I'd disagree with this. Michael Jackson got a TON of respect in the 80's and into the early to mid 90's for his status and musicianship as a pop star. Probably more than any other artist ever has. It calmed down in from about '96 to present due to the fact that he came off as being pretty nuts and put himself in some really messed up situations (not going to go into specifics, save that for another thread).
Yeah, I'm with Lynch on this. I'd be hard pressed to come up with anyone who got more respect in the 80's. And he was a grizzled veteran with tons of hits under his belt a long time before Thriller made him a world wide phenomenon. Due to his increasingly erratic behavior as time went by he became as much a curiosity as a pop star but he always got plenty of respect for his talents. The attention he's gotten after his death has just been a resurgence but not to the level of attention and popularity he had at his peak in the 80's.
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