The death of Michael Jackson brings to an end the tragic third act of a remarkable life. The final, reclusive years were a descent into an increasingly bizarre and dysfunctional world of his own devising. The strange, plastic contortions of his face, the tales of sleeping in an oxygen tank, the personal amusement park populated by chimpanzees and children and the allegations of child abuse — a whole life lived out in the glare of publicity had turned in on itself. Latterly, Jackson was overwhelmed by lawsuits for unpaid bills. He was reported to have a critical lung condition and to need a transplant and, on his rare appearances in public, he cut a pitiable figure.

There will be a great deal of raking over of the details, some of them sordid, of the life. But where life is short, art, of sufficient quality, will last much longer. And the music that Jackson created in two phases of fabulous creativity will be the story long after the peculiarities of his life have been relegated to the footnotes.

The first creative flowering began when he was a child. Born in 1958, into a poor family in Gary, Indiana, Jackson was put on the stage, with his four brothers, at the age of 6. The seeds of problems were probably planted at this time. Many years later Jackson accused his father of abuse and it is clear that he had no semblance of an ordinary childhood. For a grown man to call his ranch Neverland is surely the desperate plea of a boy who did not want to grow old, at least not before he had been allowed to be young.

No human being should ever be a repository for the ambitions of another, a father or anyone else. So nobody should say that the music justifies the treatment. But the music is still there, all the same, and the early Jackson Five records have stood the only test of art that matters — the test of time. In a string of magnificent cuts for Motown — ABC, I Want You Back, The Love You Save, I’ll Be There — Michael Jackson established himself, while still no more than a boy, as a vocalist of the first rank.

There are some great recording artists whose reputation rests, and deservedly, on this golden period for Motown records. The reason Michael Jackson ranks higher than his contemporaries is because of the extraordinary second act to his career. Between 1979, with the release of Off the Wall, and 1987, with Bad, Jackson and his brilliant producer Quincy Jones produced a trilogy of albums that both defined a new genre and marked its high point. In between the two, Jackson released the highest-selling album of all time, Thriller. In the process he upset all the usual musical categories, a black artist creating a new market, bigger than any before or since. Sales were helped enormously by the short films accompanying Billie Jean and Thriller that also made Michael Jackson the first great star of the video age.

The tortured circumstances of Jackson’s life meant that his best work had, almost without question, already been done. But we will still have a man in a pink shirt and a red bow tie, singing a plaintive lyric about disputed paternity, to a rhythm that demands you try to imitate his elastic movement. You need to hear the music, that insistent beat, and suddenly the talent is obvious. The singer dances lithely through the streets. He slides effortlessly up to a lamppost. He touches it and a light goes on.