It has been found that Kanye West has had more tracks gracing the Billboard Top 40 charts than the King of Pop himself Michael Jackson. After ScHoolboy Q’s THat Part, in which West is featured, climbed into the charts, West’s current total of Top 40 hits added up to 40, in comparison to Jackson’s 39.
According to Billboard, he now has a place in the top 10 list of male artists with the most Top 40 hits ever. Topping the list, with double the hits of West, is Elvis Presley, followed by Lil Wayne with 69 and Elton John with 57.
In the past, West has revealed that Jackson has been hugely influential for him during his life and career. In 2013, he explained that he wouldn’t have been who he is today if it weren’t for Jackson in an interview with Zane Lowe:
“So for me, in my life and creativity it’s been challenging, yeah, it’s been challenging and everything. But I was able to ascend to massive heights because of the foundation that my mother and my father and my grandfather laid through civil rights, what Michael Jackson did with music videos and the ground he broke. There would be no Kanye West if it wasn’t for Michael Jackson.”
Listen to the track that got him this incredible achievement below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ_DHRI-Xp0
Image: Variety
Sun Kil Moon and Jesu are teaming up for another collaborative album later this year, and today they have released a scorching anti-Michael Jackson song. Luring you in with gentle acoustic guitar not dissimilar to Neil Young, the lyrics come about as a complete smack in the face.
The recently released He’s Bad addresses many of Jackson’s known problems and the many more allegations against him and his controversial lifestyle. Some verses specifically reference a recent report which alleges that videos and photos of child pornography, animal torture, and other sexually violent images were uncovered throughout his home.
“They said, ‘Did you hear the latest on him?
They found child porno at his place.
And animal torture videos.’
Is the latest on him true?
Well, I don’t fucking know
But if I had a son, would I let him get into a car with Michael Jackson?
Fuck no.”
The song also discusses his skin colour, and addresses Jackson’s own troubled childhood:
“I’m sorry for the bad things his father did to him
But it doesn’t add up to building a Willy Wonka trap for kids
And changing the colour of your god-given skin.”
Listen to the heated track here.
Kozelek leaves no room for misinterpretation, bluntly singing, “He’s bad, he’s and I’m glad. He’s dead, and to me it ain’t that fuckin’ sad.”
Image: Siren Fest
Humanity, we need to have a little chat about Drake. Actually, no – it’s not really just about Drake, it’s about a lot more than that. But for parity’s sake, let’s focus on Drake. Sorry you have to play scapegoat this time, Aubrey Drake Graham, but them’s the breaks, because apparently now you and Michael Jackson are the only male artists to hold the #1 song and album for seven consecutive weeks on the Billboard charts. For Jackson’s part, it was during Thriller. For Drake, it’s Views.
Let’s clear one thing up first: I hate all those hand-wringy, anti-popular music “thinkpieces” claiming music was better “back then” than it is now. That’s not what this is. I enjoy popular music from a myriad decades, even if I simultaneously note that it doesn’t have a lot of artistic merit (although a lot of the time, it really does). If people genuinely are enjoying Views on a musical level as much as people enjoyed Thriller, then I have no beef, even if I personally don’t feel the same. You do you, and all that. But I really, really don’t think that’s the case.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA]
Two things have fundamentally changed since the Thriller era: the way we consume music, and the way we engage with celebrities. Back then, we (well, not me – I wasn’t even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes yet) bought albums if we wanted to hear them. Now, we can almost always stream entire albums whenever we want for free – legally. Celebrity gossip was a thing, sure, but celebrities were alien-like icons, like fictional characters – there was very little in the way of candid moments, direct communication, or the like. Now, we have unique insights into the minutia of their every day lives, fan interaction has risen to an all-time high, and there’s a pervasive sense that these people are not just fictional characters – they are #goals, or even worse, our friends. But even though what we’re seeing might seem real, it isn’t. Many celebrities – like Drake – have cultivated a superhero-esque persona that hides them under yet another layer, and allows them to be glorified even further while still seeming accessible and #relatable. Starting to see the problem?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpDa-c-4Mc]
As our writer James Tait recently noted, when a person like this – like Champagne Papi – releases music, he’s not just releasing music. He’s releasing another epithet of his “personality”, and Views was surrounded by deafening hype and recycled memes. It was impossible to escape entirely, even if you didn’t fully engage with it. And so, when the album dropped and it wasn’t really that worthy of any of the confetti, outlets as prestigious as Pitchfork still scrambled to find some way to praise it via abstract parameters like “effort” even while maligning it musically in the same breath.
That’s not to say the PR machine surrounding big-name artists like Drake is inherently bad. If one thing is for certain, it’s absolutely doing its job exceedingly well. It’s just important to question whether placing Drake’s Views next to Thriller in this new milestone in music history is a result of merit or hype. More than likely, it’s the latter. So where does that leave us? The future of the music industry is murky at best. Perhaps “records” like this one simply don’t have any real significance anymore. Celebrities will always sell well – but we already knew that. Of course the “merit” of music will always be subjective – but maybe it’s time we start to think more critically about separating out the two.
Image: Andrew Chin/Getty Images via Hot New Hip Hop
More: Drake Dominates Billboard Charts With A Record-Shattering 20 Hits
Music publishing is a lucrative business, especially when it comes to the back catalogues of pop’s icons. While better known for the more outlandish aspects of his life, Michael Jackson was a savvy investor when it came to acquiring the rights to his own lucrative catalogue as well as the music of others. At the time of his death, the king of pop owned a substantial stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the world’s largest music publisher. The corporation’s extensive 4 million strong portfolio includes the songs of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, Pharrell Williams and Kanye West.
After a bidding war, which reportedly also included Google, Sony Corp cut a deal with Michael Jackson’s estate in March to buy out Jackson’s share of their subsidiary, granting them complete control of the company.
The $750 million deal has led many rivals, including Warner Music and a lobbying group comprised of independent labels, to claim that the proposed deal affords Sony too much power.
In response to these concerns Sony Corp has faced considerable scrutiny from the European Union’s regulatory authorities.
The thrust of the EU’s reasoning is that if too much power is afforded to Sony, it could gain a monopoly over music publishing and squeeze its competitors out of the market. The dystopian future where one major label controlled the majority of commercial music is indeed a harrowing thought.
The European Union’s antitrust regulators have now announced that they will decide on the matter before August 1st. The regulator could impose a number of conditions on the acquisition, limiting potential abuses of market power. This said, it may also opt to engage in a lengthy five-month investigation.
Competition laws are premised on the idea that if a single organisation gains too much power, it’s the consumers who suffer. Considering that three big labels sell up to 80% of commercial music in a given year, the decision to allow the deal could be a concerning development for artists, labels and music fans alike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stM8TJK-Zi0
Image source: Feelnumb.com
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been six years since the tragic death of pop legend Michael Jackson. On June 21st, a book based on his final days written by Tavis Smiley and David Ritz will be released. Further to that announcement was another huge one that cinematic heavyweight J.J. Abrams has been working with Smiley to produce a television series based on that book, both titled Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson’s Last Days.
Judging from the very straightforward title, the book and series are set to follow Jackson through the days leading up to his tragic death, as he continued to fight for privacy from the public eye while dealing with the pressures of super-stardom.
Over the course of his writing career, Smiley has written a variety of memoirs and novels based on historical events, including one that is currently being written on his friend and poet Maya Angelou. Abrams has been equally as busy, developing the new HBO series Westworld and finishing the long-running crime series Person Of Interest.
The director and author are certainly no strangers to each other and are even already experienced in playing out the final days of history’s largest characters on the small screen, Abrams and Smiley currently adapting Smiley’s 2014 novel Death of a King: The Real Story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year into a series. It seems to be a partnership working tremendously given they’ve already got more work pencilled in.
As far as posthumous cinematic releases already, in the months following Michael Jackson’s death a feature-length documentary that showcased footage of the preparation and rehearsals of his cancelled This Is It tour, including behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, was released in his honour. His final album of the same name was released in October of 2009 and the title track, which can be heard below, won Jackson a posthumous Grammy award for Best Male Pop Performance in 2011.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_SLU3m6uCA
The end result will be the subject of pure speculation until further details are released, with the network, cast and release date for Before You Judge Me still to be confirmed, but it will be more than intriguing to see the kind of take Abrams and Smiley are able to give to Jackson’s last days, whether controversial or not, and whether they will add any new wrinkles to the Michael Jackson story.
Image: Rolling Stone
Miguel had one of the biggest years of his life last year, and was deservedly nominated for two Grammys to further validate his success. However, it was a performance covering Michael Jackson‘s She’s Out Of My Life that really proved why he is one of the biggest names in RnB.
Although only 30 seconds, you could hear a pin drop as his voice soared. Backed only by a gentle piano courtesy of Greg Phillinganes, the song’s original keyboardist, Miguel stood under a bright spotlight as vintage footage of MJ himself singing the same song played above. Doing the song total justice, our only qualm is that it didn’t go for much, much longer.
The reason for Miguel’s tribute is that Jackson’s Off The Wall is getting the reissue treatment this year. That, and the fact that Michael Jackson should be honoured at every music awards ceremony, in this writer’s opinion at least. Taking time after he finished singing to further pay tribute to the King of Pop, Miguel said “It’s really hard to believe that it’s been more than 35 years since Michael won his first Grammy for a song from Off the Wall,” before presenting the nominees for Best Rock Performance.
He went onto hint that a documentary about the record is on it’s way as well, saying, “It’s an album that broke down barriers in pop music and it’s now the subject of the new documentary by the legendary Spike Lee.”
Check out the brief, but beautiful performance below:
Image: Rap Up
American news talk show Today has revealed that Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch is for sale.
Known as Sycamore Valley Ranch, the property was initially purchased by Jackson in 1987 for $19.5 million. Limited by his own troubled imagination Jackson spent a personal fortune attempting to turn the property into a Peter Pan-inspired amusement park. In its heyday, the king of pop’s bizarre personal estate featured numerous rides including a Ferris wheel, pirate ship and rollercoaster.
Jackson vacated the home after the charges of alleged sexual molestation began to surface in 2005. The ranch was closed in 2006 due to Jackson’s financial difficulties and was ultimately sold in 2008, before Jackson’s untimely death in 2009.
While many of the ranch’s amusements have been stripped away, the property still contains a six bedroom mansion and four square of miles of sprawling terrain. The estate also retains some of its more outlandish features, including a 50-seat cinema, a giant clock made of flowers, a single llama and Jackson’s own personal railroad track.
Investment firm Colony Capital purchased the property for $22.5 million before Jackson’s death in 2009. They are now asking for $100 million. Inflation + nostalgia, yo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMvs19ic6L4