Not Thriller. Not Billie Jean. A deep cut nobody expected just rewrote the record books.
A song that was never a single, never performed live, and largely forgotten after its 2014 release just did something no artist in the 60-plus-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 has ever done.
"Chicago" debuted at No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated June 6, 2026 - becoming Michael Jackson's 52nd solo Hot 100 entry.
That one placement made history.
Jackson is now officially the first and only artist to debut new Billboard Hot 100 entries in every decade since the 1970s - spanning the '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s, '10s, and now the 2020s.
His chart totals by decade: 11 songs in the '70s, 20 in the '80s, 12 in the '90s, four in the 2000s, four in the 2010s - and now one in the 2020s.
So why "Chicago," and why now?
Originally recorded during the Invincible sessions and released on the posthumous 2014 album Xscape, "Chicago" was never pushed as a single. It lived quietly in the catalog - until the Michael biopic changed everything.
The song entered the Hot 100 almost entirely from 10.7 million official chart-eligible U.S. streams during the May 22-28 tracking week, up 30% from the week before, according to data tracker Luminate. Social media, particularly TikTok, helped carry it there.
On the same chart, "Billie Jean" sits at No. 19 and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" re-entered at No. 43 - Jackson charting across five decades of music in a single week.
For a man who spoke openly about his Christian faith and described music as a gift from God, the story keeps writing itself - 17 years after his passing, on a song the world almost missed entirely.
Related Article: Thriller Is Back: Michael Jackson Just Made Billboard History Again
