MJ Sales Explode Posthumously

Re-remembering Michael

As could be expected, MICHAEL JACKSON's sudden demise has set off a sales explosion of his music. NEILSEN SOUNDSCAN reports that sales of JACKSON's music reached unprecedented levels. This past week, NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN processed nearly 2.95 million MICHAEL JACKSON digital track sales across NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE , AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND (OCEANIA) compared to 52,000 track sales the previous week.

In the U.S.,more than 421,000 copies of MJ product was sold this week -- and 241,000 (57%) were sold digitally The top two selling albums this past week in the U.S. are MJ's "Number Ones" and "The Essential MICHAEL JACKSON," which outsold the top-selling new record. On the catalog chart, eight of the Top 10 chart positions are comprised of MJ product, led by the top 3 of "Number Ones" (108,000), "Essential MICHAEL JACKSON" (102,000) and "Thriller" (101,000)

More MICHAEL JACKSON albums were purchased during this past week alone than through the entire first 25 weeks of 2009. The impact of his death was also pronounced worldwide: For the first 25 weeks on 2009, 419,000 MICHAEL JACKSON digital track were downloads in EUROPE/OCEANIA; this week alone there are 552,000 digital track sales. Other sales records accomplished posthumously:

* It's the first time the #1 Catalog album has sold more than the #1 album on the BILLBOARD Top 200 album chart.
* It's the first time ever that the same artist had 8 out of the top 10 positions on a chart.
* Holds the top 4 spots on the Digital Album Chart this week and 6 out of the top 10 positions.
* First Artist to ever have 1 million or more tracks sold in one week.
* Sold more than 2,300,000 digital tracks (as well as 292,000 JACKSON 5 tracks) this week.
* Has 36 songs in the Top 200 Digital Song chart (note there were also six JACKSON 5 songs on the chart as well).
* Nine songs were downloaded more than 100,000 times.

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