"Michael Jackson" used as a superlative?

[Maxym]

I’m wondering if it is frequent for you to hear "Michael Jackson" used as a superlative in random situations?

The first time I remember hearing/reading it was long ago in some article comparing audio compression formats… It read something like "MP3 is the Michael Jackson of them all, everyone knows about it." (Personally, I wouldn’t associate a lossy format to MJ but I’m not sure if FLAC already existed back then.)

I sometimes do use "Michael Jackson" as a superlative, and it may feel a bit weird in my mind: I just said "Michael Jackson", but I’m not talking about Michael at all, and I’m not on an MJ forum or such…

Two personal anecdotes about it:

• I once used it referring to a guy who had performed some kind of Prince tribute… or something like that, this memory is vague but I used it in a context that related to Prince… which I found amusing…
• I have some (non-professional) activities that involve artists. I’m in a strict background role which involves some creativity nonetheless. And talking about the performers there, there are a few guys in the world who I can say "He’s like the Michael Jackson of that." And, once, I was talking with someone else in that "community" and they said to me "You are like the name-of-one-of-those—few-guys at what you are doing here." For a brief moment it felt good to be indirectly compared to MJ… Not literally deserved I think… but not taken too seriously…

So, do you sometimes/often use/hear "Michael Jackson" used as a superlative? Will you use it now?

 

[Agonum]

Positive: Good.

Comparative: Better.

Superlative: Michael Jackson.

 

[filmandmusic]

Probably not exactly what you want to hear but I remember an episode a long time ago of our local “the voice”tv show and one of the participants had to sing an MJ song and the coach said to her “forget about copying his singing it is impossible“ but make it your own thing.