Drake featuring Michael Jackson (TONIGHT)

[Annita]

. [Now thats what I call music - UKs biggest compilation of the year's songs had MJ on once when he was alive]

And now? Is he on a new compilation ?

 

[DuranDuran]

Billboard Hot 100

I confess I don't know "the rules" for releasing singles, but I would think that an artist (e.g. Drake) would prefer to release a single that is just himself alone, rather than himself plus a featured artist. It's possible that "Don't Matter to Me" was used to kick start interest in the album and get people talking about it, as a prelude to releasing a single that is more in keeping with Drake's usual genre/style.

I doubt Drake needs much help in that. Currently he has 186 songs that has hit the Hot 100. Lil Wayne has 138. The older acts with the most are Elvis Presley with 108, James Brown with 91, & Ray Charles with 75. Nicki Minaj has 92, 1 more than James. She'll probably pass up Elvis in a little while and already passed up Aretha Franklin, the female artist that was first place. Aretha has 73 Hot 100 hits. Drake has 7 Top 10 songs for the week of July 14, 2018, which according to this article, just broke The Beatles record of 5 songs in the Top 10 at 1 time which happened in 1964. Here is the current Top 10 for the Hot 100.

1 Drake - Nice For What
2 Drake - Nonstop
3 Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin - I Like It
4 Drake - God's Plan
5 Maroon 5 Featuring Cardi B - Girls Like You
6 Drake - In My Feelings
7 Drake - I'm Upset
8 Drake - Emotionless
9 Drake feat. Michael Jackson - Don't Matter To Me
10 XXXTENTACION - Sad!

As far as features charting, in the USA, that has been happening since the late 1980s when singers started doing collabos with rappers. It really blew up in the 1990s. Many of Mariah Carey's hits were with rap features, starting with the Fantasy remix with ODB. It's probably hard to find a current mainstream popular hip hop album that is only the artist by themselves.

 

[Nite Line]

Re: Billboard Hot 100

I doubt Drake needs much help in that. Currently he has 186 songs that has hit the Hot 100. Lil Wayne has 138. The older acts with the most are Elvis Presley with 108, James Brown with 91, & Ray Charles with 75. Nicki Minaj has 92, 1 more than James. She'll probably pass up Elvis in a little while and already passed up Aretha Franklin, the female artist that was first place. Aretha has 73 Hot 100 hits. Drake has 7 Top 10 songs for the week of July 14, 2018, which according to this article, just broke The Beatles record of 5 songs in the Top 10 at 1 time which happened in 1964. Here is the current Top 10 for the Hot 100.

1 Drake - Nice For What
2 Drake - Nonstop
3 Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin - I Like It
4 Drake - God's Plan
5 Maroon 5 Featuring Cardi B - Girls Like You
6 Drake - In My Feelings
7 Drake - I'm Upset
8 Drake - Emotionless
9 Drake feat. Michael Jackson - Don't Matter To Me
10 XXXTENTACION - Sad!

As far as features charting, in the USA, that has been happening since the late 1980s when singers started doing collabos with rappers. It really blew up in the 1990s. Many of Mariah Carey's hits were with rap features, starting with the Fantasy remix with ODB. It's probably hard to find a current mainstream popular hip hop album that is only the artist by themselves.

And that shows what a joke singles chart is. Drake had 7 top 10 hits from his album already and has already surpassed Michael, because of streaming which allows non-singles to also chart. In Michael's era, only songs that were officially released as singles were able to chart. So getting 7 top 10 hits from an album back then was a big deal. Heck, even getting 4 top 10 hits from an album was a big deal. Now, not so much. Imagine if Thriller, Bad, Dangerous etc were released today, Michael would have all the songs from those albums in the top 10 and top 20. Single charts are a joke nowadays.

 

[dam2040]

And now? Is he on a new compilation ?

The Estate have allowed some of Michael's music to be included in these, yes.

 

[Sephiroth820]

Theyre shouldn't count pre digital singles/streaming/YouTube era with today songa

Its sad that Drake and Nicki Minaj surpass legends like MJ or Elvis...

 

[Nite Line]

Theyre shouldn't count pre digital singles/streaming/YouTube era with today songa

Its sad that Drake and Nicki Minaj surpass legends like MJ or Elvis...

Or they shouldn't allow songs that aren't officially released as singles to appear on the charts.

 

[DuranDuran]

Re: Billboard Hot 100

And that shows what a joke singles chart is. Drake had 7 top 10 hits from his album already and has already surpassed Michael, because of streaming which allows non-singles to also chart. In Michael's era, only songs that were officially released as singles were able to chart. So getting 7 top 10 hits from an album back then was a big deal. Heck, even getting 4 top 10 hits from an album was a big deal. Now, not so much. Imagine if Thriller, Bad, Dangerous etc were released today, Michael would have all the songs from those albums in the top 10 and top 20. Single charts are a joke nowadays.

Also, these modern acts like Drake, Nicki Minaj, & Lil Wayne got a lot of hits by being featured on someone else's songs. It's not their own tracks or even a duet. It would be the equivalent of Eddie Van Halen being officially credited as a featured artist on Beat It, or Mike on Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me. They weren't, so those songs aren't considered their hits. A feature can be different than a duet, in that the featured artist might only have a few lines in a song. A feature can be a duet in some cases though or they can be the main singer on a song, like Uptown Funk is credited Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars. Mark produces and/or plays instruments on his songs, and his albums are similar to the ones Quincy Jones used to release under his own name in the 1970s & 1980s, which were songs with other artists on them.

 

[serendipity]

I confess I don't know "the rules" for releasing singles, but I would think that an artist (e.g. Drake) would prefer to release a single that is just himself alone, rather than himself plus a featured artist. It's possible that "Don't Matter to Me" was used to kick start interest in the album and get people talking about it, as a prelude to releasing a single that is more in keeping with Drake's usual genre/style.

Drake already had 2 singles released from this album (both went to #1), so this will be his 3rd single. They were clearly planning on releasing the MJ song, but that viral dance happened and the other song surged on the charts, so they logically decided to postpone the MJ release and let this other song peak and go out of the way, rather than release the MJ song and the other single somehow block it. It was a smart move. I'm sure they will push the MJ song after this one fades from the charts.

 

[Doggone]

The digital era changed so much things in the way how the charts are set up. I am 1000% dure that if Michael was still alive and he would drop a new album after a long time, a lot of songs would be in the top 10 as well. Michael is a legend. His style, image, artistry and music don’t age. A lot of people would be hyped up and they would stream the shit out of the album. These nowadays artist have the luck that they are in the digital era and they are able to promote themselves and their albums, which results into higher positions in the charts and new records.

 

[ChrisC]

Re: Billboard Hot 100

And that shows what a joke singles chart is. Drake had 7 top 10 hits from his album already and has already surpassed Michael, because of streaming which allows non-singles to also chart. In Michael's era, only songs that were officially released as singles were able to chart. So getting 7 top 10 hits from an album back then was a big deal. Heck, even getting 4 top 10 hits from an album was a big deal. Now, not so much. Imagine if Thriller, Bad, Dangerous etc were released today, Michael would have all the songs from those albums in the top 10 and top 20. Single charts are a joke nowadays.

Absolutely, and it shouldn't be called or considered a singles chart. Nor should the achievements of this new chart be compared with the achievements of the old one. The conditions of both comparisons should be equal or very similar to be considered valid.

 

[ChrisC]

The Estate have allowed some of Michael's music to be included in these, yes.

Michael's songs feature on considerably more compilations now. The Estate have seen it as a revenue stream and a good way to advertise Michael - I probably wouldn't disagree. Also licensing his music for television and film is far more common now.

I think Michael exercised so much control over that side of things because he wanted people to buy his albums - which he didn't release a lot of post-Thriller.

 

[dam2040]

Michael's songs feature on considerably more compilations now. The Estate have seen it as a revenue stream and a good way to advertise Michael - I probably wouldn't disagree. Also licensing his music for television and film is far more common now.

I think Michael exercised so much control over that side of things because he wanted people to buy his albums - which he didn't release a lot of post-Thriller.

Michael's music felt so much more important to me because of this. He wasn't your run of the mill pop star and made a lot of smart decisions to the point he is genuinely considered levels ahead of everyone else. [Obviously he is talent wise]

 

[MJ5]

The digital era changed so much things in the way how the charts are set up. I am 1000% dure that if Michael was still alive and he would drop a new album after a long time, a lot of songs would be in the top 10 as well. Michael is a legend. His style, image, artistry and music don’t age. A lot of people would be hyped up and they would stream the shit out of the album. These nowadays artist have the luck that they are in the digital era and they are able to promote themselves and their albums, which results into higher positions in the charts and new records.

Nice thinking. I wouldn't be too sure about it though, that Michael would have more streams being alive compared to amount of streams being dead. We will never know, but it is fact that Michael's popularity increasaed positively again AFTER he died - a sad fact.

Regarding Don't Matter, I hope Drake decides to release the song as a single in a few weeks. Maybe a strategy is to wait until early August, so it will peak in the charts again in Mid-August and might stay there throughout Michael's birthday week. (End of Aug)

 

[ChrisC]

Michael's music felt so much more important to me because of this. He wasn't your run of the mill pop star and made a lot of smart decisions to the point he is genuinely considered levels ahead of everyone else. [Obviously he is talent wise]

Isn't it a little bit of snobbery though? While I agree, and I saw the point of it while he was around, I see no reason not to open it up as a revenue stream now. And in the process open up Michael to many more people hopefully.

 

[AmitLal92]

2nd week in and Don't Matter To Me is at No.5 in the UK charts down 3 places. Still doing well here.

 

[DuranDuran]

Regarding Don't Matter, I hope Drake decides to release the song as a single in a few weeks. Maybe a strategy is to wait until early August, so it will peak in the charts again in Mid-August and might stay there throughout Michael's birthday week. (End of Aug)

It's already #9 on the Hot 100 in Billboard & #8 on the R&B/Hip Hop chart, it's not likely to re-enter the Top 10 later. Most people who are going to buy it as a download or streaming it are doing so now. Today releasing a song as a single just means it'll get radio airplay on Top 40 or another format like R&B, country, adult contemporary, etc. Few songs are released as a physical single, so trying to compare how the average person gets music today to how people did in the past doesn't really work. Even radio is different, more segregated now. Some people don't listen to regular free radio, but maybe subscription radio stations. There's a reason streaming is used in chart criteria, because that is how a lot of people listen to music now. But in a way, it doesn't tell if people are clicking on a video on Youtube because they like it or to leave troll comments, like with Justin Bieber or somebody. So in that way haters help to make songs popular too. With radio, if a song comes on that a person doesn't like, they can change the station.

 

[KOPV]

I think people don't really need to pay this close attention to the chart right now.. sometimes without real promotion it takes time for people hear about things like this. We only know about it (for the most part) because we are super MJ fans. It barely was mentioned on Wendy Williams (just for example) today as 'news'!

Mike is going to get overshadowed for a minute by the dance craze coming from Drakes song 'in my feelings'

 

[AtlasAir]

Theyre shouldn't count pre digital singles/streaming/YouTube era with today songa

Its sad that Drake and Nicki Minaj surpass legends like MJ or Elvis...

Times changed. People don't consume media they way they used to, so they HAD to change the way they monitor this stuff.

Radio and TV isn't the be all/end all anymore (for better or worse).

Also, people like Drake put out more material in a shorter period of time, thats why it seems they have more hits and stuff. People like Michael would take breaks between eras.

 

[DuranDuran]

Also, people like Drake put out more material in a shorter period of time, thats why it seems they have more hits and stuff. People like Michael would take breaks between eras.

After a certain point that is true, but from the 1968 Steeltown stuff to 1984, with the J5/Jacksons, there was stuff constantly coming out. Some of it wasn't successful like the later Motown albums & Goin' Places. Also during Elvis & James Brown day in the 1950s & 1960s, the average act was releasing 2 or 3 albums each year, and in some cases non-album singles in addition to that. It was in the 1970s when labels started milking albums for a longer period of time and the blockbuster selling albums really began like Pink Floyd, Eagles, & Fleetwood Mac. Even in the 1980s a lot of acts released an album every year. Mike could take a break later in his career because he was wealthy enough to do so, that's not the case with most acts. They can't do a Sade and release an album every 10 years, lol.

 

[ShipOfFools]

After a certain point that is true, but from the 1968 Steeltown stuff to 1984, with the J5/Jacksons, there was stuff constantly coming out. Some of it wasn't successful like the later Motown albums & Goin' Places. Also during Elvis & James Brown day in the 1950s & 1960s, the average act was releasing 2 or 3 albums each year, and in some cases non-album singles in addition to that. It was in the 1970s when labels started milking albums for a longer period of time and the blockbuster selling albums really began like Pink Floyd, Eagles, & Fleetwood Mac. Even in the 1980s a lot of acts released an album every year. Mike could take a break later in his career because he was wealthy enough to do so, that's not the case with most acts. They can't do a Sade and release an album every 10 years, lol.

That's true. Ariana Grande puts out a new album every 2 years. Same thing with most artists.

The older artists, like Peter Gabriel or Paul McCartney, can afford to take breaks...because they have music that they are known for. I honestly couldn't name a single Drake song other than the one with Michael Jackson. I know who he is, but he's only known to kids for the most part. He doesn't have the worldwide appeal of Michael Jackson (and, because of that, he is probably going to become more well known because of his MJ song.)

 

[mj_frenzy]

People like Michael would take breaks between eras.

Mike could take a break later in his career because he was wealthy enough to do so, that's not the case with most acts.

The long breaks between MJ’s studio albums were mainly rooted in a supernatural basis.

To be specific, MJ believed a lot in the power of mystery & how it can keep the public interested. The number five triggered, according to him, the greatest mystery (in particular, the fifth door).

“... I do love the power of mystery, I really do. I think it’s very powerful… There’s six doors, you can open any of these doors. But the fifth door, don’t open it. Don’t open the fifth door, no matter what... I only do an album every five years. Other artists do an album every year and my albums outlast and outsell all the other artists. And people wait for it. There’s like, you know, a whole pulse going on about this album...” (Michael Jackson, The Michael Jackson Tapes)

I can understand that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is like a red rag to a bull for the majority of MJ’s fans, but during those conversations (that took place in 2000-2001) MJ literally bared his soul. It was probably his most honest interview that he ever gave during his entire life.

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

Shame they didn't make a product with artist integrity instead of a making a product looking for a throwaway hit

I would have loved it if Childish Gambino had featured Michael instead of Drake personally

 

[CaptAirling]

It had a great run on top of the charts, but it is not a smash hit. I like it, I’m not thrilled, but I hope we’ll get to see more Michael Jackson in the near future!

 

[christy]

Childish Gambino makes good music,
but Drake's is the current hottest act right now
I dunno if the estate has lost the window...
wait for a single to be released,
wait for what ?(pardon the pun)
or are they just teasing ....

 

[DuranDuran]

The long breaks between MJ’s studio albums were mainly rooted in a supernatural basis.

To be specific, MJ believed a lot in the power of mystery & how it can keep the public interested. The number five triggered, according to him, the greatest mystery (in particular, the fifth door).

“... I do love the power of mystery, I really do. I think it’s very powerful… There’s six doors, you can open any of these doors. But the fifth door, don’t open it. Don’t open the fifth door, no matter what... I only do an album every five years. Other artists do an album every year and my albums outlast and outsell all the other artists. And people wait for it. There’s like, you know, a whole pulse going on about this album...” (Michael Jackson, The Michael Jackson Tapes)

That may be so. Still, if he was not rich enough to take long breaks or had the clout with his record label for them to allow Mike to do it, he couldn't have done that. Like I mentioned, there were no long breaks before 1984, which is after Thriller happened. The success of that album made him richer than he had ever been before and likely gave him more clout to change his contract when it was time to resign. He might have not left The Jacksons at the time either, if Thriller hadn't blown up like it did. Then the ATV publishing catalog gave him a way to make money without releasing something all the time like before. On the opposite side, Warner Brothers said that Prince wanted to release too much and that he would flood the market. At one point Prince wanted to release a 3 record set called Crystal Ball which WB made him cut down to a double album (Sign O' The Times). Prince probably would have been happy pre-1970s, when releasing multiple albums a year was usually required by the labels.

 

[Smooth72]

Childish Gambino makes good music,
but Drake's is the current hottest act right now
I dunno if the estate has lost the window...
wait for a single to be released,
wait for what ?(pardon the pun)
or are they just teasing ....

I think the window is closed now as far as the US for releasing it as a single. I hope I’m wrong but rarely do you see a song perform well then go away and comeback.

 

[DuranDuran]

breaks

That's true. Ariana Grande puts out a new album every 2 years. Same thing with most artists.

The older artists, like Peter Gabriel or Paul McCartney, can afford to take breaks...because they have music that they are known for. I honestly couldn't name a single Drake song other than the one with Michael Jackson. I know who he is, but he's only known to kids for the most part. He doesn't have the worldwide appeal of Michael Jackson (and, because of that, he is probably going to become more well known because of his MJ song.)

There's only a small percentage veteran artists who are really rich like a Paul McCartney. Paul & Ringo don't have to perform or release music ever again, they do because they like performing. Their newer records don't sell much anyway, so it's not like they're making a lot of money from putting out new music. They might be losing money. Some made a lot of money in other ways like Dr. Dre got most of his money from his Beats headphones, not his record sales. The Fresh Prince did from acting, he rarely does music anymore. Many veterans constantly perform, even if they have no record deal. They can't afford to just retire. Like Chubby Checker is still doing The Twist in 2018, which originally came out in 1960.

 

[Zeus7]

Re: breaks

That may be so. Still, if he was not rich enough to take long breaks or had the clout with his record label for them to allow Mike to do it, he couldn't have done that. Like I mentioned, there were no long breaks before 1984, which is after Thriller happened. The success of that album made .

I agree, the huge breaks between albums most other artists didn't have the luxury of, although the Dangerous album campaign lasted 2 years, 10 singles, those short films and the tour were surely time consuming, huge amounts of recording during that time too, i wish he'd have released more B sides on the singles to keep us going

 

[dam2040]

Glad the wonderful MJ Estate released a statement to inform us loyal fans of 30+ years why this decision was made to use MJs vocals with a guy he never met but refused to let will.i.am use his vocals, who was in the room when they were recorded.

Oh no wait, all we got was spend more money and come to Vegas so the rich fans can celebrate MJs birthday.

 

[Krshna28]

The music charts have no meaning any more.

This is because it is no longer based on sales. But rather clicks on spotify and youtube. So those artists at number one have probably not even sold any music.

Most of these clicks are made by young teenagers (the demographic with most free-time for clicks but no money to buy music). And loads of 20-somethings don't even know what most of the top charting songs / artists are (demographic with money to buy music but probably don't).

So we having these artists "break" records but nobody actually owns a copy of their record.