Michael Jackson one-week sales crack 1 million mark

Total this week almost tops his combined sales of 2008

By Katie Hasty Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 1:56 PM

Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl in 1993

Credit: AP Photo

With his memorial last week and the continued inundation of media coverage and tabloid strife, Michael Jackson had a heck of a sales week last week.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, 1.1 million solo albums from the King Of Pop were sold last week, a 37% jump from the week previous. That sales week finished at the end of the business day Sunday (July 12).

Remember, that doesn't even include any Jackson 5 titles. Woosh.

Jackson's "Numbers Ones" was the top seller, with 349,000 copies, with "Thriller" right behind at 264,000.

The combined sales of Michael Jackson's solo albums in all of 2008 was 1.33 million.

In these weeks following Jackson's June 25 death, physical album retailers could have sold even more had they not run out of stock -- which explains in part why digital sales this week were flat compared to last week, while physical sales were up due to re-stocking.

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.