Michael Jackson’s Two Best-Selling Album Hits Billboards Charts

Michael Jackson has two of the five best-selling albums in the U.S. in the aftermath of Jackson's death. Number Ones albums sold 339,000 copies and would have held at #1 on The Billboard 200 if catalog albums were eligible to compete on that chart. Meanwhile The Essential Michael Jackson album sold 125,000 copies and would have dropped from #2 to #5. The Billboard excludes catalog albums from the big chart on the theory that new albums need the spotlight the chart provides more than past hits do. Jackson's catalog of solo albums sold 800,000 copies this week, up from 422,000 copies last week. This was the first full week following Jackson's death on June 25. Billboard reports that 82% of the Jackson albums sold this week were CDs. Last week, 43% of the Michael Jackson albums sold were CDs. I think this shows that on a special album, people want the CD as a souvenir from the King of Pop. Sad to see it takes his death for his albums to be in the top 5. But he will always be number 1 to the Millions of fans who love him.