So, who was the greater artist: Stevie Wonder or Michael Jackson?
To the tale of the tape, in purely alphabetical order...
Michael Jackson
- Album sales - 750 million +
- Grammies - 13
- #1 singles - 13 (plus 4 with Jackson 5)
- Top 10 hits - 29 (plus 7 with Jackson 5)
- Top 40 hits - 37
- Top 10 albums - 7
- 4 1/2 star albums - Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad
- Trivia
- #35 on Rolling Stone list of greatest artists (as of 2004)
- 1st artist with 4 top 10 singles on one album - Off the Wall
- 1st artist with 7 top 10 singles on one album - Thriller
- Only artist to have five #1 hits on one album - Bad
- Won Record of the Year twice ("Billie Jean", "We Are the World"), Song of the Year once ("We Are the World"), Album of the Year once Thriller
- Won 8 Grammy awards in 1984 (tied for most in a single year)
- Thriller is actually the 2nd best selling album in the US (behind The Eagles' Greatest Hits vol 1)
- Thriller is #1 worldwide with over 109 million records sold
- Two time member Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (solo & as Jackson 5)
- Subject of Eddie Murphy Delirious (but I'm not going to link to it)
- Negatives
- um, the general weirdness post-Bad
- the freaky thing with kids (his and others)
- the freaky thing with his apparently stunted adolescence
- Album sales - 100 million+
- Grammies - 22
- #1 singles - 10 (plus 20 on R&B charts)
- Top 10 hits - 31
- Top 40 hits - ??
- Top 10 albums - 11
- 4 1/2 star albums - Songs in the Key of Life, Up Tight, Where I'm Coming From, Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Hotter Than July
- Trivia
- #15 on Rolling Stone's list of greatest artists (as of 2004)
- Won Album of the Year three times (a record - Songs in the Key of Life, Innervisions, Fullfilingness' First Finale)
- Won Album of the Year three times in four years
- Inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Um, he's blind.
- Won Academy Award for Best Song ("I Just Called to Say I Love You")
- Can play pretty much any instrument
- Actually born as Stevland Hardaway Judkins (changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris
- Funked up Sesame Street like nobody's business
- Subject of Eddie Murphy stand-up in Delirious (but I can't link to it)
- Negatives
- Late career work has been kind of weenie ("I Just Called..." in particular)
- Mocked in High Fidelity
or
Sources...
MJ - wikipedia, wikipedia, Rolling Stone, allmusic
3 comments:
I would definitely say Michael Jackson was more popular, but I think Stevie Wonder was a more talented musician and I enjoy his music more.
they are both relatively in the same ballpark in all but one area: 750 million albums sold = 100 million seven and a half times over.
For every 1 Stevie Wonder CD Average Joe has, he has almost 8 MJ CDs.
As much as I hate the guy and his music, Michael Jackson is clearly the greater artist in the mind of the world.
CMorin - it's a tough distinction between being more popular vs being greater, but I think I agree with your decision of MJ being more popular but Wonder being greater.
Joey - The sales difference is massive, and if we take the opinion of the record-buying public as our measure, there is no contest in the least. I'm glad, however, that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn't just check off and induct the best-selling artists ever. There has to be some sort of qualitative measure.
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