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The Michael Jackson Chart Watch

travis3000 said:
With regards to MJ's RIAA certifications for singles, the MJ estate is still behind. They have started to catch up in the last couple years but there's still WAY more work to do.

As of today MJ has been certified for 68.5 million singles sold in the USA. He is the 22nd most successful artist in this regard, and the top selling musical act of the 20th century.

I have went and done some deep research on what still needs to be certified. There are 9 songs that still need to be certified (Scream, Heal The World, Leave Me Alone, Who Is It, Give Into Me, Jam, Ghosts, Speed Demon, Slave To The Rhythm). All of these songs are currently Platinum or Gold, for a total of 7 million units sold. None have been certified yet.

In addition to the songs listed above, there are another 12 songs that are currently under certified. Some by huge amounts. There are 31 million missing sales from these 12 songs. The top 7 are:

Smooth Criminal (8X Platinum)
They Don't Care About Us (8X Platinum)
Man In The Mirror (5X Platinum)
Love Never Felt So Good (4X Platinum)
Bad (4X Platinum)
The Way You Make Me Feel (4X Platinum)
You Are Not Alone (3X Platinum)

If the estate were to invest the time, they could add an additional 38-39 million single certifications to MJ's total taking him to around 107 million. This would take Michael Jackson from #22 to #9 (ahead of The Weeknd, Post Malone, Bruno Mars, Lil Wayne, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga).

To put into perspective, there is not a single act from the 20th century in the Top 25. Singles just didn't sell back then. The fact that MJ is competing and actually beating the majority of modern artists with single sales is simply mouth dropping. Try to encourage the estate to finish his certifications.
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Wow!!! This is completely brilliant. Thank you for sharing this. God, it's so frustrating to know this and to not have the estate jumping at the chance. This is truly unbelievable.
 
travis3000 said:
With regards to MJ's RIAA certifications for singles, the MJ estate is still behind. They have started to catch up in the last couple years but there's still WAY more work to do.

As of today MJ has been certified for 68.5 million singles sold in the USA. He is the 22nd most successful artist in this regard, and the top selling musical act of the 20th century.

I have went and done some deep research on what still needs to be certified. There are 9 songs that still need to be certified (Scream, Heal The World, Leave Me Alone, Who Is It, Give Into Me, Jam, Ghosts, Speed Demon, Slave To The Rhythm). All of these songs are currently Platinum or Gold, for a total of 7 million units sold. None have been certified yet.

In addition to the songs listed above, there are another 12 songs that are currently under certified. Some by huge amounts. There are 31 million missing sales from these 12 songs. The top 7 are:

Smooth Criminal (8X Platinum)
They Don't Care About Us (8X Platinum)
Man In The Mirror (5X Platinum)
Love Never Felt So Good (4X Platinum)
Bad (4X Platinum)
The Way You Make Me Feel (4X Platinum)
You Are Not Alone (3X Platinum)

If the estate were to invest the time, they could add an additional 38-39 million single certifications to MJ's total taking him to around 107 million. This would take Michael Jackson from #22 to #9 (ahead of The Weeknd, Post Malone, Bruno Mars, Lil Wayne, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga).

To put into perspective, there is not a single act from the 20th century in the Top 25. Singles just didn't sell back then. The fact that MJ is competing and actually beating the majority of modern artists with single sales is simply mouth dropping. Try to encourage the estate to finish his certifications.
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Michael was massively under certified for many years and still is. He didn’t have his first multi platinum song until 2013, I believe.

In addition to the songs that you mentioned, I believe that the following should also receive a certification or an updated certification.

- Early Motown solo songs like Ben, Got To Be There, Rocking Robin. All top ten hits but not a single certification. They should all be platinum or gold, at least.

- I Just Can’t Stop Loving You. It was certified gold back in September 1987. Surely, it should be platinum by now.

- Another Part of Me. This song wasn’t a mega hit in the USA, but it still peaked at #11, so one would expect it be gold certified, at least.

- Jam, Heal The World and In The Closet should all be gold certified as well. They don’t have a single certification.
 
I am always in awe at how knowledgable people on this forum are!

Nite Line said:
- Early Motown solo songs like Ben, Got To Be There, Rocking Robin. All top ten hits but not a single certification. They should all be platinum or gold, at least.

- I Just Can’t Stop Loving You. It was certified gold back in September 1987. Surely, it should be platinum by now.
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These songs haven't been recertified?! I don't understand. I'm surprised Michael didn't do it, but I really don't get why the doesn't.

Nite Line said:
- Another Part of Me. This song wasn’t a mega hit in the USA, but it still peaked at #11, so one would expect it be gold certified, at least.
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I will truly never understand what makes some songs mega hits while others aren't. Another Part of Me was my first "favorite" Michael song since becoming a fan in January. It is still one of my absolute favorites. It is SUCH an awesome song! The world needs to appreciate lol.
 
Nite Line said:
Michael was massively under certified for many years and still is. He didn’t have his first multi platinum song until 2013, I believe.

In addition to the songs that you mentioned, I believe that the following should also receive a certification or an updated certification.

- Early Motown solo songs like Ben, Got To Be There, Rocking Robin. All top ten hits but not a single certification. They should all be platinum or gold, at least.

- I Just Can’t Stop Loving You. It was certified gold back in September 1987. Surely, it should be platinum by now.

- Another Part of Me. This song wasn’t a mega hit in the USA, but it still peaked at #11, so one would expect it be gold certified, at least.

- Jam, Heal The World and In The Closet should all be gold certified as well. They don’t have a single certification.
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Yes I Just Can't Stop Loving You was part of the 12 I mentioned. I only listed the 7 most under certified, but there are 5 more including IJCSLY (Platinum), Earth Song (2X Platinum), In The Closet (Platinum), You Rock My World (2X Platinum), and Hold My Hand (Platinum).

Who would have thought that at the time of release the most successful song from the HIStory album would end up being They Don't Care About Us. And it's not even close. It's 8X platinum (its currently certified as GOLD). So updating that track alone would give MJ another 7.5 million sales.

The most successful song from BAD album is actually Smooth Criminal at 8X Platinum. Its currently rated 2X Platinum. Update that and you have 6 million new sales. That's 13.5 million new sales from just two songs if the estate would get off their asses and get to work!
 
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staywild23 said:
I will truly never understand what makes some songs mega hits while others aren't. Another Part of Me was my first "favorite" Michael song since becoming a fan in January. It is still one of my absolute favorites. It is SUCH an awesome song! The world needs to appreciate lol.
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6th single plus no real video is probably a major reason. Smooth Criminal was the 7th single but had a spectacular video so it got higher peaking at nr 7. In the end chart runs don’t really matter much as Smooth Criminal is comfortably one of pop histories most recognizable songs 44 years after its initial chart run ended.

APOM did very well considering those limitations. It was nr 1 in the black/urban charts and it reached top 10 in several countries like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland. Besides peaking at nr 11 or 10 does not make a whole lot of difference does it? It probably still sold over 500 000 copies to go that high making it eligible for a gold record.

Unlike Smooth Criminal though it is a forgotten song with virtually no airplay left but I expect the lack of a video clip to be responsible for that.

In the end I think it is the most fun song on Bad
 
Nite Line said:
In addition to the songs that you mentioned, I believe that the following should also receive a certification or an updated certification.

- Early Motown solo songs like Ben, Got To Be There, Rocking Robin. All top ten hits but not a single certification. They should all be platinum or gold, at least.
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I thought the problem was that Motown doesn't submit songs for certification. Don't they do their own version or something? It's definitely frustrating.
 
travis3000 said:
Who would have thought that at the time of release the most successful song from the HIStory album would end up being They Don't Care About Us. And it's not even close. It's 8X platinum (its currently certified as GOLD). So updating that track alone would give MJ another 7.5 million sales.
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It might have underperformed badly in the US but it was absolutely massive in the rest of Europe. It sold a million copies in Germany alone and stayed in the chart for a massive 30 weeks! It charted in the top 5 all over Europe while having really long chart runs too (over 20 weeks) these are really huge results in the old singles market, its chart run was longer than the likes of billie jean and beat it for example. It held the nr 2 spot on the European hot 100 for weeks behind Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise which was one of those one of super hits, so that was just bad luck.

That sequence of YANA, ES and TDCAU was immense, those 3 hits were as big as anything he released in the 80s.
 
filmandmusic said:
It might have underperformed badly in the US but it was absolutely massive in the rest of Europe. It sold a million copies in Germany alone and stayed in the chart for a massive 30 weeks! It charted in the top 5 all over Europe while having really long chart runs too (over 20 weeks) these are really huge results in the old singles market, its chart run was longer than the likes of billie jean and beat it for example. It held the nr 2 spot on the European hot 100 for weeks behind Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise which was one of those one of super hits, so that was just bad luck.

That sequence of YANA, ES and TDCAU was immense, those 3 hits were as big as anything he released in the 80s.
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All true yes. But the stats I gave have nothing to do with Europe or international markets. These are US stats. To put in perspective in the USA , They Don't Care About Us is just as popular as Beat It. That's insane.
 
filmandmusic said:
6th single plus no real video is probably a major reason. Smooth Criminal was the 7th single but had a spectacular video so it got higher peaking at nr 7. In the end chart runs don’t really matter much as Smooth Criminal is comfortably one of pop histories most recognizable songs 44 years after its initial chart run ended.

APOM did very well considering those limitations. It was nr 1 in the black/urban charts and it reached top 10 in several countries like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland. Besides peaking at nr 11 or 10 does not make a whole lot of difference does it? It probably still sold over 500 000 copies to go that high making it eligible for a gold record.

Unlike Smooth Criminal though it is a forgotten song with virtually no airplay left but I expect the lack of a video clip to be responsible for that.

In the end I think it is the most fun song on Bad
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Here I was just spewing my pure emotion and love for APOM and whining about it not being more popular and you come back with this reasonable explanation based in actual facts about what makes a song popular! How dare you lol. Great point about the lack of real video (though I'm in love with the video, I get completely what you mean). I suppose it's not a problem that this is a "forgotten" song (😭) because ultimately so many songs from Bad are remembered and APOM will find its way into people's hearts in one way or another.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Mega. In the UK, ES went to No.1 - stayed there for 6 weeks. So did YANA - 2 weeks, IIRC. TDCAU peaked at No.4.
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These were the runs in Germany and France (the biggest selling markets after UK in Europe)

Germany: YANA nr 4: ES nr 1, TDCA nr 1
France: YANA nr 1, ES nr 2, TDCAU nr 4
European Hot 100: YANA nr 1, ES nr 1, TDCAU nr 2

Stranger In Moscow the final single performed disappointingly nr 18 in France and nr 21 in Germany but thanks to the nr 4 in the UK and nr 1 in both Italy and Spain it still managed to hit nr 6 in the European hot 100.
I point this out so you can see that Germany, France and the UK outweigh Italy and Spain in the overall European chart.
Overall all 5 singles were very successful.

The European hot 100 was a sort of culmination of charts from most EU countries.
 
filmandmusic said:
These were the runs in Germany and France (the biggest selling markets after UK in Europe)

Germany: YANA nr 4: ES nr 1, TDCA nr 1
France: YANA nr 1, ES nr 2, TDCAU nr 4
European Hot 100: YANA nr 1, ES nr 1, TDCAU nr 2
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Love these stats. 🙂

filmandmusic said:
Stranger In Moscow the final single performed disappointingly nr 18 in France and nr 21 in Germany but thanks to the nr 4 in the UK and nr 1 in both Italy and Spain it still managed to hit nr 6 in the European hot 100.
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No.4 in the UK was great but I wish it had gone higher. Still, Top 5 is fine. Not complaining.

filmandmusic said:
I point this out so you can see that Germany, France and the UK outweigh Italy and Spain in the overall European chart.
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It was ever thus. I guess bc of the cultural dominance of the English language? Lots of English speakers in France and Germany.

filmandmusic said:
Overall all 5 singles were very successful.
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So cool.

filmandmusic said:
The European hot 100 was a sort of culmination of charts from most EU countries.
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I have vague memories of this. 1980's?
 
zinniabooklover said:
It was ever thus. I guess bc of the cultural dominance of the English language? Lots of English speakers in France and Germany.
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No it was weighted in terms of actual sales numbers. There were a lot more music sales in Germany, France and the UK than in Italy or Spain. So a nr 1 in the UK weighted more than a nr 1 in Italy. Since SIM underperformed in France and Germany it only reached nr 6 in Europe and not top 2 like the former singles of HIStory. Nr 6 is still a big success of course.

There are almost no English speakers in either Germany or France! Maybe it has changed the last decade but in the past you wouldn’t go far speaking English in those countries lol. It is even worse in Spain, Portugal and Italy. Those charts are often dominated by local artists but MJ did well in all those regions by default lol
zinniabooklover said:
I have vague memories of this. 1980's?
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I believe the chart started somewhere in 1978 but it is discontinued now which is why I keep referring to it in the past tense. I’d have to look it up but I believe Madonna had most nr 1’s with at least 15 and MJ as runner up with 11 or 12.

I think the billboard magazine in the US still has a European chart but I don’t know what it is based on.
 
filmandmusic said:
No it was weighted in terms of actual sales numbers. There were a lot more music sales in Germany, France and the UK than in Italy or Spain. So a nr 1 in the UK weighted more than a nr 1 in Italy.
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Interesting.

filmandmusic said:
There are almost no English speakers in either Germany or France! Maybe it has changed the last decade but in the past you wouldn’t go far speaking English in those countries lol.
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Must have changed a lot. When I was in France as a teenager we couldn't practise our French language skills - we didn't really have any but, whatever, lol. Every freakin' person we spoke to had excellent English language skills. And I do mean everyone! It was a right pain, lol. I could read Madame Bovary perfectly in French. But conversation? Not so much. :ROFLMAO:
 
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staywild23 said:
These songs haven't been recertified?! I don't understand. I'm surprised Michael didn't do it, but I really don't get why the doesn't.
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Motown don't usually tend to pay money to the RIAA to certify their music. They have their own awards.

staywild23 said:
I will truly never understand what makes some songs mega hits while others aren't. Another Part of Me was my first "favorite" Michael song since becoming a fan in January. It is still one of my absolute favorites. It is SUCH an awesome song! The world needs to appreciate lol.
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APOM is one of my favourites too, especially the live version. APOM didn't become a mega hit, because it was a 6th single and had no music video for promotion. But I wish it was more popular today.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Mega. In the UK, ES went to No.1 - stayed there for 6 weeks. So did YANA - 2 weeks, IIRC. TDCAU peaked at No.4.
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Yes, that is correct. Because of Motown, Michael's early solo work and pretty much the whole Jackson 5 discography is massively undercertified.
 
travis3000 said:
Who would have thought that at the time of release the most successful song from the HIStory album would end up being They Don't Care About Us. And it's not even close. It's 8X platinum (its currently certified as GOLD). So updating that track alone would give MJ another 7.5 million sales.

The most successful song from BAD album is actually Smooth Criminal at 8X Platinum. Its currently rated 2X Platinum. Update that and you have 6 million new sales. That's 13.5 million new sales from just two songs if the estate would get off their asses and get to work!
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Yes, nobody could have thought that the most successful songs from Bad and History would end up being Smooth Criminal and They Don't Care About Us. SC was a top ten hit but it wasn't one of the five number 1 hits from the Bad album. They Don't Care About Us only peaked at #30 in the USA because of the controversary surrounding the lyrics.

This shows that just because a song hit number 1, it doesn't mean that it will endure long term popularity and success. So, number 1 hits aren't everything.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Must have changed a lot. When I was in France as a teenager we couldn't practise our French language skills - we didn't really have any but, whatever, lol. Every freakin' person we spoke to had excellent English language skills. And I do mean everyone! It was a right pain, lol. I could read Madame Bovary perfectly in French. But conversation? Not so much. :ROFLMAO:
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Or I am completely wrong and all Frenchmen are fluent in English
 
Of course it's easy to see why They Don't Care About Us ended up becoming HIStory's most well-known song in recent years, but it's also somewhat interesting because while I did see it on MTV a few times back when I was very little (don't remember which version, but TBH it was probably the Brazil one), it never really got much radio airplay in my country, as far as I can remember (maybe I'm remembering wrong, or I simply missed it somehow). It wasn't until I saw clips from the This Is It rehearsals on TV back in 2009 that I finally heard the song again after all these years. "Oh my goodness, that song! I remember it now! Goodness, how long has it been?!" Was quite a blast from the past, lol. Either way I'm happy it's been getting the love it deserves, since I really liked it as a little kid (had no idea what the lyrics were about because no English skills yet, but hey) and it's still one of my favorite songs off of HIStory now.
 
Nite Line said:
Yes, that is correct. Because of Motown, Michael's early solo work and pretty much the whole Jackson 5 discography is massively undercertified.
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There were rumours once that the reason Motown did this was to keep the official sales numbers low so they didn't have to pay the acts as many money. - Don't know if it's true. But that would be very sad if the sales figures are too low because the companies wanted to earn more money for themselves.
 
Nite Line said:
Motown are notorious for not asking their albums and singles to be certified. A lot of Michael and Jackson 5 stuff is undercertified. I want you Back is only certified platinum, all the way back in 1997.
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zinniabooklover said:
Probably a pointless question but does anyone know why? It seems weird. Do labels have to pay for the certification? They had so many successful acts, it seems weird not to go for this.
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katara said:
Apparently they don't report their sales to the RIAA at all. Thats why walter yetnickof (sorry for the spelling) said in the OTW doc he didn't know how many records they sold and didn't want to sign them ... I am pretty sure labels have to pay to be certified by them. Some pay to be overcertified also but :sneaky::sneaky::sneaky:
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katara said:
Motown didn’t allow the recording industry association to look at their books to certify the recordings. I think their official story was that they didn’t want to pay the fees involved; it may also have been that they didn’t want anyone looking at their financial information, and perhaps they didn’t want their artists and songwriters to know exactly how much their work was selling. Either way, it was all about the money. Motown instead would create their own awards, which they would give to the artists and such but which didn’t have RIAA certification."
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I totally get that the music industry is all about business and making money - that's fine - but this whole thing re certification is so frustrating. 🙁
 
A couple of months ago MJ ranked between 90 and 110 in the spotify monthly listeners charts. Now it is top 70. It’s good but I’m not sure how much of this gain comes from the musical. If it is because of the musical then I am very curious to see how much he will rise after T40 hits.

There really should be a single release at this point, get him on the radio!
 
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