Coordinated Universal Time (abbreviated UTC) is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose.

Coordinated Universal Time is a time standard based on International Atomic Time (TAI) with leap seconds added at irregular intervals to synchronize with the Earth's rotation.

UTC is conceptually different from Universal Time and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), but it can be used interchangeably where sub-second precision is not required.

Time zones around the world can be expressed as positive or negative offsets from UTC as in this list.

Uses

UTC is the time standard used for many Internet and World Wide Web standards. In particular, the Network Time Protocol, which is designed to synchronise the clocks of many computers over the Internet (usually to that of a known accurate clock), uses UTC.

Those who transmit on the amateur radio bands often log the time of their radio contacts in UTC, as transmissions can go worldwide on some frequencies. In the past, the FCC required all amateur radio operators in the United States to log their radio conversations. International broadcasters such as the BBC World Service also use UTC when publishing their schedules and announcing times during broadcasts.

UTC is also the time standard used in aviation. Weather forecasts, flight plans, air traffic control clearances, and maps all use UTC (also colloquially referred to as "Zulu Time", particularly in the United States military) to avoid confusion about time zones and daylight saving time.

UTC is the prevailing time used aboard the International Space Station though the station residents change their schedules to meet those of visiting astronauts when missions to the station are called for.

Definition and relationship to other standards

The current version of UTC is defined by International Telecommunications Union Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6, ''Standard-frequency and time-signal emissions''.

UTC is based on International Atomic Time (TAI) with leap seconds added at irregular intervals to compensate for the Earth's slowing rotation. Leap seconds are used to allow UTC to closely track Universal Time (UT1).

Since the difference between UTC and UT1 is not allowed to exceed 0.9 seconds, if high precision is not required, the general term Universal Time (UT) may be used.

In casual use, when fractions of a second are not important, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) can be considered equivalent to UTC or UT1. Saying "GMT" often implies either UTC or UT1 when used within informal or casual contexts. In technical contexts, usage of "GMT" is avoided; the unambiguous terminology "UTC" or "UT1" is preferred.

Notation

+ Compromise	Source !! Initials !! Words
English	CUT	Coordinated Universal Time
French	TUC
compromise	UTC

The notation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. The International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union wanted Coordinated Universal Time to have the same notation in all languages. English and French speakers wanted the initials of both their respective language's terms to be used internationally: "CUT" for "coordinated universal time" and "TUC" for "temps universel coordonné". This resulted in the final compromise of "UTC", which conforms to the pattern for the notations of the variants of Universal Time (UT0, UT1, UT2, UT1R etc.).

Mechanism

As a time scale, UTC divides up time into days, hours, minutes and seconds. Days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes. The number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but it may also (very rarely) be 61 or 59 (see leap second).

Thus, in the UTC time scale, the second and all smaller time units (millisecond, microsecond etc.) are of constant duration, but the minute and all larger time units (hour, day, week etc.) are of variable duration.

Nearly all UTC days contain exactly 86,400 SI seconds, with exactly 60 seconds in each minute. However, since the mean solar day is slightly longer than 86,400 SI seconds, occasionally the last minute of a UTC day will have 61 seconds. The extra second is called a leap second. It accounts for the grand total of the extra length (about 2 milliseconds each) of all the mean solar days since the previous leap second. The last minute of a UTC day is allowed to contain 59 seconds to cover the remote possibility of the Earth rotating faster, but that has not yet been necessary since UTC was introduced. The irregular day lengths mean that fractional Julian days do not work properly with UTC.

UTC is derived from International Atomic Time (TAI), which is a coordinate time scale tracking notional proper time on the rotating surface of the Earth (the geoid). At any particular time, UTC proceeds as a linear function of TAI. From 1972 onwards, UTC ticks at the same rate as TAI, but earlier (back to the 1961 start of UTC), UTC ticked at a different rate. In order to maintain a close approximation to UT1 (equivalent to GMT before 1960), UTC occasionally has discontinuities where it changes from one linear function of TAI to another. These discontinuities take the form of leaps implemented by a UTC day of irregular length, and (prior to 1972) changes to the rate at which UTC ticks relative to TAI. Discontinuities in UTC have occurred only at the end of a Gregorian month. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) tracks and publishes the difference between UTC and Universal Time, DUT1 = UT1 - UTC, and introduces discontinuities into UTC to keep DUT1 in the interval (-0.9 s, +0.9 s). Since 1972 the discontinuities have consisted only of a leap of one second at the end of 30 June or 31 December. The IERS publishes its decision on whether to have a leap second on each of these dates a few months in advance, in Bulletin C. In principle, leap seconds can also occur on 31 March or 30 September, but the IERS has never found this necessary.

As with TAI, UTC is only known with the highest precision in retrospect. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) publishes monthly tables of differences between canonical TAI/UTC and TAI/UTC as estimated in real time by participating laboratories. (See the article on International Atomic Time for details.)

Because of time dilation, a standard clock not on the geoid, or in rapid motion, will not maintain synchronicity with UTC. Therefore, telemetry from clocks with a known relation to the geoid is used to provide UTC when required, on locations such as those of spacecraft.

UTC is a discontinuous timescale, so it is not possible to compute the exact time interval elapsed between two UTC timestamps without consulting a table that describes how many leap seconds occurred during that interval. Therefore, many scientific applications that require precise measurement of long (multi-year) intervals use TAI instead. TAI is also commonly used by systems which cannot handle leap seconds. A fixed 19-second offset from TAI also gives GPS time.

For most common and legal-trade purposes, the fractional second difference between UTC and UT (GMT) is inconsequentially small, so UTC is often called GMT (for instance, by the BBC).

Time zones

Time zones usually differ from UTC by an integral number of hours, although the laws of each jurisdiction would have to be consulted if sub-second accuracy was required. Several jurisdictions established time zones that differ by an integer number of half-hours or quarter-hours from UT1 or UTC.

The UTC time zone is sometimes denoted by the letter Z—a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone (GMT), which has been denoted by a Z since about 1950. The letter also refers to the "zone description" of zero hours, which has been used since 1920 (see time zone history). Since the NATO phonetic alphabet and amateur radio word for Z is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time. This is especially true in aviation, where Zulu is the universal standard. This ensures all pilots regardless of location are using the same 24-hour clock, thus avoiding confusion when flying between time zones. See list of military time zones for letters used in addition to Z in qualifying time zones other than Greenwich.

On electronic devices that only allow the current time zone to be configured using maps or city names, UTC can be selected indirectly by selecting Reykjavík, Iceland, which is always on UTC time and does not use daylight saving.

Daylight saving

UTC does not change with a change of seasons, but local time or civil time may change if a time zone jurisdiction observes daylight saving time or summer time. For example, UTC is 5 hours ahead of (that is, later than) local time on the east coast of the United States during winter, but 4 hours ahead during summer.

History

The local mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England, Great Britain, United Kingdom, was chosen at the 1884 International Meridian Conference to define the Universal day, counted from zero hours at mean midnight, in recognition of the widespread use of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In 1884, the Greenwich Meridian was used for two-thirds of all charts and maps as their Prime Meridian. In 1928, the term Universal Time (UT) was introduced by the International Astronomical Union to refer to GMT with the day starting at midnight. Until the 1950s, broadcast time signals were based on UT, and hence on the rotation of the Earth.

In 1955, the caesium atomic clock was invented. This provided a form of timekeeping that was both more stable and more convenient than astronomical observations. In 1956, the U.S. National Bureau of Standards started to use atomic frequency standards in generating the WWV time signals, named for the shortwave radio station which broadcasts them. In a controversial decision, the frequency of the signals was initially set to match the rate of UT, but then kept at the same frequency by the use of atomic clocks and deliberately allowed to drift away from UT. When the divergence grew significantly, the signal was phase shifted (stepped) by 20 ms to bring it back into agreement with UT. Twenty-nine such steps were used before 1960. The signal frequency was changed less often.

In 1958, the International Atomic Time (TAI) service started. It was based on the frequency for the caesium transition, newly established, that was later used to redefine the second in 1967, at a length practically equal to the second of ephemeris time. The WWV time signal's frequency was offset from the TAI frequency, so that clocks which followed the WWV signal would tick exactly one second for every 1.00000001 s ticked by clocks which followed the TAI signal.

Despite the initial controversy, it became clear that basing time signals on atomic clocks was an improvement over the prior system. However, it was widely desired to keep civil time synchronised with the Earth's rotation, and many uses of time signals (such as for navigation) relied on their closely matching Universal Time. WWV's compromise approach was copied by other agencies worldwide, such as the Royal Greenwich Observatory. It then became a concern that time signals should be synchronised with each other, rather than independently determining their own frequency offsets and phase shifts.

In 1960, an international agreement was made on atomic-based time signals. A frequency offset of 1.5 × 10⁻⁸ was adopted by all the participating institutions, matching the then-current rate of UT2, a version of UT1 smoothed from seasonal variations. Ad hoc phase shifts were used to synchronise the time signals as far as possible. It was determined that the Bureau International de l'Heure should henceforth choose the frequency offsets and coordinate the time steps. It was also decided to use larger jumps, of 50 ms instead of 20 ms.

UTC was officially initiated at the start of 1961 (but the name Coordinated Universal Time was not adopted by the International Astronomical Union until 1967). The TAI instant 1 January 1961 00:00:01.422818 exactly was identified as UTC instant 1 January 1961 00:00:00.000000 exactly, and UTC ticked exactly one second for every 1.000000015 s of TAI. Time steps occurred every few months thereafter, and frequency changes at the end of each year. The jumps increased in size to 100 ms, with only one 50 ms jump having ever occurred. This UTC was intended to permit a very close approximation of UT2, within around 0.1 s.

In 1967, the SI second was redefined in terms of the frequency supplied by a caesium atomic clock. The length of second so defined was practically equal to the second of ephemeris time. This was the frequency that had been provisionally used in TAI since 1958. It was soon recognised that having two types of second with different lengths, namely the UTC second and the SI second used in TAI, was a bad idea. It was thought that it would be better for time signals to maintain a consistent frequency, and that that frequency should match the SI second. Thus it would be necessary to rely on time steps alone to maintain the approximation of UT. This was tried experimentally in a service known as "Stepped Atomic Time" (SAT), which ticked at the same rate as TAI and used jumps of 200 ms to stay synchronised with UT2.

There was also dissatisfaction with the frequent jumps in UTC (and SAT). In 1968, Louis Essen, the inventor of the caesium atomic clock, and G. M. R. Winkler both independently proposed that steps should be of 1 s only. This system was eventually approved, along with the idea of maintaining the UTC second equal to the TAI second. At the end of 1971, there was a final irregular jump of exactly 0.107758 TAI seconds, so that 1 January 1972 00:00:00 UTC was 1 January 1972 00:00:10 TAI exactly, making the difference between UTC and TAI an integer number of seconds. At the same time, the tick rate of UTC was changed to exactly match TAI. UTC also started to track UT1 rather than UT2. Some time signals started to broadcast the DUT1 correction (UT1 − UTC) for applications requiring a closer approximation of UT1 than UTC now provided.

The first leap second occurred on 30 June 1972. Since then, leap seconds have occurred on average about once every 19 months, always on 30 June or 31 December. As of 1 January 2010, 00:00:00 UTC, there have been 24 leap seconds in total, all positive, putting UTC 34 seconds behind TAI (this is the case since 1 January 2009).

Rationale

The Earth's rotational speed is very slowly decreasing due to tidal deceleration, causing the mean solar day to increase in length. The length of the SI second was calibrated on the basis of the second of ephemeris time and can now be seen to have a relationship with the mean solar day observed between 1750 and 1892, analysed by Simon Newcomb. As a result, the SI second is close to 1/86400 of a mean solar day in around 1820. In earlier centuries the mean solar day was shorter than 86400 SI seconds, and in later centuries it is longer than 86400 seconds. At the end of the 20th century the length of the mean solar day (also known simply as "length of day" or "LOD") was approximately 86,400.002 s. For this reason, UT is now "slower" than TAI.

The excess of the LOD over the nominal 86,400 s accumulates over time, causing the UTC day, initially synchronised with the mean sun, to become desynchronised and run ahead of it. At the end of the 20th century, with the LOD at 2 ms above the nominal value, UTC ran faster than UT by 2 ms per day, getting a second ahead roughly every 500 days. Thus, leap seconds were inserted at approximately this interval, retarding UTC to keep it synchronised in the long term. Note that the actual rotational period varies on unpredictable factors such as tectonic motion and has to be observed, rather than computed.

The insertion of a leap second every 500 days does not indicate that the mean solar day is getting longer by a second every 500 days (just as a leap day every four years does not mean the year is getting longer by one day every four years): it will take approximately 50,000 years for a mean solar day to lengthen by one second (at a rate of 2 ms/cy). This is a mean rate within the range of 1.7–2.3 ms/cy. The rate due to tidal friction alone is about 2.3 ms/cy, but the uplift of Canada and Scandinavia by several metres since the last Ice Age has temporarily reduced this to 1.7 ms/cy over the last 2700 years. The correct reason for leap seconds is not the current difference between actual and nominal LOD, but rather the accumulation of this difference over a period of time: in the late twentieth century, this difference was about 1/500 of a second per day, so it accumulated to 1 second after about 500 days.

For example, assume you start counting the seconds from the Unix epoch of 1970-01-01T00:00:00 UTC with an atomic clock. At midnight on that day (as measured on UTC), your counter registers 0 s. After Earth has made one full rotation with respect to the mean Sun, your counter will register approximately 86400.002 s (the precise value will vary depending on plate tectonic conditions). Based on your counter, you can calculate that the date is 1970-01-02T00:00:00 UT1. After 500 rotations, your counter will register 43,200,001 s. Since 86,400 s × 500 is 43,200,000 s, you will calculate that the date is 1971-05-16T00:00:01 UTC, while it is only 1971-05-16T00:00:00 UT1. If you had added a leap second on December 31, 1970, retarding your counter by 1 s, then the counter would have a value of 43,200,000 s at 1971-05-16T00:00:00 UT1, and allow you to calculate the correct date.

In the graph of DUT1 above, the excess of LOD above the nominal 86,400 s corresponds to the downward slope of the graph between vertical segments. (Note that the slope became shallower in the 2000s, due to a slight acceleration of the Earth's crust temporarily shortening the day.) Vertical position on the graph corresponds to the accumulation of this difference over time, and the vertical segments correspond to leap seconds introduced to match this accumulated difference. Leap seconds are timed to keep DUT1 within the vertical range depicted by this graph. The frequency of leap seconds therefore corresponds to the slope of the diagonal graph segments, and thus to the excess LOD.

Future

As the Earth's rotation continues to slow, positive leap seconds will be required more frequently. The long-term rate of change of LOD is approximately +1.7 ms per century. At the end of the 21st century LOD will be roughly 86,400.004 s, requiring leap seconds every 250 days. Over several centuries, the frequency of leap seconds will become problematic.

Some time in the 22nd century, two leap seconds will be required every year. The current use of only the leap second opportunities in June and December will be insufficient, and the March and September options will have to be used. In the 25th century, four leap seconds will be required every year, so the current quarterly options will be insufficient. Thereafter there will need to be the possibility of leap seconds at the end of any month. In about two thousand years even that will become insufficient, and there will have to be leap seconds that are not at the end of a month.

In a few tens of thousands of years (the timing is uncertain) LOD will exceed 86,401 s, causing the current form of UTC to break down due to requiring more than one leap second per day. It would be possible to then continue with double leaps, but this becomes increasingly untenable.

Both the one-leap-second-per-month and one-leap-second-per-day milestones are considered (by different theorists) to mark the theoretical limit of the applicability of UTC. The actual number of leap seconds to keep track of time would become unwieldy by current standards well before these, but presumably if UTC were to continue then horological systems would be redesigned to cope with regular leap seconds much better than current systems do.

There is a proposal to redefine UTC and abolish leap seconds, such that sundials would slowly get further out of sync with civil time. The resulting gradual shift of the sun's movements relative to civil time is analogous to the shift of seasons relative to the yearly calendar that results from the calendar year not precisely matching the tropical year length. This would be a major practical change in civil timekeeping, but would take effect slowly over several centuries. An ITU study group was to have voted on this possibility during 2008, possibly leading to official approval by the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2012 and the subsequent cessation of leap seconds.

There is also a proposal that the present form of UTC could be improved to track UT1 more closely, by allowing greater freedom in scheduling leap seconds.

See also

Ephemeris Time

ISO 8601

Terrestrial Time

World Radiocommunication Conference

Notes

References

| title = Amateur Radio Station Log Book | publisher = American Radio Relay League | location = Newington, CT | year = 1985}} Application Note. | title = Aviation Time | year = 2006 | accessdate = 17 July 2011 | publisher = Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association | work = AOPA's Path to Aviation | url = http://www.aopa.org/path/time.html}} |url=http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.dat |title=Bulletin C |publisher=IERS EOP PC, Observatoire de Paris |accessdate=17 July 2011| date = 8 July 2011}} |url=ftp://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/tai-utc.dat |title=History of TAI-UTC |publisher=Time Service Dept., U.S. Naval Observatory |accessdate=4 January 2009 | year = c. 2009}} | year=1976 |url=http://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/IAU1976_French.pdf |title=IAU resolutions adopted at the XVIth General Assembly, Grenoble, France, 1976}} Resolution no. 3 by Commissions 4 (Ephemerides/Ephémérides) and 31 (Time/L'Heure) (near the end of the domument) "recommend that the following notations be used in all languages", UT0(i), UT1(i), UT2(i), UTC, UTC(i), UT, where (i) is institution "i". | url = http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/timezone.htm | publisher = wwp | title = Military & Civilian Time Designations}} |accessdate=17 July 2011 | title = Universal Time | author = United States Naval Observatory | url = http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/astronomical-information-center/universal-time}}

External links

Definition of Coordinated Universal Time in German law–ZeitG §1 (3)

Hong Kong Time by Hong Kong Observatory

International Earth Rotation Service; list of differences between TAI and UTC from 1961 to present

The official U.S. time in UTC zone using Java.

U.S. Naval Observatory: Systems of Time

W3C Specification about UTC Date and Time and IETF Internet standard RFC 3339, based on ISO 8601

Time and Date

Current, exact UTC clock at Time.is

Standard of time definition: UTC, GPS, LORAN and TAI

Category:Time scales Category:ITU-R recommendations Category:Time

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alt	A mid-twenties African American man wearing a sequined military jacket and dark sunglasses. He is walking while waving his right hand, which is adorned with a white glove. His left hand is bare.
background	solo_singer
birth name	Michael Joseph Jackson
alias	Michael Joe Jackson, MJ, King of Pop
birth date	August 29, 1958
birth place	Gary, Indiana, U.S.
death date	June 25, 2009
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
instrument	Vocals
genre	R&B;, pop, rock, soul, dance, funk, disco, new jack swing
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, record producer, actor, businessman, philanthropist
years active	1964–2009
label	Motown, Epic, Legacy
associated acts	The Jackson 5
relatives	Janet Jackson (sister)
website	}}

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5, then the Jacksons in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style have influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B;, pop and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album ''Thriller'' is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including ''Off the Wall'' (1979), ''Bad'' (1987), ''Dangerous'' (1991), and ''HIStory'' (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which have made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.

Life and career

Early life and The Jackson 5 (1958–1975)

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, the eighth of ten children in an African American working-class family who lived in a small 3-room house in Gary, Indiana, an industrial city near Chicago. His mother, Katherine Esther Scruse, was a devout Jehovah's Witness, and his father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, was a steel mill worker who performed with an R&B; band called The Falcons. Jackson had three sisters: Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and five brothers: Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy. A sixth brother, Brandon, died shortly after birth.

Jackson had a troubled relationship with his father, Joe.

The group's sales began declining in 1973, and the band members chafed under Motown's strict refusal to allow them creative control or input. Although they scored several top 40 hits, including the top 5 disco single "Dancing Machine" and the top 20 hit "I Am Love", the Jackson 5 left Motown in 1975.

Move to Epic and ''Off the Wall'' (1975–81)

In June 1975, the Jackson 5 signed with Epic Records, a subsidiary of CBS Records and renamed themselves the Jacksons. Younger brother Randy formally joined the band around this time, while Jermaine left to pursue a solo career. In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B; Album, Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B; Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Year-End for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Jackson again won at the American Music Awards in 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B; Album and Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist. Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt ''Off the Wall'' should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release. In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.

''Thriller'' and ''Motown 25'' (1982–83)

In 1982, Jackson contributed the song "Someone In the Dark" to the storybook for the film ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial''; the record won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1984. In the same year he won another seven Grammys and eight American Music Awards (including the Award of Merit, the youngest artist to win it), making him the most awarded in one night for both award shows. The album topped the ''Billboard'' 200 chart for 37 weeks and was in the top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. It was the first album to have seven ''Billboard'' Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." ''Thriller'' was certified for 29 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the United States. The album won also another Grammy for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical in 1984, awarding Bruce Swedien for his work. Thanks to the ''Bad'' album, Bruce Swedien and Humberto Gatica won one Grammy in 1988 for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical and Michael Jackson won one Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form for "Leave Me Alone" in 1989. ''HIStory'' received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. However, the sales for ''Invincible'' were lower than those of his previous releases, due in part to a lack of promotion, no supporting world tour and the label dispute. The album also came out at a bad time for the music industry in general. Jackson rehearsed in Los Angeles in the weeks leading up to the tour under the direction of choreographer Kenny Ortega. Most of these rehearsals took place at the Staples Center, which was owned by AEG. With ''Thriller'', Christopher Connelly of ''Rolling Stone'' commented that Jackson developed his long association with the subliminal theme of paranoia and darker imagery. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted this is evident on the songs "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". In "Billie Jean", Jackson sings about an obsessive fan who alleges he has fathered a child of hers. In "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he argues against gossip and the media. "Beat It" decried gang violence in an homage to ''West Side Story'', and was Jackson's first successful rock cross-over piece, according to Huey. He also observed that the title track "Thriller" began Jackson's interest with the theme of the supernatural, a topic he revisited in subsequent years. In 1985, Jackson co-wrote the charity anthem "We Are the World"; humanitarian themes later became a recurring theme in his lyrics and public persona. ;Bibliography

George, Nelson (2004). ''Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection'' booklet. Sony BMG.

Further reading

External links

Michael Jackson Live: Best Pics – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Michael Jackson at MTV

FBI file on Michael Jackson

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