Why Top 40 Radio Needs to Look at the Man in the Mirror

A funny thing happened on the way to the Michael movie. The Top 40 audience forgot to agree with your radio station.

The film has already passed $581 million worldwide. Even more important, 58% of ticket buyers were under 35.

Is that not a CHR demo?

So when a programmer says, “Michael Jackson doesn’t fit a contemporary hit station,” my question is: compared to what?

As Michael sings in “Human Nature,” “if this town is just an apple, then let me take a bite.” Well, he did. MJ currently has seven songs in Apple Music’s Top 25, accounting for nearly 30% of the entire chart.

On the U.S. Spotify daily chart, Michael Jackson has six songs — more than any other artist — in the Top 50. You’ve heard of that playlist, right? If you haven’t, you’re asleep, possibly in a hyperbaric chamber.

“But Phil, you’re a Michael Jackson superfan, and his songs don’t compare to what else we’re considering this week.”

Again.

Compared to what?

Or to audience consumption?

Compared to the TikTok, Spotify, Apple Music, and box office data?

Or to the movie currently driving relevance?

I call Wade Robson on those objections.

Let’s Call Some Witnesses

Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was released in 1985, then Stranger Things made it feel like a new emergency, and it found a path onto pop radio.

Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” re-exploded after Wayne’s World, then returned for a second time after the 2018 film.

Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” became a 2020 event because a guy on a skateboard drank cranberry juice. Suddenly, a 1977 record was making its way onto gold lists at stations that definitely would have said “it doesn’t fit” one week earlier.

Need more evidence?

I call Lady Gaga to the stand.

Gaga’s 2011 album cut “Bloody Mary” became a pop-radio Top 10 because of Wednesday.

My next witness? Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Her 2001 song “Murder on the Dancefloor” hit the Mediabase chart because of Saltburn.

How about some testimony from Natasha Bedingfield? “Unwritten” got a movie-driven bump from Anyone But You. I’d like the court to note the irony of that movie title.

Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” became an obvious old-new hit, landing on Billboard’s year-end Global 200 nearly three decades after its release, then taking off again during a TikTok-driven ’90s trend.

Johnny Rzeznik and Michael Jackson have both lived through the public having opinions about their appearance. Stations, however, should only be interested in what listeners are doing with the songs.

Programmers, this is your “Man in the Mirror” moment.

It’s Not Off the Wall Thinking

This is not a call to turn CHR into Classic Hits. I’m not saying your 5 p.m. hour needs to suddenly become “Motownphoria” (working title for my new HBO show starring Jaafar Jackson and Sydney Sweeney — I’ve learned from Keith Cunningham to write “Sydney Sweeney” into my articles whenever possible).

I hate to burst your Bubbles — the monkey, not a station name in South Carolina — but Top 40 radio has always made exceptions when the audience makes an old song current again.

Michael is in the building blocks of many artists already playing on most contemporary stations. He is present in the way artists build eras, wardrobes, symbols, dances, rituals, and signature sounds.

The Weeknd has said Michael is “everything.” Bruno Mars has said every artist should aspire to Jackson’s attention to detail.

Even the latest album-marketing obsession has MJ DNA. Long before vinyl variants became a chart hack, Jackson’s Invincible was issued in multiple colored covers in 2001.

Remember the Time “Hit” Meant Relevant?

I challenge CHR programmers to stop defining “today’s hit music” as “newly serviced music.”

If a 43-year-old “Billie Jean” is back on the Hot 100, doubling streams, selling movie tickets, crossing generations, and living in the same ecosystem as the rest of your playlist, why would you say that song can Neverland on your station?

You don’t need to test “Billie Jean.” Build a weekend feature. Play it in your Throwback Three at Three. Do a King of Pop promotion with Pepsi.

Do you just say “today’s hit music” 16 times an hour, or do you mean it?

That positioning statement is supposed to mean what people are listening to, rediscovering, quoting, watching, dancing to, and reacting to today. Give your audience what you promise them before they decide The Way You Make Me Feel is ignored.

Billie Jean Is Not My Newly Serviced Single

There is an important difference between what is actively promoted and what is actively relevant.

Sony and Epic are the labels behind most of his songs, but are they calling to work you on the catalog?

They have every reason to develop and expose their current priorities. That is the job of a label — true whether the artist is Zara Larsson, Madison Beer, Ella Langley, Meghan Trainor, Harry Styles, or Tyla.

But Michael Jackson is part of Epic and Sony’s history. He is one of the most important artists ever associated with either label, and he is suddenly generating massive demand.

Radio’s job is not the same as the label’s job. A label has to read the release calendar. A station has to read the audience.

Sometimes those two things align.

But sometimes Michael Jackson moonwalks back into the room.

And if you ignore the audience long enough, eventually they’ll tell you to Beat It.

—Thomas Mesereau

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