Song artist 7 - Michael Jackson

Previous Comments (newest first)

24 May 2020

Why We All SEE Michael Jackson as the CHAMPION

Yes, Michael Jackson proved to be the most commanding entertainer. Creatively,he may at some times chosen to score and at other times chosen to pass to teammates. But the point is whatever he did it resulted in you SEEING an entertainer that commanded your eyes better than the others. Also, he did NOT appear with an album every year, but commanded the WATCHING whenever he did appear amid all others that appeared at the same time. That's because he had the understanding that the main job of an ENTERTAINER is to ENTERTAIN onstage giving something to see. The vast majority of people are not going to seat themselves at a television or a concert stage and pull out credit sheets and spend their time there reading and talking about them. Fans of losing artists really should not be hateful scarred for decades of life for his excellence as a showman

29 Feb 2020

We're almost there

1975 US hit, then 1981 UK Tamla Motown reissue, as Epic hits started. Same song at #61 & #64.

Data fixed, thanks

24 May 2018

(2) Double Listings

#71 & #10 (under Duets w/Justin Timberlake - Love Never Felt So Good) are the same. Also #62 & #3 (under Duets w/Siedah Garrett - I Just Can't Stop Loving You).

Data fixed, thanks

16 May 2018

Double Listings

#59 and #2 are the same.+

Data fixed, thanks

13 Dec 2017

(3) Double Listings

#60 & #3 (under Duets w/Siedah Garrett - I Just Can't Stop Loving You) are the same. Also #69 s/b transferred to #38 (History) & #39 (Ghosts).

Data fixed, thanks

6 Jun 2015

Lol why are all the MJ fans but hurt this site has a criteria that doesntfavour MJ. MJ barely released any albums compared to his counter parts. only 2 in the 80s. I personally believe this a totally invalid way of judging whether an artist was successful or not mj 2 albums sold more than anyone else in the 80s so. plus hes clearly the most talented next to prince who could play loads of intruments but mj more so for his entertainment value and mainstream appeal.

You are, of course, entitled to think this metric is not valid. We would agree that it has some limitations, but it happens to be the least bad way of measuring success we know. We would certainly dispute that this approach is "totally invalid", and until someone suggests a better way we'll use this one.

The suggestion that Jackson's two albums outsold any other artist's total 1980s output seems unlikely, but the lack of trustworth sales figures is exactly why that metric should be avoided.

Your personal opinion that MJ was "clearly the most talented" artist is obviously wrong, but since that is just our opinion and there's no objective evidence either way discussing it would be pointless.

6 May 2015

Double Listing-Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'

#56 should be combined with #7 (under duets w/Akon).

Data fixed, thanks

30 Oct 2013

michael jackson

yes correct

3 Apr 2011

Michael Jackson

The reason I think Michaqel Jackson should be placed higher than number four for the 80s is these reasons:

- As mentioned, he won an unprecedented 8 grammy awards in one ceremony

- Despite the discredited 100 millions copies, whether it is 50 million or 100 million, it is still higher than any other album by a large margin.

- Furthermore, the album bad,is in some ways even more successful than thriller, generating 4 US number ones of one album, which was a record at the time. Furthermore, globally 9 out of the 10 original tracks were number one in one country or another.

- An arguemnt you presented was that he had no 'solo' hits in 1985. This is true. However I will argue that despite releasing less singles in the 80s than other artists, his ratio of successful singles to singles release is the highest. i.e. Prince made 6 studio albums in the 80s of which only 3 were number ones, and only one in the US/UK. Michael Jackson released 2 albums in that decade, both of which were number one and are in the list of best selling albums.

- Now i will list some artist you have labelled above Michael Jackson in the 80s and how many number one singles they achieved globally in the 80s; Prince 10 (out of 47), David Bowie 6 (out of 30), Rolling stones 3 (out of 22). Now Michael Jackson... 15 (out of 22). Feel free to challenge this information.

- I understand that Michael Jackson had a controversial private life but it often bothers me that people let this interfere with his musical success.

- If you consider many aspects of music to get your results, then I think its worth adding that Michael Jackson's Bad tour was the largest attending concert even, until that record was broken in 1993 and 1997, both by Michael Jackson again!

- Michael Jackson is also the artist to receive the most American music awards and is one of the highest awarded artists of all time and Guinness world records most successful artist of all time. Please reconsider... Thank You.

You have presented a reasoned argument with a number of interesting points. If we had a website that listed the "best" artists you're points would be valid. However on this website we use the number of entries in charts round the world as a measure of "success". We feel that this provides a measure that is more objective and less subject to individual biases (including especially our own biases).

Our goal on this page is to find ways to objectively measure how successfull each artist is. Considerations of individual award ceremonies or the success of individual albums in certain countries doesn't really cut it.

Just to clarify we don't list David Bowie or The Rolling Stones above Michael Jackson for the 1980s. In our 1980s list (based on the 1.08 data) the top four slots are 1: Prince, 2: Madonna, 3: U2, 4: Michael Jackson.

Your idea of masuring the proportion of all releases that became hits is an interesting one, we suspect that would work as an objective measure. We don't know how you'd gather a list of all songs released by every major artist in a selection of the countries of the world, but if you could do that we'd be interested to look at the results.

We have some sympathy with your claim that chart success is just one measure and, for example, live concert size might be an additional measure. However again we don't know where reliable figures can be obtained for a reasonable number of acts (we know lots of places where unreliable figures can be found for just a few acts).

So, we will continue to measure success by the number of hits in charts round the world, and by that measure Michael Jackson will continue to be below Prince for the 1980s.

10 Apr 2010

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was undeniably the biggest and most successful artist of the 80s! Why is he at #4?? His album Thriller sold 100 million copies and become the biggest selling album of all time! He also won 8 Grammy awards in a single night. Also he released Bad in '87 which was very successful. And I think he should have been mentioned in the 90s section. This is the most ridiculously stupid list I've ever seen. It was made by someone that knows nothing about this.

No, despite your outburst, by our metrics Michael Jackson was not the most successful artist of the 1980s. While he had some years of enormous success he failed to sustain it, for example he had no solo hits in 1985.

In our lists Michael Jackson is the 9th placed artist of the 1990s, we feel that qualifies as "being mentioned".

Thriller may have been the biggest selling album of all time, however quoting the widely discredited 100 million sales claim just confirms that are not being objective in your comments.

On this site actual facts are more important than mere opinion, and by that we mean anyone's opinion including our own.

The decade rankings were calculated with data from external sources that can be easily verified and the metrics used are clearly described. The calculation is automated and cannot be "adjusted" for any reason.

If you disagree with the result you either feel that the data is in some way invalid or that the metrics are unfairly emphasising particular acts. Tell us which data is wrong or which alternate metric should be used, then we'll take your comments seriously.

Saying this is the "most ridiculously stupid list I've ever seen" just makes you sound like a petulant teenager (except of course few modern teenagers are Michael Jackson fans)

24 Nov 2009

Michael Jackson

Am I seeing something wrong? I count 4 Jackson albums in your top 100. I don't see that many from any other artist, of course I just tabbed thru quickly.

You raise an interesting point. We feel that the "standard" list is too heavily dependant on the input charts that are available. There are about 4 times as many entries for the 1980s as there are for the 1960s, so more recent music is scored too highly.

So when contrasting acts and releases across the years we feel that it is better to compensate for this modern bias. The "real list" of top albums adjusts the scores to give what we feel is a better comparison across the years. In this list Michael Jackson has an entry at number 2, his next album is at number 47.

There are some good reasons for not adopting this approach for the standard lists. The way this adjustment is made works well for acts and releases that are at the top of the list. But it is not clear that it works so well for later, less widely supported, entries. In addition the simplicity of the standard score makes the standard list more transparent. Also it could be argued that the larger number of entries after 1980 reflect the fact that more people are interested in that era, hence music from then should be over emphasised.

In the standard list Michael Jackson does have four albums in the top 100, however The Beatles, Madonna and U2 all have six. If we were to believe that this list was a good measure of success then "REM" (with two entries) would have to rate better than The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Radiohead, Dire Straits and Guns & Roses (who all have just one). We suspect there are few people that would be prepared to argue for that view.

Of course you are free to disagree with our analysis, that is why we make the standard data available in CSV form. If you have a different way to summarise the data that illustrates an alternate view we would be interested to hear from you.

5 Sep 2009

Artist of 1980.

Michael Jackson should be the most successful artist of the 1980s having produced the most successful albums of all time. He also holds a record in the Guinness Book of World Records as The Most Successful of All Time.

First of all by any reasonable criteria Michael Jackson certainly didn't produce more than one album in the all time top 10, so the when you say "albums" you should rather use the word "album".

Secondly having the most successful album of an era is just one of the measures that are used here. Michael Jackson had 2 songs in the "1980s 100 songs" list, against Madonna's 5. He had 2 albums in the "1980s 100 albums" list, against Madonna's 3.

Finally even if we agreed that Michael Jackson's position in the "top artists of the 1980s" was too low we couldn't directly do anything about it within the rules of the website. The way that "success" is measured here is clearly defined and strictly follows a mechanical process, no-one gets to "adjust" the values later whatever their opinions. Even if one of the administrators wanted to boost his rating they couldn't, the best they could do would be to change the scoring mechanism. Prince, Madonna and U2 all had more number 1s in more countries than Michael Jackson in the 1980s, that is why they end up higher.