The New York Times has an interesting graphic today charting the late Michael Jackson’s musical career. The chart superposes the Billboard rankings of each of his hits over time as sparklines, and compares his output to that of The Beatles, U2, Mariah Carey, Usher and, perplexingly, Boyz II Men.
It’s a nicely done chart, but what impresses me the most was the speed at which they put it out. (According to the dateline, it was published yesterday, hours after Jackson’s death.) Either the NYT graphics department has applied the obituary model to quantitative graphics and has a chart like this cued up for every pop star, or they have some very powerful software and rich data stores. (I guess when Madonna gets hit by a bus we’ll know the answer.)
New York Times: Jackson’s Billboard Rankings over Time (via FlowingData).
