There will be a lot of retrospectives of Michael Jackson after yesterday’s shocking news. I’ll let others comment on his personal life. Sure that’s part of his story, but it’s because of his music that anyone cared about his personal life in the first place.

Anyway, I’ve done quite a few of these Last.FM features before as I find it quite interesting to see what songs people are actually listening to. It’s a great way of seeing which songs last, which songs really stick. Especially these days when so many people are listening song by song rather than to full albums (personally, I’m still an albums guy – usually.)

On a related note, Jackson was the 67th on the Last.FM most listened to charts last week. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him shoot into the top 10 this week. They release the new charts on Sunday, or is it Monday? I’m not sure, actually.

You’ll see that the list below is based on the last week. It’s interesting how little these top played songs charts change week to week (unless someone releases a new album.) There’s very little difference between the top songs last week & the top songs over the last 6 months.

Michael Jackson’s 20 Most Played Songs (Last Week)

#Rank – “Song” – Album

#01 – “Billy Jean” – Thriller
#02 – “Beat It” – Thriller
#03 – “Thriller” – Thriller
#04 – “Smooth Criminal” – Bad
#05 – “Black or White” – Dangerous
#06 – “Bad” – Bad
#07 – “The Way You Make Me Feel” – Bad
#08 – “Rock With You” – Off The Wall
#09 – “Man in the Mirror” – Bad
#10 – “Dirty Diana” – Bad
#11 – “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” – Thriller
#12 – “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” – Off The Wall
#13 – “Human Nature” – Thriller
#14 – “Remember The Time” – Dangerous
#15 – “Earth Song” – HIStory
#16 – “You Are Not Alone” – HIStory
#17 – “You Rock My World” – Invincible
#18 – “They Don’t Care About Us” – HIStory
#19 – “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” – Thriller
#20 – “Heal The World” – Dangerous

Thriller leads with 6 songs in the top 20 & Bad has 5. It’s not surprising that those two albums dominate as they were his two biggest sellers, but what’s nice is that all six of his solo albums (as an adult) are represented with at least one song. The often dismissed HIStory even has 3 songs in the top 20.

Album Sales

Speaking of sales, I’ll add this chart of his top selling albums (by US sales figures) too.

#1 Thriller (1982) – 28 Million (top selling album in US history)
#2 Bad (1987) – 10 Million
#3 Off the Wall (1979) – 8 Million
#3 Dangerous (1991) – 8 Million
#5 HIStory (1995) – 4 Million (8 Million “units”)
#6 Invincible (2001) – 2 Million

All of these albums except Off The Wall reached #1 in the US & UK, Off The Wall reached #3 in the US, & #5 in the UK.