Michael Jackson is still the king of pop:
Michael Jackson’s Number Ones is the best-selling album in the U.S. for the fifth time in the past six weeks. This is the longest that an artist who had died has had the nation’s top-seller since Double Fantasy, by John Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono, topped The Billboard 200 for eight weeks from December 1980 to February 1981. Number Ones, which made its final appearance on The Billboard 200 in July 2005, seems increasingly likely to wind up as the #1 album of 2009. The hits compilation has sold 1,373,000 copies so far this year. Only Taylor Swift’s Fearless has outsold it. The country crossover hit has sold 1,500,000 copies since Jan. 1. And Number Ones is gaining on Fearless. This is the sixth week in a row that the hit-studded compilation has surpassed 100,000 in sales. Fearless hasn’t topped 100,000 in weekly sales since the last week of December.
Jackson has sold 3,788,000 albums in the U.S. since his death, which has enabled him to zoom from #47 to #35 on Nielsen/SoundScan’s running list of the best-selling artists in its 18-year history. Number Ones has been his biggest-seller since his death, with sales of 1,256,000 copies in this period. Six weeks ago, on the last charts released before Jackson’s death, the compilation ranked #134 for the year-to-date, with 2009 sales of 117,000. The Essential Michael Jackson is #1 in the U.K. for the fifth straight week. That’s the longest run at #1 in the U.K. in 2009.
I still think the Essential Michael Jackson is the best album for your money. It contains 38 MJ songs from the Jackson Five all the way up to “Invisible” album. RIP Mike.
