The Michael Jackson Chart Watch

Thriller on 22 (+11) in Germany

Thriller on 31 (-3) in Belgien


Michael Jackson Charts
@MJJCharts

The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" has now surpassed 700 million streams on Spotify.
UK Official Singles Chart Top 100:
#40 - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (+13) *peak: #30*
UK Official Albums Streaming Chart Top 100: #24 - Number Ones (+4) *peak: #12*
UK Official Albums Chart Top 100: #46 - Number Ones (+18) *peak: #1*
 
Last edited:
The 3 acts ahead of him are Elvis Pressley, Ed Sheeran and Queen. Elvis had a head start by almost two decades and Sheeran and Queen are both British acts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_who_have_spent_the_most_weeks_on_the_UK_music_charts
The singles chart rules have changed a lot in the internet era so it is actually hard to compare pure stats. In Belgium some songs stay in the top 50 for 40 to 60 weeks. Back in the old days it was massive when a song charted for 15 weeks. This is clearly visible in this stat with Sheeran already being ahead of MJ on such short time span.
 
The singles chart rules have changed a lot in the internet era so it is actually hard to compare pure stats. In Belgium some songs stay in the top 50 for 40 to 60 weeks. Back in the old days it was massive when a song charted for 15 weeks. This is clearly visible in this stat with Sheeran already being ahead of MJ on such short time span.
True.

In the US, Michael's highest charting song is with Billie Jean with 30 weeks. Nowadays, a lot of the songs from big stars chart that many weeks just in the top 10-top 20.

They shouldn't combine records achieved in the streaming era with records achieved in the pre-streaming era.
 
They shouldn't combine records achieved in the streaming era with records achieved in the pre-streaming era.
Yeah agreed, most chart records are now held by modern songs, it is misleading. The 60s had odd rules as well, the beatles had a couple years where they had a bunch of songs in the top 10 simultaneously. Not sure how that was possible. @DuranDuran can shed some light on this?
 
Yeah agreed, most chart records are now held by modern songs, it is misleading. The 60s had odd rules as well, the beatles had a couple years where they had a bunch of songs in the top 10 simultaneously. Not sure how that was possible. @DuranDuran can shed some light on this?
The Beatles released albums every year and were extremely popular. Perhaps that explains it.
 
The Beatles released albums every year and were extremely popular. Perhaps that explains it.
Releasing a single roughly every 3 months, singles staying in the charts for weeks or months on end, double A-sides - they did about 9 of those, I think.

Beatlemania! It was so intense, it went really deep.

I don't think radio play counted in the UK for the charts but Billboard did already include it, didn't they? Weren't they already doing that back in the 1960's? Having a double A-side would give you a big push.

They shouldn't combine records achieved in the streaming era with records achieved in the pre-streaming era.
It's annoying. Makes it so hard to understand the story properly.

MJ has been quite popular in the UK,
erm, 'quite popular'? Look, Nite Line, I know we like to do understatement in the UK but this is just ... classic!

Quite popular! :ROFLMAO:

I'm sorry! I'm not having a go at you. I agree, the UK press were (and often still are) horrendously vicious towards Michael even at the height of his fame in the 1980's. I just thought it was funny, describing Michael as being 'quite popular'.

It's made my day! I have a wonky sense of humour, just ignore me, lol.

despite the constant negative press from the British tabloids.
It was awful. Still is.

Thriller and Bad feature in the the top 10 best selling albums in the UK, which makes MJ the only artist to feature twice in the top 10.
Awesome! I love this. :)
 
What’s a lead stream?
It’s not easy to explain but basically it’s all the songs that appear on his spotify page (studio albums, compilations and singles).

Then there are the songs that do not appear on his spotify page as Don’t Matter To Me that does not appear on any studio album, compilation or single on his page.

Say Say Say, another example, appears on the compilation King Of Pop but that album is not on spotify, therefore it is not part of his lead streams.

Lead streams: Billie Jean, Black Or White, Scream, etc.

Orphan or features streams: Don't Matter To Me, Say Say Say, Little Christmas Tree, etc

Total streams: Lead stream + Orphan or features streams.
 
Thriller dropped 6 spots and lands at 37 in the Belgian top 200 albums
Bad rose 28 spots and is at nr 140 this week.

EDIT forgot to check the singles chart. Unfortunately the Christmas week didn't result into a J5 entry which is somewhat surprising as I count at least 12 Christmas songs in the list. Mariah Carey is nr 1 again.
 
Last edited:
I don’t know shouldn’t ”Chicago” be released right now? It has legs, some part of the world’s demography clearly likes it, why not capitalize on it? Get it on the radio maybe more people will like it and instead of gaining 300 000 a day it gains 1 million a day.
 
I don’t know shouldn’t ”Chicago” be released right now? It has legs, some part of the world’s demography clearly likes it, why not capitalize on it? Get it on the radio maybe more people will like it and instead of gaining 300 000 a day it gains 1 million a day.
This is the sort of thing I don't understand, not having a business brain. Seems to me you could react to this really quickly in this day and age, slap out the single pdq, get the radio play and see what happens. Can it be that expensive? I can't see why. It should be quick and easy to do.

Is it bc Chicago has been doing well during 'T40' and that's where their focus is? Erm ... :ROFLMAO:

I dunno. I'd be wanting to maximise whichever bit of Michael's catalogue was doing well at any given point.

But, like I said, I don't have a business brain. There must be some other reason why they don't seem to be doing anything with this.

90 million streams on Spotify. Woulda thought that meant something.
 
Back
Top