As I noted many times when writing about the huge sales for Michael Jackson’s albums in the weeks following his death, Billboard only allowed newer albums to be included on their Billboard 200 chart. Because of this, MJ’s Number Ones was kept off of it’s rightful place as the #1 album of the week for six of seven weeks after Jackson died. We had to check the “comprehensive album charts” to see the real charts.

Many people complained about this ridiculous rule (which I think most people were unaware of until the MJ situation made it obvious) and now Billboard is changing it’s chart rules so that the Billboard 200 chart reflects the top selling albums regardless of when they were released.

The Beatles were also hurt by this rule as many of their 1960s albums would have charted on the Billboard 200 charts if they had not been disqualified by this rule. In fact, they would have had 11 albums in the top 40 in the debut week for their new remasters.

This change will go into effect starting with next week’s (November 16-22) album sales. It should be interesting to watch going into the Christmas season when I expect the Beatles remastered albums could do very well.

Billboard, Michael Jackson, 2009

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