If you turned on the radio last fall, you may have heard an old favorite creeping back up the charts. What most people didn’t realize was that Michael Jackson, the singer the world calls the King of Pop, was about to make history with it.
The song was “Thriller,” his famous Halloween hit. On the US Billboard Hot 100 dated November 15, 2025, it climbed from No. 32 to No. 10. That single spot mattered more than anyone guessed. It made Michael the first artist ever with a top 10 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 in six different decades, from the 1970s all the way to the 2020s.
To get there he passed Andy Williams, the smooth-voiced crooner famous for “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” who had landed top 10 hits in five decades. Michael’s own run started when he was still a boy. As the music site Stereogum put it, “Michael Jackson scored his first top-10 hit as a little-kid solo artist in 1971.” That song was “Got to Be There,” and it reached No. 4 when he was just 13.
His most recent top 10 before “Thriller” came roaring back was a guest spot on Drake’s “Don’t Matter to Me” in 2018.
Here’s the song that made the record.
Michael’s “Thriller” video, the one that put him in the history books
But that six-decade count leaves something out, and it’s the part longtime fans love most. The record only counts Michael’s solo songs. It doesn’t count the hits he made as a boy with the Jackson 5, the family group he sang in with his four older brothers.
Count those, and the run reaches back even further.
In December 1969 the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” reached the top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100 at No. 8. Michael was only 11, singing lead out front while his brothers backed him up. As Songfacts noted earlier this year, “If his time with The Jackson 5 is included, the run includes the 1960s.” So if you count the brothers, Michael’s string of top 10 hits doesn’t just span six decades. It spans seven.
This is where the whole thing began, one small boy and four brothers from Gary, Indiana.
The Jackson 5 song that kicked off the run back in 1969
And the story keeps going. This Halloween’s chart gave “Thriller” yet another lift. The single re-entered the US Billboard Hot 100 at No. 20, up from No. 32 the Halloween before. Across the ocean in Britain it did even better, reaching No. 5.
Not bad for a record first released more than forty years ago, by a man who was topping charts before he was old enough to drive.
Watch both clips above and you can trace the whole journey, from an 11-year-old in 1969 to the biggest Halloween song there is.