Questioning The Legitimacy Of Katy Perry's String Of Number One Hits

I’m speaking to a headline I noticed today, while not bothering to research further.
Katy Perry has apparently tied Michael Jackson's string of number one hits from a single album.

For the King of Pop the album was Thriller and for Katy Perry, Teenage Dream.

I needed to search for that album title, something that ultimately helps prove my point: If the headline is that Katy Perry is somehow on the same level of notoriety as Michael Jackson for this statistic, then shouldn't I be able to recite the name of Ms. Perry’s release without resorting to a Google search?

Shouldn't I be able to identify at least a few of those “hits” that Ms. Perry has given us?

The knee jerk reaction is simply to decry me as “old” and to suggest that I’m not in touch with the outlets that enable the “hitmakers” to reach their audience.

I’m used to the accusations of being old, and it impacts me as much as the label of Obama being a “socialist.” It’s convenient. It’s easy. But it really doesn’t address the defense that I haven’t heard/can’t name the aforementioned “hits” that Katy Perry has delivered, which caused the press release that she has somehow matched a similar feat that Michael Jackson accomplished over two decades ago.

Turning back to that period of time when Thriller was still residing high on the pop charts, I’m confident that even my parents were able to identify at least a few of Jackson’s hits through sheer osmosis.

I understand why that is. Radio was the dominate platform with MTV as another delivery method for my generation and younger. There were fewer outlets than we have today, and with such consolidation it was harder to escape the impact of Top 40 music, regardless of your age.

And when you’re face with the kind of sales that Jackson had with Thriller, it was nearly impossible to escape the hits that came from that record.

As a matter of fact, I have never owned a copy of Thriller ever because nearly every song was a hit and I became so tired of them that I didn’t need a copy. Thanks to its exposure, the songs are ingrained into my fiber and I have no desire to hear them again.

Sidenote: I recently got a copy of George Michael’s Faith reissue and immediate was disappointed with it after playing it. Not because of anything to do with the quality of the music, but because it reminded me of the record’s overexposure (it too, if you’ll recall, featured a huge number of hits when it was originally released) and after one play, it brought me back to the moment where something from it was played every hour.

Where I’m going with this is that Katy Perry’s accomplishment is not something we should even consider in terms of prior accomplishments. There will never be a superstar that is able to reach the same caliber of Michael Jackson's success with Thriller, so why pretend that Ms. Perry's feat somehow matches it.

The Billboard charts are a joke, a weak facsimile of what they once were and a tally of some strange Turkish blend of sources that manage to point to a long tail culture where even niche artists can make the top 10.

And like a box of Camels, it's all a smokescreen for a dying database.

In today's world, Katy Perry is a star.

But in Michael's world, she wouldn't even hold a candle to baby sister's Rhythm Nation.

So let's tone down the comparison rhetoric a bit. Give Ms. Perry her plaque and move on, but please don't try to put her accolades on the same level of Jackson's domination from Thriller.

They Said We'll Set Your Hair On Fire

It took a quarter century and Michael Jackson's passing before footage of the 1984 Pepsi commercial footage to finally come to, ahem, light.

Shamoan!

I suppose it’s time to official acknowledge the death of Michael Jackson. I avoided it because 1.) I’m still sick of Thriller and 2.) He’s a fucking child molester.
Neither one of those things qualify for a brief reprieve just because he bit the dust. Dude created so much unnecessary drama that-just you watch-even his death will create a pathetic media swirl for weeks after his ticker quit.
I suppose the first exposure came at the hands of the Jackson 5, a group that even my little boy mind felt was bubblegum regardless of whether it was or not. You see, the idea of “bubblegum” music was soundly ridiculed at my home. My father once decried that I had “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies on 45, stating that it was bubblegum music and that bubblegum music didn’t qualify as “real” music. Unlike most kids today, I actually listened to my father and I quickly purged any potential music that could be viewed as bubblegum.
The trouble was that I thought that bubblegum music was something that was directly addressed to young kids, so if young kids were the ones performing the songs, then they must be creating bubblegum music.
Hence, the Jackson 5 was placed in the bubblegum category of my 5 year old brain.
Fast forward to middle school, when we all went to the YMCA to roller skate on Friday nights with fellow pre-teens. It was a chance to try and figure out the opposite sex and dance with them, although we weren’t really dancing…we were skating.
There was someone who always held the thankless job of handing out the crappy skates to everyone who didn’t own one (me) and put another 45 record on the Y’s shitty stereo system. There wasn’t a large selection that they played, but it did contain a large portion of current hits.
One of the records that got a bunch of spins was Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall. To this day, whenever I hear “Rock With You,” I think of roller skating and mustering up enough nerve to hold hands with a few flat-chested cuties while skating in circles, under the notion that we were only making sure the lasses wouldn’t fall down.
Fact is, most of the girls were twice the skaters as the guys and we were the ones doing the stumbling.
I should note that I have not skated since this time, some thirty years ago.
I was awful.
By 1982, I was in high school and a friend of mine who was a few years ahead of me decided that he would write a review of the new Michael Jackson album. Understand, this was the same dude that introduced the Scorpions to me and who tried in vain to get me to appreciate Foghat. Knowing this, I questioned why he decided to review Thriller instead of one of those badass rock platters. He advised that it was for editorial integrity and that he wanted to be a more well-rounded reviewer. He also stated that it was pretty good before adding the obligatory “for what it’s suppose to be.”
Read: it was a good pop record.
I never bought Thriller. I didn’t need to because nearly every single was a hit and because every hit got tons of airplay. Seriously, people today have no idea what a hit really is. There are number one songs out there that people don’t know anything about. I promise you that probably everyone in America back then could identify a song from Thriller because it received so much airplay throughout a variety of different formats. And when radio wasn’t doing its job, MTV devoted a ton of airtime for Michael.
Because of all of this exposure, I got sick of Thriller and of Michael Jackson. I probably enjoyed the “Thriller” video for a moment and thought his moonwalking on some awards show was kind of neat, but I never had an interest in ever actually buying the album. Nearly everyone I knew had a copy….somewhere….but it was never one that was frequently pulled out. In many cases, it became the sole cassette in the parent’s car as they made a futile attempt to stay hip.
Every subsequent release was generally dismissed, as Michael became part of the problem instead of the solution. And who was the solution? Why Guns n Roses and Nirvana of course! Anything beyond “Smooth Criminal” and that thing he did with his sister is pretty lost on me. The only thing I remember him for since then is child molestation charges and a creepy looking white dude that’s feature on some British documentary on the life of Michael Jackson.
Is it a shame that the ‘King of Pop’ is dead? Sure. He brought a lot of joy to many people and is one of the most successful artists of my time. But he also brought a lot of self-imposed drama with the fame that we provided him and he made a lot of very bad decisions in the process. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to have that level of fame, but I do know that his fame had nothing to do with his ability to discern between right and wrong. And for a large part of his life, a lot of what he did was very wrong.