I’ve just learned something new from this article on Michael Jackson’s huge album sales in the US. “Pop Catalog” albums (albums that had fallen off the charts and were released more than 18 months ago) are not eligible for the top albums chart. Why not? I don’t know. Seems pretty stupid to me.

From this story it looks like Michael Jackson would have actually had the top three slots on the album charts if these older albums were eligible. They are predicting that three of his albums sold around 100,000 copies for the week (Monday through Sunday) Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson, & Thriller. On the other hand The Black Eyed Peas’ latest album is likely to get the #1 slot on the album charts with less than 100,000 copies sold.

This is apparently the first time ever that a pop catalog album will have sold more than the #1 album on the regular charts. If it weren’t for this absurdly stupid rule prohibiting pop catalog albums from the regular charts, Jackson would be at #1.

***UPDATE***

MJ did indeed end up with the three biggest selling albums of the week in the US (Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson, & Thriller) all of which outsold the latest The Black Eyed Peas album which is officially the #1 Billboard album because they don’t allow older albums on the chart.

Click Here to read the Billboard article which goes into detail on the many sales records Jackson set.