I don't get that argument. If anything, singers/rappers etc. have it much easier nowadays and if they wanted to, they could still come up with awesome ideas for videos and everythin else. I just don't believe that the argument of "benefitting from the times" really holds up. I think it was ALL Michael Jackson. His vision, his talent, his hard work. The significant change I see, is that today black artists are accepted as mainstream, thanks to Mr. Michael Jackson, whereas he still had to fight to be given the recognition and respect he deserved when he was a young man (MTV, Rolling Stones cover, awards etc.).
Thank you.
How did MJ benefit from his times when it were times when he, as a black artist, still had to fight for MTV to play his videos or Rolling Stone to even give him a cover story (and even then they did not...)? The music video became such a big thing partly because of Michael himself - because of how he started to use that medium. So it's not something he just lucked into. Analogous with that would be some of the current artists taking the Internet and doing something revolutionary with it like that. I am yet to see any such thing. (And don't bring up Beyonce's surprise album drop because that is just marketing, does not have anything to do with the content itself.)
If anything the Internet made it easier to reach world wide audiences. When Thriller came out, half of the world was still behind an Iron Curtain with authorities controlling information that young people could get from the West.
Yes, the Internet kind of killed record sales, but that's just one small aspect of the puzzle. It's called "information age" for a reason - and that reason is that information is flowing much more easily through the world. Nowadays someone puts out a record and the whole world knows about it immediately. Back then it wasn't the case.
There will be no another Michael Jackson and that is because there is simply no one around with the same amount of talent, vision and charisma at the same time. Let's not try to reduce it just to something that he was "lucky with". His peers, such as Madonna or Prince (just to mention those who were the biggest stars at the time), could cook with the same ingredients. Yet, go to streaming services and compare how much their music is being played now compared to Michael's (I actually like Prince, but he does not have the same mass appeal as Michael). So it's not like Michael was great in the 80s just due to circumstances. His music has longevity, it's still popular in the Internet age.
If we want to talk about circumstances then let's talk about how the odds were against Michael transitioning from child star to adult star (usually child stars cannot make that transition and their childhood stardom becomes a liability not a plus - case in point, Donny Osmond). Let's talk about how the odds were against him being a black man, playing black music at the time of white culture and taste dominating the airwaves and MTV and mainstream music magazines. Timberlake instead gets white privilege treatment when he and Janet are involved in the same scandal and Janet is getting sidelined by the industry, but Timberlake can go on and be supported by the same industry unscacthed. And then let's not even get into the increasingly hostile media treatment MJ got from the late 80s and onwards. Most artists would have their career finished with just one tenth of that treatment. So much about the "times" and supposedly lucky circumstances for Michael. He was actually up against odds almost all through his career and he beat them all.
None of the above mentioned people (Timberlake, Mars, Chris Brown etc.) has talent, charisma and originality to the same extent as Michael and that is the first thing that should be mentioned when people want to compare them, not "times" and circumstances. I do not think their music will have the same longevity either.