Drake been outselling Bey and Ye for years. Is different

Hell nooo this disrespectful af. MJ the GOAT nobody is close.

Loser!

Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, & Kanye are the only people who check most of the boxes.

The numbers talk is pointless since most albums don’t sell physical anymore and we all know most if not all streaming services finesse their numbers.

I wish this site would start having meaningful conversations instead of comparing living niggas to legendary ghost.

It’s like comparing yourself to god, your arms are too short.

Y’all gotta stop summing MJ comparisons up to sales only

Again, that was only a PART of what made MJ…MJ

I wouldn’t say pointless but I agree numbers are incredibly hard to compare across generations because of the changes in the industry. Attempting to do so is a disservice to everyone.

Ed's last tour made $776,200,000... highest grossing tour in history...

He different

I know you’re obviously MJ fan #1 but we can’t act like sales isn’t a huge reason of what made Michael Jackson Michael f***ing Jackson.

He was probably the most commercially viable artist of all time and that’s HUGE and incredibly important to note I think. For an artist to remain commercially relevant (and enormously at that) for even 5 years is impressive. 10 years probably puts you in the pop culture legend category if we’re being honest (though I will say it was easier back in the day that it is now). But what Michael did was unparalleled.

Obviously he did it for decades across genres as well, which can’t be left out, but I don’t think you can say sales isn’t a big part of it. If Michael’s biggest album had only gone gold back in the day he wouldn’t have been the same phenomenon and he wouldn’t have had the hysteria or been the icon he was/is.

Edit: all this being said, rappers (drake included) can’t truly be MJ. Old heads will never really get on with their music like that. Ed Sheeran is absolutely not MJ either. The fame people like Michael had I don’t think can truly ever happen again in today’s era with social media and ease of access to music regardless of the size of the artist artists being omnipresent, etc.

KTT ain’t ready for this discussion. Ed the modern day goat fr

Besides the super pale skin u can't really compare the 2

Racism

I feel like you have to be in your 30s to argue this because everyone younger than that wouldn’t understand MJ’s level of fame

ed sheeran just not appealing to me at all

good for u if u enjoy dudes music that's ur right but

he sold $8 tickets

You've completely missed my point - of course sales are a big factor. BUT - MJs appeal and connection with the world is what sets him apart, many other artists are commercially successful - obviously not to that level

I'm just saying there's much, much more than sales to think about when trying to make MJ comparisons which is seemingly what OPs argument is based off.

Nobody is MJ level op just stop

I agree with you, but I still think popularity and sales (with both magnitude and longevity) is kind of the best way to be able to see/measure that unfortunately. Especially in hindsight and for people who weren’t there when it was happening. A lot of people on this sitewere small children when he died and he wasn’t anywhere on their radar.

never

There’s no one close to MJ when it comes to musical stardom. People cal him king of pop but he is pretty much the king of music itself.

But you could argue drake/kanye or whovever you see fit being the mj of hip hop specifically. Like i’ve heard someone say eminem is like the beatles of hip hop.