12 hours after the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, was announced, the story is still topping many news feeds, blogs, Facebook status, Tweets and text messages. MTV is playing a marathon of his videos all night long (apparently, a death of a pop star is the only way to get the channel to play music videos these days). Local radio stations are playing his songs from different eras including some B-sides and remixes. Good ol' me is sitting here trying to organize my memories of his music.

I couldn't say I was ever a big fan who memorized all the lyrics to his songs to a T. I knew and loved his hits (then again what song of his wasn't a hit?). I sing his songs in karaoke and pretty sure attempted (and failed) moonwalk. Like many who were kids in the 80s, at one point I'm certain I wrote his name down as my idol. Here's just my memory of some of his songs/albums.

I wanted to start with "Ben" because even though I didn't listen to the song or watch the movie until more than a decade after they're originally released, it had to be the first song of his that I've ever heard. I remember tearing up when watching the movie Ben and asking my mom to repeat the song, "Ben", over and over again. Somehow, even though I didn't know any English at the time to understand his lyrics, I loved the song so much. I still do.

Watch Michael Jackson singing "Ben", here