When buying tickets for a gig billed as “Number Ones Tour”, you’d expect the evening to be a musical extravaganza where the arena quickly becomes a mass karaoke session with the punters singing back towards the performer.

Well, that would be correct in nearly every instance apart from when Janet Jackson is involved.

At times we sometimes forget that she is a member of the Jackson tribe because, of all the wacky gang, she ranks fairly low on the list in terms of talent and fame. Michael Jackson grabbed most of the families singing and dancing ability, leaving Janet to feed on the scraps that aren’t good enough to be b-sides. Imagine our surprise when we saw a poster advertising a new Janet Jackson number one tour. We didn’t realise she had enough fans to dint the top forty, let alone the number one spot.

We guess this is going to be the closest thing to seeing a Jackson member doing a tour anytime soon. Michael Jackson did the inconvenient thing of passing away, leaving a huge fifty date gap in the diary of the O2 Arena in London. After years of pissing about, fans of the Jackson family might finally get some sort of tour organised.

Shame it’s going to be a disappointing lacklustre production from a woman who is more famous for her tit popping out at the Super Bowl rather than actual singing.

We’re going to blame America for all of this. The UK as a whole is generally switched on when it comes to music. After all, which is the only country in the world where hillbilly country & western can make you an overnight sensation and guarantee more groupie action than a repetitive sex session with your sister?

That’s right, the good old USA. Hotdog!

Looking through the chart positions of Janet Jackson, it seems that out there somewhere, someone is buying her music with most of her albums going in at number one. Subsequently, you’d expect a load of spin off singles, but for poor Janet Jackson, this hasn’t happened for a while. 2008 saw her last studio album Discipline with the lead single Rock With U bombing in at number 121. Ouch.

But that’s okay -  everyone is allowed an occasional blip.

However, when you haven’t had a number one single since 2001 with something called All For You then questions have to be asked. Over the course of her solo career starting from 1986 and up to the present day, Janet Jackson has only bagged ten number ones.

Of course, we expect people to say “oooh well how many have you had?” but the laughable fact remains that over twenty three years, she fails in comparison to someone like the never aging Madonna and is launching a tour off the back her apparent achievement.

If it had been billed as “The Tour Full Of Maybes And Mishaps Ft Michael Jacksons Sister,” it might have done better.

Perhaps she needs a novelty animal to help people feel sorry for her, like a giraffe. It worked for Michael Jackson and God knows the later output of his musical career was absolute guff.

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Elvis Presley may have shaped the modern notion of what popular music is, but was he ever the cover star of a '100 Hottest Body Tips From The Stars' special issue of People magazine?

No he wasn't. But Mariah Carey is. Thus Mariah is better than Elvis Presley.

And Mariah Carey isn't just better than Elvis Presley at having a beach fit bikini body, either – Mariah Carey is also better at music and stuff as well. It's true – Mariah Carey has notched up her 18th American number one single, while rubbish old Elvis Presley only managed to get 17 before he snuffed it. Mariah is the new Elvis! Yay! That means we'll be able to dress up like her and ghoulishly traipse around her house when she dies! Yay!  

Elvis Presley has been dead for 30 years, but he still has a lot going for him – he's richer than any other dead person, plus he left behind an overweight daughter and mangle-faced wife. And how do we repay Elvis Presley for these two lovely – if slightly startling – gifts to the world? By wrestling everything he holds dear out of his fat dead hands and giving it to Mariah Carey, that's how.

Mariah Carey's new single Touch My Body – as well as possibly being a weird insurance scam – is number one in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. And, as you'd expect for the white-hot talent responsible for hits like Fantasy, That Other Song, The One About Touching Her Body, The High-Pitched One and The Song That Sounds Like The Song About Touching Her Body, number one records are nothing new for Mariah Carey at all.

In fact Touch My Body is Mariah Carey's 18th American number one, which is more American number ones than that useless turd Elvis Presley ever flipping got. BBC News reports:

"I'm just feeling really happy and grateful," the 38-year-old performer told the Associated Press.  "I really can never put myself in the category of people who have not only revolutionised music but also changed the world, that's a completely different era and time," she said."In terms of my ethnicity, always feeling like an outsider, always feeling different… for me it's about saying, 'Thank you Lord, for giving me the faith to believe in myself when other people had written me off."

Although congratulations are due to Mariah Carey for surpassing one of the most famous men who ever lived, she should remember that beating Elvis Presley at stuff is actually quite easy. This morning alone, for example, we beat Elvis Presley at arm-wresting, Guitar Hero and Pin The Tail On The Donkey. And, honestly, if he hadn't creeped us out so much during that staring contest we'd have creamed him at that too.

You see, while Mariah Carey has had more number one records than Elvis, she still needs three more number one records to beat all-time champions The Beatles. And you know what that means, don't you? It means that Mariah Carey isn't going to retire until she's released at least another three insipid, instantly forgettable R&B pop ballads. Joy.

Read more:

Mariah breaks Elvis chart record - BBC