Music
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger knows a superstar when he sees one. He said that Michael Jackson didn’t quite live up to The Beatles in one significant way.
The Rolling Stones‘ Mick Jagger knows a superstar when he sees one. He said that Michael Jackson didn’t quite live up to The Beatles in one significant way. Jagger also explained that the rivalry between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones was more layered than some fans might have expected.
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger felt The Beatles were bigger than Michael Jackson
During a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger discussed his views on The Beatles. “I liked John very much to start,” he said. “We all had a good relationship with John. He seemed to be in sympathy with our kind of music, so we used to go out to clubs a lot. We did a lot of hanging out.”
There was a rivalry between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, but it was nuanced. “Super, highly competitive — but friendly,” he recalled. “Because when you’re very young, it’s very hard. Looking back, thinking of all that competition, I hate it. But I suppose it’s all right because I won out. But it wasn’t only between us and The Beatles but us and all the other bands.”
Jagger compared the Fab Four to the King of Pop. “The Beatles were so big that it’s hard for people not alive at the time to realize just how big they were,” Jagger said. “There isn’t a real comparison with anyone now. I suppose Michael Jackson at one point, but it still doesn’t seem quite the same. They were so big that to be competitive with them was impossible. I’m talking about in record sales and tours and all this. They were huge.” He was sympathetic to the infamous and blasphemous claim that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
Was Mick Jagger objectively correct?
Was Jackson as big as The Beatles? The Beatles inspired jukebox musicals, television cartoons, every piece of merchandise imaginable, and a lot of other artists. Jackson did, too. It’s hard to overstate the impact of either of them.
Record sales are the best way to objectively measure a musician’s popularity. Business Insider reports that The Beatles are the most popular act of all time, having sold 183 million units. Meanwhile, the “Thriller” singer sold 89 million units, making him the sixth most popular act of all time, behind Garth Brooks, Elvis Presley, The Eagles, and Led Zeppelin. With that in mind, it seems that Jagger was right.
Michael Jackson didn’t want to get compared to The Beatles
However, Jackson likely would not have wanted people to compare him to The Beatles. In his 2011 book You Are Not Alone — Michael: Through a Brother’s Eyes, Jermaine Jackson recalled the heyday of The Jackson 5. He said the group’s merchandising manager called them “The Black Beatles.” The brothers resented the comparison, feeling that they were The Black Jackson 5, not The Black Beatles. They didn’t think that everything needed a Black equivalent.
At the end of the day, The Beatles and Jackson should be measured by their artistry. No one can impartially determine which of them has the better catalog. What matters is how their music connects to each individual listener. Jagger wasn’t wrong for contextualizing The Beatles’ level of fame — he just wasn’t looking at the big picture.
