Unquestionably Michael Jackson had a number of great songs (particularly on the albums Thriller and um, Off The Wall, but that's ignoring an important factor: he only contributed to about three of the songs on Off The Wall, and wrote only four songs from Thriller. Michael Jackson was never a productive songwriter, the bulk of his albums having been written by professionals. For that reason, there's no way his ilk can be compared with the likes of, say, a truly talented songwriter like Prince, who not only wrote most of his own material but produced and played the instruments too.
Michael Jackson, other than a few strokes of genius (e.g. Beat It, Billie Jean, Wanna Be Startin' Something), was never consistently productive as far as great songs go.
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