Michael Jackson Dominates Billboard, Euro Charts, Facebook

Michael Jackson’s death last month was heartbreaking, but his musical legacy carries on. The King of Pop sold an astounding 1.1 million solo albums in the U.S. this past week, up 37 percent from the 800,000 copies sold the previous week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Proving that Jackson’s legacy isn’t stopping til’ it gets enough, Jackson’s Number Ones collection reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Comprehensive Albums chart, and is the top-selling album for the third week in a row in the United States, with 349,000 sales. More than 2.3 million Michael Jackson albums have been sold over the past 2-½ weeks.

Michael Jackson also single-handedly dominated the Top Pop Catalog Albums. He has albums at Nos. 1-6 and Nos. 8-10 on the chart, while a Jackson 5 title (The Ultimate Collection) sits at No. 7. “Man in the Mirror” was Jackson’s top-selling digital download song of the week last week, where he claimed five out of the top ten slots on Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs chart.

 Out of the 800,000 solo albums sold from June 25-July 5, 656,000 copies were physical albums, while 144,000 were downloaded albums. U.S. track downloads rose from 48,000 copies to 2.6 million the week following his death. Jackson also occupied the top four slots on European Top 100 Albums. Elsewhere, On July 7, Facebook users averaged 6,000 status updates per minute during Jackson’s memorial service.

Jackson’s legacy doesn’t stop there. There’s a large amount of unreleased recordings left over from his studio sessions, in addition to Jackson’s recent collaborations with other artists. “People will be hearing a lot of that unreleased material for the first time ever. There’s just some genius and brilliance in there,” says Tommy Mottola, chairman and CEO of Sony Music from 1998 to 2003.