Today is Michael Jackson's birthday – he would have turned 54 years old. To celebrate his birthday, we wanted to uncover The King of Pop's most-watched music videos of all time. Digging through our Viral Reach Database, it's clear that his ability to entertain didn't stop at tape cassettes, CDs, or live shows – in online video, he's one of the most-watched music artists of all time.
To measure the true performance of The King of Pop's music videos across the web, we applied our True Reach methodology, which combines the performance of clips related to the original music video across the web. This includes: the original music video, copies of the original video, and derivative content such as audio versions of the songs, live concerts of the song, people dancing to the song, people lip syncing the song, parodies, mixes, mashups, general video responses, etc. It's a holistic look video performance online.
Combined, MJ's Top 10 music videos have been watched online more than 2.4 BILLION times. Just last week alone, his Top 10 music videos were watched over 5 million times.
With more than 632 million views, Thriller is Michael Jackson's most-watched music video of all time. The groundbreaking music video was watched 28 million times in the days after his passing.
632 million is a huge number, but the rest of the Top 10 is also impressive. Beat It from the Thriller album has been seen more than 386 million times. The inspirational We Are The World comes in third place with 300 million views and was the most-watched music video of the Top 10 last week, with over 1.2 million views, topping Thriller's 1+ million for the week. MJ's biggest hits fill out the remaining Top 10, with You Are Not Alone coming in at number ten with 94+ million views.
Michael Jackson's Top 10 Most-Watched Music Videos Ever
| Rank | Music Video | Album | Single Release Date | True Reach Viewership |
Watch
|
|---|
|
1
|
Thriller
|
Thriller
|
Jan 23, 1984
|
632,952,498 |
|
|
2
|
Beat It
|
Thriller
|
Feb 3, 1983
|
386,294,556 |
|
|
3
|
We Are the World
|
We Are the World
|
Mar 7, 1985
|
300,670,576 |
|
|
4
|
Billie Jean
|
Thriller
|
Sep 7, 1987
|
291,299,722 |
|
|
5
|
Smooth Criminal
|
Bad
|
Oct 21, 1988
|
255,359,766 |
|
|
6
|
They Don't Care About Us
|
HIStory
|
Mar 31, 1996
|
189,107,950 |
|
|
7
|
Bad
|
Bad
|
Sep 7, 1987
|
137,666,473 |
|
|
8
|
Man in the Mirror
|
Bad
|
Jan 9, 1988
|
98,351,082 |
|
|
9
|
Black or White
|
Dangerous
|
Nov 11, 1991
|
98,329,535 |
|
|
10
|
You Are Not Alone
|
You Are Not Alone
|
Aug 15, 1995
|
94,442,370 |
|
What's your favorite Michael Jackson music video? Let us know in the comments section below!
