Tampa Calling

It’s just like the old days. Michael Jackson is ruling the charts.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks record sales, Jackson’s solo albums sold 415,000 units last week, mostly in the time between the Friday after his death and Sunday night, when scanning for the week closed. 58 percent of the sales were digital downloads.

Because Jackson’s titles are not eligible for the Billboard 200, they are relegated to the Pop Catalog chart, where he holds the top nine positions. Three of his titles — Number Ones, Thriller and The Essential Michael Jackson — exceeded 100,000 in sales, outpacing Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D. (88,000), which claims No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It’s the first time that a catalog album has outsold the No. 1 on the 200, the survey of current albums. This week, Jackson has done it three times over.

Additionally, Jackson titles hold the first four positions on the Digital Albums chart, and six of the Top 10

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According to industry insiders, three Michael Jackson albums — Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson and Thriller — each sold 100,000 copies last week. The sales tracking week ended at the close of business on Sunday (June 28) night and will be reported today. That means the bulk of the sales took place in the three days after Jackson’s death.

Those six-figure tallies would’ve put the three discs at Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the Billboard 200 —slightly ahead of the Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. — but catalog albums are not eligible for the album sales chart, so Jackson will instead dominate the Pop Catalog survey.

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