The Jackson 5 signed with Motown Records in March 1969. Michael was 10 years old. The group's first four singles — I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, and I'll Be There — all reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. No act in chart history before them had ever achieved that with their first four releases.
The group was a family act in the strictest sense. Joe Jackson, the family patriarch, had managed his five oldest sons through years of regional talent shows and small-club gigs in Gary, Indiana before securing the Motown audition. Older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon handled most of the harmony work. Michael, the youngest performer in the group, sang lead on most of the singles.
Berry Gordy and his Motown production team — credited collectively on most early Jackson 5 records as The Corporation — wrote and produced almost everything. The sound was a deliberate evolution of the late-1960s Motown formula: tighter rhythm sections, more prominent horns, and lead vocals pitched to take advantage of Michael's pre-pubescent range.
The group released 14 studio albums between 1969 and 1989, though most of the artistic peaks came in the first four years. By 1975, friction with Motown over creative control and royalty rates pushed four of the five brothers (all except Jermaine, who was married to Berry Gordy's daughter) to leave for Epic Records, where they were rebranded as The Jacksons.
Michael continued recording solo singles for Motown throughout the Jackson 5 years, scoring a number-one solo hit with Ben in 1972 at age 13. But it was the four 1970 Jackson 5 chart-toppers that proved he was something different — a 10-year-old lead singer who could hold his own opposite a full Motown rhythm section without sounding like a novelty. Off the Wall, nine years later, was the moment the adult version of that 10-year-old finally arrived.