In the pantheon of popular music, Michael Jackson ranks with The King and The Fab Four as the key shapers of what you see and hear, say two local music aficionados.

Jackson, 50, died Thursday in Los Angeles. He had been singing and dancing in public since before his eighth birthday, became a No. 1 singing star in 1970, was featured in Saturday morning cartoons and gained international stardom for dance music videos, an entertainment art form never before seen.

Yes, there were the crotch-grabbing stage moves. Yes, there was his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance. Yes, there were allegations about his behavior involving children.

But Jackson's music and choreographed routines, punctuated by trademark moonwalks, created performance spectaculars that surpassed his private spectacle.

"Morning Animal" Kevin Phillips of Magic 93.9 said his morning show today will be a listener-led tribute to Jackson. Phillips will be playing songs that fans request and talking with celebrity commentator Cecily Knobler from Hollywood.

He fields daily instant requests to play musical favorites and can't recall a show that someone didn't request a Jackson song. His top picks are "Man in the Mirror" and "I'll be There."

Phillips, a radio staple in Rapid City for nearly 20 years, said his all-time favorite concert was Jackson's 1988 performance in Minneapolis. "He moonwalked sideways, and I don't know how he did that," Phillips said. "He was one of a kind."

Mike Sanborn has been writing music reviews for more than 40 years, had a weekly music column as a Rapid City Journal reporter and now markets music events at the Buffalo Chip Campground in Sturgis and elsewhere. For an upcoming project, he was listening to Jackson songs from the 1970s chart-topping Jackson Five-era earlier Thursday.

"The man was a flake, but he absolutely was a musical genius. Music history is full of flakes, all the way back to Mozart and probably back longer … but you have to concede that this guy changed rock 'n' roll and certainly R & B."

Sanborn points to Jackson's 1982 "Thriller" album, which sold a record 26 million copies, and his music video appearances on MTV among career benchmarks.

Gene Kelly, the famous "Singin' in the Rain" film dance star, lauded Jackson's "Billy Jean" choreographed routine from Thriller as "the most spectacular" dance performance he had ever seen, according to Sanborn.

"Everything he did he broke ground. I'm sorry that I won't get to hear any more of his new projects. Certainly, the music community is a smaller place for his having gone."