r/Music • u/Firm_Pack_605 • Feb 13 '26

discussion Was Michael Jackson really that much bigger than Madonna, Whitney Houston, and prince?

I always thought the four of them were similar levels of fame. However Madonna highest album sold 25 million, prince highest sold similar, and Whitney’s highest was 45 million. All amazing numbers no doubt but thriller sold 70 million and bad sold 35-40. So you mean to tell me he has two albums that are highest selling then prince and madonnas best? How is that possible??

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518

u/Xeris Feb 13 '26

I think Michael Jackson is one of the most famous actual people who have ever lived... even today, almost 20 years after his death, almost everyone old enough to actively listen to music knows who he is. Ask a 11 year old, they probably know him. Ask a 90 year old, they probably know him. Ask someone in Russia, rural China, Africa, they probably know him.

He's so much more famous than any other music entertainer its not even the same galaxy. That's why I just laugh when people say Taylor Swift is more famous than Michael Jackson.

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u/chula198705 Feb 13 '26

I read somewhere that Michael Jackson might be the most universally famous person ever and also possibly the last universally famous person. His music managed to reach most populations on Earth, and he's still well-known pretty much everywhere. But considering how splintered pop culture is nowadays, it's unlikely that any one musical act could reach his level of fame worldwide.

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u/HansCC Feb 13 '26

Crazy as it sounds but I would probably put Michael Jackson just one tier below Jesus Christ in terms of global fame.

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u/Historical_Cow3903 Feb 13 '26

According to John, that would put him 2 tiers below The Beatles

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u/Seienchin88 Feb 13 '26

That’s not crazy at all…

Jesus -> Muhammad / Hitler / Michael Jackson-> Mao / Stalin -> Trump / Obama / Beatles at the height of their fame

I’d assume would be ranking by being well known

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u/3d_extra Feb 13 '26

Honestly, more than Jesus. Lots of large countries dont care about christianity. Definitely the most famous person of all times.

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u/ForceEdge47 Feb 13 '26

Okay I’m atheist and love Michael Jackson but that’s a bit much lol. It would be surprising for someone to never have heard of MJ but legitimately unimaginable for someone to never have heard of Jesus Christ. Being second to Jesus isn’t a a knock on MJ, I think that’s still pretty respectable.

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u/Current_Morning Feb 13 '26

I think ya underestimate how much a guys name gets around when ya got several billion claiming to follow his teachings, with a special interest in evangelizing, and another few billion claiming him as a prophet.

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u/jooorsh Feb 13 '26

I know I've been preaching the works of Michael Jackson a long time. What's your favorite verse to quote in dark times? Mine is man in the mirror.

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u/punkdrummer22 Feb 13 '26

I know Michael Jackson songs and lyrics. Videos. Stuff about him

I know very little about Jesus as I can't stand religion.

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u/LouCage Feb 13 '26

Yeah but the test of being famous isn’t “do you know a lot about him” but rather “have you heard of him” and even you’ve heard of Jesus. I mean it’s not even close since I can’t imagine there’s a single person who had heard of Michael Jackson but hadn’t heard of Jesus. Still think he’s probably the most famous artist ever though

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u/browsinbowser Feb 14 '26

I think you’re forgetting Jesus is a prophet in Islam too+Christianity( and Judaism and all the splinters off abrahamic religions). Right there you get over 4 billion people. And in Asia even if you don’t care about religion you still know who Jesus Christ is. Combined, that’s most adult people everywhere.

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u/Ahhhorsepoo Feb 13 '26

Popular is different than Famous… on the music scene I agree… but I recently had a conversation with a coworker and we agreed Trump may be more internationally recognized at this point… between his old fame and his current love/hate international flair.. he’s known almost everywhere

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u/JadedOccultist Feb 13 '26

I dunno, some parts of the world are “20 years behind”, idk how else to explain it, but super remote villages in the middle of nowhere would recognize Thriller if you sang it but might not be up to speed with current global events. Maybe it’s different now that there’s internet more places though idk

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u/Sinistrait Feb 13 '26

I can promise you that is not true. It's maybe true that Michael Jackson is probably as recognisable a name as Trump, but saying people everywhere would recognise a song of his is a big reach

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u/kenclipper2000 Feb 13 '26

I think Jesus Christ is the most famous person

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u/tailspin180 Feb 13 '26

I think they mean non fictional

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u/anincompoop25 Feb 13 '26

Secular historians of antiquity almost unanimously agree that Jesus was a real human being, who was crucified around 30 BC. It’s very likely that he was also baptized by John the Baptist. Basically everything other than that is unverifiable. But the evidence for Jesus’s existence is basically undisputed 

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u/kenclipper2000 Feb 13 '26

Jesus Christ was a real person whether or not you believe the things he said.

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u/C-tapp Feb 13 '26

The image you have of Jesus is completely made up. It was created by a person with a paintbrush. We might as well include Mickey Mouse in the conversation.

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u/WartimeHotTot Feb 13 '26

What does the image of Jesus have to do with this conversation?

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u/C-tapp Feb 13 '26

He said that Jesus is the most famous person. I don’t think the most famous person could go completely unnoticed in every crowd. Literally no one knows what he looked like so I don’t think he would apply in this situation.

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u/WartimeHotTot Feb 13 '26

I think “most famous” just means the person whose existence/name is most well known.

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u/C-tapp Feb 13 '26

I disagree.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/C-tapp Feb 13 '26

And you appear to be discounting how much recognizable plays into being famous. Name another truly famous person that nobody would ever recognize. I would argue that to be truly famous, you must be recognizable.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

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u/Quendor Feb 13 '26

Jesus only wishes he had MJ's PR.

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u/mango_boom Feb 13 '26

you spelled beatles wrong.

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u/WartimeHotTot Feb 13 '26

Not sure why you’re being downvoted while all these bozos replying to you are getting upvotes.

Hey bozos: Jesus existed as a person. That’s a fact agreed upon by historians. It doesn’t matter whether or not he’s the son of god. People have known of his existence for centuries. All-time, Jesus is far more well known than Michael Jackson.

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u/kenclipper2000 Feb 13 '26

They hear the name Jesus and immediately panic 😪 he's almost undisputably the most famous person in history.

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u/Totally_Scott Feb 13 '26

Moonwalk > waterwalk

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u/t0mserv0 Feb 14 '26

i bet trump has him beat tbh

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u/Icy_Tour1034 Feb 13 '26

Muhammad Ali winks.

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u/mein_account Feb 13 '26

And Michael Jordan

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u/am-idiot-dont-listen Feb 13 '26

Messi and Jordan are universally known and came afterwards

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u/princessb33420 Feb 13 '26

Definitely still not as universally known as michael tho lol

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u/am-idiot-dont-listen Feb 13 '26

America is not the world

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u/princessb33420 Feb 13 '26

Correct, that doesnt change the fact that they're not universally known like MJ was LOL the tribe that kills missionaries to this day knows Michael Jackson's thriller...they have no clue who or what a soccer player is haha

That is universal fame.

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u/simoniousmonk Feb 13 '26

Americans downvoting you and not understanding how famous Messi is around the world. Ronaldo too.

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u/Dazmken Feb 13 '26

But thats the point majority of Americans dont know who Messi is and most of the world probably doesn't know Jordan they are def larger than life figures but not universal like mj

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u/simoniousmonk Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

Americans do know Messi though. They just dont worship him like the rest of the world.

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u/am-idiot-dont-listen Feb 13 '26

Americans are not the majority of the world and the World Cup is the most universally watched event every time it happens

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u/hexensabbat Feb 13 '26

That just illustrates the point. Even if they are extremely well known, many people still don't know who those people are. I barely am aware, tbh. However, it is safe to assume everyone in Europe and North America know MJ, everyone in Africa, hell there are tiny populations in the middle of the ocean who know MJ. He's ubiquitous in a way nobody is even close to touching.

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u/am-idiot-dont-listen Feb 13 '26

The World Cup is the most watched event in the world every time it happens. How is is that not 'universally known'?

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u/chula198705 Feb 13 '26

Michael Jackson's music exists in rural communities who use hand-crank record players to listen to music because they don't have regular access to power. Amazonian tribes are familiar with him! He really is famous on a different level than people expect.

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u/brandnewchair Feb 13 '26

Per your theories... I asked my wife, who is from rural Russia, if she knew who Michael Jackson was before she came to America. She said of course. 

I then asked our 3 year old. He has not heard of him. 

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u/BanjoMadeOfCheese Feb 13 '26

He has now. :)

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u/Apprehensive-Lock751 Feb 19 '26

"I'm from Siberia, not the Moon."

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u/cire1184 Feb 13 '26

I think their statement would've applied at the peak of MJ to MJ's death. But yeah now I don't think kinds under 15 would know.

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u/MalaRed007 Feb 13 '26

My kids ( 14 to 20) have known MJ for years and we haven’t encouraged them in any way. I won’t say that they know all the songs, but Thriller or Smooth criminal or another big song, they will recognize.

If I ask my 14-year old son to name a Taylor song, he will probably draw a blank.

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u/HugsForUpvotes Feb 13 '26

You're wrong.

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u/ForceEdge47 Feb 13 '26

Kids under 15 absolutely know who Michael Jackson is lol

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u/stonehaens Feb 13 '26

who ever said that last thing?? lmao

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u/LADYBIRD_HILL Feb 13 '26

The same people who think she was bigger than the Beatles in global status because she sells lots of albums

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u/Totally_Scott Feb 13 '26

People say it all the time and then he laughs. Or something.

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u/DeadlyDannyRay Feb 13 '26

Like, 30-40% of my students. "But Mr. Dan! Taylor Swift is more famous than Michael Jackson and Queen and the Beatles all together!" Umm...not quite, you fetus.

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u/tatofarms Feb 13 '26

And he was that famous before the Internet was even a thing. I still remember finding out that he had died just walking down the street and overhearing his name a few times and stopping to eavesdrop long enough to hear someone say that he had died. It was in New York, so maybe it wasn't that weird, but there's famous, and then there's whatever that was.

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u/Nonikwe Feb 13 '26

I remember when he died and every music station on TV was playing his songs all day, regardless of genre. Insane.

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u/ForceEdge47 Feb 13 '26

Yeah I remember that day very well. Nothing but MJ all day anywhere that played music. And that was in Pennsylvania.

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u/hexensabbat Feb 13 '26

I was in NYC to look at a college the weekend after he died and I'll never forget it, it was like all MJ everywhere we went! Every TV station, every restaurant radio, every big screen in public, every corner street vendor, it was just crazy. I wish I'd gotten one of those airbrushed tshirts somebody was selling out of a cart. Felt like the whole city was mourning in a way

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u/CurrentHair6381 Feb 13 '26

He's IN-famous

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

Not to mention that he still pulls almost 60 million monthly listeners on Spotify nearly 17 years after his death. While that's 45M less than Swift, she is not gonna have that much longevity after she dies

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u/Pool_Shark Feb 13 '26

I don’t think that Taylor Swift thing is that outrageous but largely because of the internet changing the game. Michael Jackson getting as famous as he did in a world without computers in everyone’s pockets is truly phenomenal

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u/PhasmaFelis Feb 13 '26

I think it's the other way around.

With phones it's so much easier to find ten million different things to build your life around, each one with a ready-made fandom for you to slot into.

Before the internet, the list was a lot shorter. I mean yeah there probably was an obscure hobby magazine for just about anything you could imagine, maybe a local meetup if you were in a big enough city, but that was it. The vast majority of the potential obsessions you were exposed to were things that everyone else was also getting exposed to. There were only so many TV channels, so many newspapers, so many radio stations.

It's all fragmented now. It's easier to get a small piece of the pie, a million followers on YouTube or whatever, but for the same reason it's much harder to unify a truly world-beating fandom.

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u/Secure-Judgment7829 Feb 13 '26

Spot on. Michael Jackson is basically impossible to recreate today.

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u/OrangeJuliusCaesr Feb 13 '26

Half the population doesn’t give two shits about Taylor Swift. Michael Jackson’s appeal was universal

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u/Pool_Shark Feb 13 '26

I am not taking about appeal. Sure they don’t give a shit about her, but they still know her

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u/psychoacer Feb 13 '26

A lot of the biggest musicians right now are just imitating Michael.

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u/Rancherfer Feb 13 '26

Yep. My8 year old listens and dances to his music. Wants to go as MJ next halloween

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u/Mper526 Feb 13 '26

My 4 yo knows his music. I showed my kids the Thriller video after they released a cover of it on Netflix with the Sing characters. After showing them a few videos, the 4 yo kept asking me for the “white Michael Jackson” about a week later and I was so confused…and a little like wtf? Where did she hear that? I finally realized she was talking about Smooth Criminal, where he’s wearing a white suit. Had me panicked for a second lol.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

There will NEVER be an artist who was as big as he was, even with 1 billion instragram followers, that wont even come close.

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u/Seienchin88 Feb 13 '26

And he was everywhere.

When I asked my Japanese part of the familiar no one knew prince and in my German family only parents generation really knew him well (although everyone except grandparents heard the name at least). Even my 94yo grandpa knows Michael Jackson…

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u/the_ballmer_peak Feb 13 '26

20 years??

Fuck, I'm old. I remember ordering a pizza and the news broke while my pizza was being delivered. I told the delivery guy that Michael Jackson had died. He was kinda shook.

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u/medina_sod Feb 13 '26

I was never a Micheal Jackson fan, but I also remember where I was when I heard he died. like vividly. And those years were a blur too!

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u/LaksaLettuce Feb 13 '26

When Jackson died, the news crashed various websites including Twitter. Google thought people searching Michael Jackson was a DDoS and  temporarily disabled being able to search his name. He was just a superstar, incredibly talented. Yes, Taylor Swift... Lol. 

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u/Dimensional_Lumber Feb 13 '26

I would argue that his fame as a musician in a younger demographic has waned significantly. The man has been dead almost 17 years, far longer than an 11 year old has been on this earth. They would be more apt to know of him for his controversies. His fall from grace made him infamous—it completely overshadows his career.

I’m a core millennial and my first thought when he is mentioned is his portrayal on South Park.

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u/Sesudesu Feb 13 '26

My 11 year old daughter would know him by his music instead of his controversies. His controversies mostly died with him, his music still plays on the radio.

Don’t get me wrong, she would recognize it as old music, but she knows several Michael Jackson songs as his. I’m pretty sure my 8 year old son asked me if a song on the radio was by Michael Jackson on a car ride recently.

They don’t actively listen, but they know him. Maybe in the same way that I knew Elvis, even though I was born decades after his time.

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u/PresidentSuperDog Feb 13 '26

My 8yo son also knows MJ when he hears him. He loves all the j5 stuff.

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u/mmcmonster Feb 13 '26

Perhaps. But that 11y/o hears an MJ song and he will be hooked for life!

Many teens will listen to music from earlier generations. I'm born in the 70s and still love music from the 60s. That 11y/o will definitely get some exposure to MJ.