Who is the youngest artist to top the pop charts?
Some of the greatest musicians in the world don’t always discover their talents until much later.
It takes a while for anyone to realise that they are destined to make music for a living, but there are always a few exceptions when an artist is barely out of diapers and finding themselves at the top of the charts.
Then again, fame that young can very much be a double-edged sword. The parents might have been able to capitalise off the success of their children at this point, but having that much attention being put on a young mind at that early stage of development could lead to some serious dangers down the road. Hell, even when some artists rise to prominence as teenagers, they have a hard time adjusting, so someone barely in high school is bound to be worse.
But for many artists who start at that young an age, music isn’t simply a fun hobby or anything. They have to learn early that their success is a full-time job, and while acts like The Beatles may have been considered a teenybopper band, they were bound to make their heroes like Elvis Presley look like a virtual dinosaur with how well they were handling their fame in their mid-20s.
On the other side of the music world, though, soul music was already dominating the charts as well. The shockwaves of Sam Cooke had left an indelible mark on labels like Motown Records, and while Stevie Wonder seemed to be the youngest virtuoso of all time when his first records started hitting the charts, Michael Jackson came to snatch that title away the minute that the Jackson 5 was signed.
How did Michael Jackson become the youngest chart-topper?
Although the band of brothers had a troubling upbringing, there’s no way to quantify the excitement that comes with listening to Jackson sing ‘I Want You Back’ with his brothers. It was among the poppiest offerings that Motown had ever had, but when listening to Jackson’s voice, he could practically sing anything and still sound good, and when their first major hit topped the charts, Jackson became the youngest artist to hit number one at only 11 years old.
The rest of the Jackson 5’s career may have revolved around Michael, but no one could have predicted that they were looking at one of the biggest musical talents since Presley. The Beatles touched many hearts during their lifetime, but the minute that Jackson struck out on his own as his own solo artist on Off the Wall, he went on a run of albums that would leave any other pop artist in the dust, even earning himself one of the highest-selling albums of all time with Thriller.
And a lot of that knack for hooks is evident in ‘I Want You Back’. Berry Gordy knew a hit when he heard one, and while Jackson’s voice is the star attraction, the fact that everything from the backing vocals to Wilton Felder’s bassline is a hook is how Jackson would structure all of his future hits as well. In Jackson’s mind, there was never any room for filler material, so it was only natural to pack every tune with the best hook he could find.
So if you think about it in that respect, ‘I Want You Back’ isn’t simply a good pop song; it was the tune that built the Jackson empire. ‘The King of Pop’ was still only a kid when the tune came out, but after his first encounter with success, the world could never get enough of his beautiful voice.
