"I Want You Back" has surpassed 1 billion streams

Well the only 70s song in there sans Christmas stuff is Don't Stop Me Now by Queen
And Bohemian Rhapsody also by Queen.

But I'm not talking about the 70s only when I say it's not that impressive. There not even an MJ song in that ranking.

Now, is it accurate? Are there sites to see global statistics with having a Spotify account?
 
And Bohemian Rhapsody also by Queen.

But I'm not talking about the 70s only when I say it's not that impressive. There not even an MJ song in that ranking.

Now, is it accurate? Are there sites to see global statistics with having a Spotify account?
I mean, the article you posted lists some very specific records. On the "most streamed songs" list, it ends at one with 2 billion and something streams which I don't think a MJ song has reached yet.

But yes to your last question, but I don't know how
 
Like, ultimately sales figures for CDs don't actually matter. But streaming matters even less. It's just a meaningless number, is easily manipulated, etc. Not something to spend huge amounts of time on.

If you like a song, great. If you don't, that's your prerogative. But don't be the guy who likes a song just because somebody else streamed it a lot.
 
Is there any other song from the 70s with over 1 billion streams?
This might have something to do with it ... šŸ¤·šŸ½ā€ā™€ļø

"What a strange impression of pop’s history you would glean from the Billions Club. Madonna, for example, would exist only as the second featured artist on the Weeknd’s Popular; Stevie Wonder as no more than a Coolio sample; and Bob Dylan as simply the writer of an Adele hit. BeyoncĆ© and Jackson would appear less significant than the Swedish singer Zara Larsson; Radiohead and REM would mean less to the evolution of rock than MĆ„neskin, Italy’s winners of the 2021 Eurovision ...

The main reason for these weird numbers is that Spotify’s user base still skews relatively young, with more than three-quarters of the playlist released since the company’s US launch in 2011. After the Weeknd, the most dominant artists are Ariana Grande, Drake, Bad Bunny and Justin Bieber. The album with the most entries (seven) is Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour. The leading veterans are Coldplay and Eminem with 12 songs each, spanning more than 20 years. (No song released before 2011 has been streamed more than Coldplay’s Yellow.) Conversely, XXXTentacion, the Florida rapper who was killed in 2018 at the age of 20, released 10 billion-streamers in the space of 13 months. Appearances by Tones & I, Gotye, and Lilly Wood and the Prick prove that the one-hit wonder is alive and well."

 
I thought their 1st ever single was on Steeltown. ;)
It was. Released Jan 1968, iirc. They released two singles with Steeltown before they switched to Motown.

No offence to Fuz but I was a bit :( when I saw his post. That said, IWYB getting into the Billion Club is still awesome.
 
It was. Released Jan 1968, iirc. They released two singles with Steeltown before they switched to Motown.

Digression but, when I (re)checked some info about this... Well, I knew that there was a drummer named "Johnny Jackson" during the Steeltown era... but what I didn't realise before is that this Jackson guy, also born in Gary Indiana, actually played live with the J5 during the whole Motown era ( source: https://www.discogs.com/artist/802838-Johnny-Jackson-2 ).
 
And Bohemian Rhapsody also by Queen.

But I'm not talking about the 70s only when I say it's not that impressive. There not even an MJ song in that ranking.

Now, is it accurate? Are there sites to see global statistics with having a Spotify account?
But how silly it is to compare the streaming success of a song from the 1960s with todays streaming era hita.

I Want You Back is one of only 14 songs from the 60s to hit a billion streams - that seems pretty impressive to me for an act more associated with other decade(s).
 
But how silly it is to compare the streaming success of a song from the 1960s with todays streaming era hita.

I Want You Back is one of only 14 songs from the 60s to hit a billion streams - that seems pretty impressive to me for an act more associated with other decade(s).

Yeah, I agree. Stats that were based on records sales, and music from that era, should be given very different value compared to streaming statistics.
But, I did not find any data that would help with this comparison.

Well, right now, by searching "[some artist name] statistics spotify" I just found this site which seem interesting in that sense.
 
Stats by song on Spotify for MJ: https://kworb.net/spotify/artist/3fMbdgg4jU18AjLCKBhRSm_songs.html

In their list of 15000 artists, I can't find the Jackson Five nor the Jacksons.

Stats by listener count: https://kworb.net/spotify/listeners.html
Simply go and take a look at the most streamed songs of the 1960s and you will I Want You Back is one of only 14 songs to hit 1 billion streams.

I repeat….you are being very silly in looking to compare the Jackson 5 with todays artists for streaming.
 
i'll never understand the excitement over songs having a certain amount of streams.
It wont bring us any new material.
The weirdest thing is when fans create like mass-streaming-projects just to raise the stream-number of songs.. why?
 
I repeat….you are being very silly in looking to compare the Jackson 5 with todays artists for streaming.

Who said I want to do this? I think this all excitement on numbers is biased from the start. You sound like a troll.
 
Yeah, I agree. Stats that were based on records sales, and music from that era, should be given very different value compared to streaming statistics.
But, I did not find any data that would help with this comparison.
They're not the same sort of data.

Somebody paying money to buy a record is something very different to somebody accidentally hearing a song because a label executive paid to have it forced into a playlist.

It makes absolutely no sense to compare them.

People stopped buying music. Charts are dead. There is no modern equivalent. Let's move on.

i'll never understand the excitement over songs having a certain amount of streams.
It wont bring us any new material.
The weirdest thing is when fans create like mass-streaming-projects just to raise the stream-number of songs.. why?
It's really stupid. It all means nothing. You don't get a cut of the royalties, so you have no reason to care about such corporate nonsense.
 
They're not the same sort of data.

Somebody paying money to buy a record is something very different to somebody accidentally hearing a song because a label executive paid to have it forced into a playlist.

It makes absolutely no sense to compare them.

People stopped buying music. Charts are dead. There is no modern equivalent. Let's move on.


It's really stupid. It all means nothing. You don't get a cut of the royalties, so you have no reason to care about such corporate nonsense.

And it's also fake.. to push the views/plays of videos/songs on purpose is not the same as it was with the sells back in the old days.
 
Who said I want to do this? I think this all excitement on numbers is biased from the start. You sound like a troll.

Well, you said that I Want You Back hitting 1 billion streams was not that impressive….and then tried to back up this silly claim by linking to a list and rankings featuring the artists of today.

It was very silly to claim that IWYB hitting 1 billion streams was ā€œnot that impressiveā€ when it is one of only 14 songs from the 1960s to do so.

It was then very willy of you to try and support your claim by linking to lists and rankings made up of today’s artist i stead of list from the 1960 tracks.

I am not a troll. But you are certainly an odd one.
 
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I guess we need to accept that the young generation grew up fighting over who has more likes/views/plays... So for them it's really something when some MJ song hits a billion views xD
 
Well, you said that I Want You Back hitting 1 billion streams was not that impressive….and then tried to back up this silly claim by linking to a list and rankings featuring the artists of today.

It was very silly to claim that IWYB hitting 1 billion streams was ā€œnot that impressiveā€ when it is one of only 14 songs from the 1960s to do so.

It was then very willy of you to try and support your claim by linking to lists and rankings made up of today’s artist i stead of list from the 1960 tracks.

I just shared some link I found were somewhat relevant. Actually, I was hoping someone would come up with "better link" (and also, I didn't take any time fine-tuning nuances and pre-emptively discarding possible misinterpretation of what I wrote). I'm not that interested in the topic so there's a huge gap between what I could find and what we could imagine.

I still think that having only a few MJ songs reaching the billion is unimpressive in regards to his "popularity". And the fact that it's always the same songs that get a lot of visibility (more or less joining what Kai said). For adult-MJ, it's typically Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, Thriller, Beat It (...).... for the Motown era typically I Want You Back and I'll be There and sometimes The Love You Save (and lately some of the Christmas stuff)...
But I think J5 benefit from extra popularity thanks to MJ's later career.
So, I may still think it's not that impressive.

I'm not sure about that "14", I'm sure it may be more.

I am not a troll. But you are certainly an odd one.
You may not be a troll and sound like a troll at some point, that's fine too.
 
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I think it's stupid to start counting Spotify, YouTube, &, etc numbers from 60-70-year-old songs. No, telling how many numbers it would've had in '69 til today & hell of Michael's alone it would've been intense. It's a lot of fans who have passed on as well. Think about all his world tours & if they had social media way back when & after people were leaving the show how much he would stream. So this is by far just dumb to me to recount something that has been worldwide massive because of new tech.
 
I still think that having only a few MJ songs reaching the billion is unimpressive in regards to his "popularity".
It is very impressive when someone has sold as many albums as Michael did, because all those people who already own those albums and have been listening to them for 20-30-40-50 years are unlikely to stream them, even though they love them. So the fact that there are still that many people who want to stream his songs IN ADDITION to the people who bought his albums back in the day and are still listening to them outside streaming services, that is very impressive.
 
I guess we need to accept that the young generation grew up fighting over who has more likes/views/plays... So for them it's really something when some MJ song hits a billion views xD
Not just the younger generation, lol. I also like it! Sure, the whole streaming thing seems kinda weird and artificial to me and doesn't make much sense compared to physical media (which I grew up with). Otoh, I do love it when a Michael song does well in the digital age. It was brilliant when, two years ago, HCW and Chicago blew up on Tik Tok. They just came out of nowhere and the trending did have an effect on streaming figures. Which was fab, imo! :D

It is very impressive when someone has sold as many albums as Michael did, because all those people who already own those albums and have been listening to them for 20-30-40-50 years are unlikely to stream them, even though they love them. So the fact that there are still that many people who want to stream his songs IN ADDITION to the people who bought his albums back in the day and are still listening to them outside streaming services, that is very impressive.
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because all those people who already own those albums and have been listening to them for 20-30-40-50 years are unlikely to stream them
Good point. Though I tend to picture those people who "own" music on physical media are less likely to stream anything at all (or maybe I'm generalising my own habit to mostly "ignore" streaming).
 
Good point. Though I tend to picture those people who "own" music on physical media are less likely to stream anything at all (or maybe I'm generalising my own habit to mostly "ignore" streaming).
Some people who had records/tapes/CDs/DVDs etc. got rid of it for streaming (and even going back to IPODs) or satellite radio. Many newer PCs & laptops don't have a disc drive and they don't put CD or cassette players in cars as a default anymore. Best Buy does not carry DVDs/Blu-ray & CDs in their stores now. They do have a few record LPs, but they're expensive. I also don't see as many Redbox machines now. Also most of the stuff made for Netflix is not released on physical media.

A song going viral on TikTok can chart high. That's what happened to the old Fleetwood Mac album Rumours and the song Dreams from it.
 
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