This is a tribute, of course, to Mr. Jacksons singular gifts his voice, songwriting talent, physical grace, and the list goes on and on. But there is the related matter of historical timing. Fame on the level that Mr. Jackson achieved is all but impossible for pop culture heroes today, and quite likely it will never be possible again.
On the most basic level, this is matter of business and math. Michael Jackson has sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide of the 1982 album Thriller, which spent more than 31 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts.
Its one of those high-water marks that nobody will touch, because record stores are vanishing, and along with them, megahit albums are vanishing, too. A big week on the Billboard charts is a quarter-million units sold, which is about the number of units the Jonas Brothers moved last week with their latest release, which opened at No. 1. And its rare for an album to last even three weeks at the top.
People who buy music tend these days to buy or steal it online, a song at time.
But even if nobody achieves album sales on a Jacksonian scale, couldnt he or she be an artist every bit as popular, every bit as loved, every bit as listened to?
Probably not. The pop-idol field like every field that can lead to super-fame is more crowded than it has ever been, and the variety of routes to stardom keep growing. When the Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, more than 70 million people watched, that is, more than one-third of the entire population of the United States. Yes, the Beatles were that good. But at the time, there were three networks and the radio. No Facebook, Twitter, video games, movie multiplexes, Sirius radio, malls or a dozen other potential drains on an audience.
There werent a lot of rock bands, either. George Harrison was the only Beatle whod visited the United States before the group landed for that historic performance his sister lived in Illinois and when he returned to England he gleefully informed his mates that nobody in America could compete.
Likewise, Michael Jackson had MTV, which was the place for music videos, and as close to an Ed Sullivan platform as he needed. Of course, its been a long time since MTV played hour after hour of prime-time videos. Today, you watch music videos on YouTube, but because there are no programmers to curate what you see, every artist has to compete with thousands of others. And now that anyone with a computer has a miniature studio, and anyone with a Internet connection can post a song, there are more genres, subgenres and artists than ever.
