I'm pretty sure there isn't a soul living on this planet earth who doesn't know this pop artist, MJ ! Even though some may have never even listened to his songs/albums, but at least everyone knows him. He was/is THAT popular.
What is SLASH of Guns N' Roses fame doing with MJ here, btw ?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ7qXHjxj_0
Slash is like Lemmy. He can be in any damn music video he likes.
The boring answer is that Michael loved to collaborate with talented artists and Slash was arguably the best guitarist (that people knew existed
) at that time. In fact, as legendray as Michael Jackson is, at that time Slash was the more popular of the two.
Really, Michael was chasing "cool" and trying to stay relevant. Having Slash and his Gibson in your video was the ultimate peak in the early 90s.
I remember a few years after this, MJ reinvented himself and it was... bad. It didn't work and it was the beginning of the end for him.
After that his career became a series of blunders, scandals and him becoming less and less of a human being. Nothing at all to do with music. He still had the touch, but he didn't put much out.
In a way it's sad about these celebrities that their fame literally prevents them from being human beings after some point.
MJ and Hulk Hogan come to mind as prime examples.
Cobain shot himself, Axl went weird, Slash kinda shut fame out though he was an alcoholic for a long time. I think JayZ would still ride the subway, just trying to be normal. Tyson threw it all away but seems to have gotten it together later in life. Maybe he's still in the ring though.
His Purpleness was worn out by the end but he was still reasonably sane. He never was too sane to begin with though
For many others fame brought such excesses that robbed them more and more of family and friends, and with that of normality.
Michael had everybody beat at this though. He was more of a workaholic, waaaaay more neurotic and unstable, unbelievably popular and marketable, and once he was rich enough there was no going back. He could be anything except normal.
Hype had the last laugh on him because his music isn't really that good to earn him such a level of notoriety.
It's good and the best is extremly good but is it worth THAT much insanity?
Jackson also had some duds and thuds, and some very mundane stuff. The more the general public got bored of him, the weirder his excesses and the harder the hype. His remaining fans turned increasingly rabid but for most everybody else, they just moved on. And away from the clown.
When he was on point though, he was maybe the greatest entertainer. Went farther than anyone else, in more ways than one.