Brit Music Scene

Michael Jackson Dominates Charts From Beyond The Grave

Posted: 29 Jun 2009 12:41 PM PDT

Michael Jackson was always popular in the U.K. in life, and the same can now be said of him in death. Just three days after Michael Jackson died, the latest British charts have shown what a massive effect his passing has had on people. It seems as though most of the population went out and brought his music in the days following his death from cardiac arrest on Thursday (June 25).

Michael Jackson had, prior to his death last week, been kind of out of the news for a while. There were, of course, the 50 shows he’d promised to perform at the London O2 Arena, of which we still don’t know the fate. But apart from that, no one was really that interested in him, his life, or his music. His death changed that completely overnight.

Not only has the death of Michael Jackson provoked an outpouring of grief and been the biggest media event for years, it’s also had a huge effect on sales of his records. Retailers around the U.K. are now reporting they’ve sold out of all his albums. Jackson’s albums occupied the top 15 slots on Amazon’s Bestsellers list, while HMV “experienced an 80-fold increase in demand for his music,” according to Digital Spy.

No surprise then to hear the Official Charts were dominated by Michael Jackson at the weekend. His album, Number Ones, appropriately took the number one slot on the albums chart, while there were six singles in the Top 40, 20 in the Top 75.

Number Ones knocked Kasabian’s new album off the top spot, while Thriller also made it to number seven. The singles were lead by Man In The Mirror, which managed to hit number 11. When it was originally released in 1988 it only hit number 21, although record sales were generally a lot higher in those days. The other singles in the Top 40 were Thriller at 23, Billie Jean at 25, Smooth Criminal at 28, Beat It at 30, and Earth Song at 38.

Michael Jackson is clearly set to continue entertaining and inspiring millions of people, in death as he did so in life. Whether it’s right or wrong for us all to have forgotten about the stranger and more shadier parts of his life on hearing he’d died is a question worth exploring later on. But for now it seems to be all about the music once again.

[Photo Source: Amazon.co.uk]

Post from: Brit Music Scene