№ 16 · SONG
Four Straight #1 Debut Singles
Jackson 5 chart record, October 1969 – June 1970
MICHAEL JACKSON
The King of Pop
★ LEGENDARY
← MICHAEL JACKSON
CARD N° 16 · SONG · ★ LEGENDARY
Four Straight #1 Debut Singles
Jackson 5 chart record, October 1969 – June 1970
№ 16 SONG
Four Straight #1 Debut Singles
The Jackson 5's first four singles — I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, and I'll Be There — all reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. No group in chart history had ever debuted with four consecutive number-ones. No group has done it since.
▶ THE MOMENT
Jackson 5 — I Want You Back (Ed Sullivan Show, Dec 14, 1969)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y3LR7eqlGQ
MICHAEL JACKSON · B·SIDE · VOL.I
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THE FACT
The Jackson 5's first four singles — I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, and I'll Be There — all reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. No group in chart history had ever debuted with four consecutive number-ones. No group has done it since.
WHAT MOST DON'T KNOW
The songs were written by Motown's in-house writing team, dubbed simply 'The Corporation' — Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Alphonzo Mizell and Deke Richards — who specifically engineered each one as an upbeat hit for an ensemble of children. The team was kept anonymous because Gordy believed his other writers would protest the favouritism. The four singles dropped between October 1969 and June 1970, a span of just eight months. ABC famously knocked The Beatles' Let It Be off the top of the chart on April 25, 1970 — the last Beatles single ever released in the UK while the band was still together. The first three singles all hit #1 in their second week of release; only I'll Be There took three weeks, because radio refused to believe the eleven-year-old Michael was actually singing lead.
▶
THE MOMENT
Jackson 5 — I Want You Back (Ed Sullivan Show, Dec 14, 1969) — Their national television debut — Michael is 11 years old.