That said, he did soundtrack many people’s youth and anyone under the age of about forty five in the western hemisphere would have had his music soundtrack their childhood at least slightly. And this definitely still continues to this day. A friend who teaches in Primary said he was surprised by how much the kids still rated him, musically speaking.

He did have a major influence on many musicians and sure he produced some utter rubbish but he did pioneer a lot of stuff. Yes he became a walking train crash, and did some spectacularly stupid things, but he also pioneered music video, broke the colour bar on MTV, and produced the best selling album of all time, which is actually a good album.

Was he as important as Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Ghandi? No, of course he wasn’t. But given the choice between Jackson the musician or Diana the woman, I chose the former.