie, and went all out with it. By 1992 artists had caught wind of the mini movie/elaborate plot concept (See Madonna's 'Like A Prayer') but MJ took it to another level by enlisting stars like Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy and Iman, and he even enlisted John Singleton to direct the clip. And with this over-the-top and highly entertaining video MJ started a new trend for music videos: The Big Budget Video. Since the 'Remember The Time' video dropped, many top music stars started shelling out millions for over-the-top video's including Will Smith's video for 'Miami' and Mariah Carey's video for 'Heartbreaker'.

By 1994 a collective WTF rang across the music scene over the fact that Michael had not recorded a single with his superstar sister Janet Jackson. We know now that Janet was the one who held out opting to build her own fame before collaborating with her big bro. But in 1995 it finally happened and MJ and JJ released 'Scream', the first single from Michael's HIStory album. After the song hit radio anticipation for the video reached unbelievable levels.

Like previous MJ video's 'Scream' got a prime time television debut on ABC and the world went HAM. The dark video was set in outer space, sparking the final change to music video's that MJ initiated. Sure, before 'Scream' there were music videos set in outer space. But none like this, it was like a movie, but not the video or plot, but the visuals. There was a vast array of futuristic visuals that solidified the video is the realms of classics. And perhaps the most exciting thing about the video is the amazing dance routine that MJ and Janet pull off perfectly. The influence of this video was super-apparent this year with the sci-fi-like videos for Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and Katy Perry's 'E.T.'

So there you have it, 5 Michael Jackson Videos That Changed Music Videos Forever. And I just want to add that I have YET to see a video as good as 'Remember The Time' since it got released. Many have tried to top it, and some have come close, but MJ set the standards so high only he could top them.