I don’t know if I’ll be sticking with doing this silly little feature every week but I did do it last week as well.

I’m particularly interested in this week’s album charts because this is the first week since way back in 1991 that older albums are allowed to be included in the Billboard 200 chart. In 1991 a rule was made that only albums released within the last 18 months (if they had ever fallen off the top 200) were allowed to be included. This was to keep older albums from taking up too many slots from the newer albums that the industry wanted to promote.

This year that rule caused some very unusual situations as Michael Jackson would have had the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 charts 6 of the 7 weeks after his death but because of this rule his albums were relegated to the “catalog charts” and the “comprehensive album charts.” This is what brought this rule to people’s attention (not many knew about it before hand.) And a lot of people (including myself) thought it was absurd that the charts didn’t accurately reflect what people were actually buying because of this arbitrary rule.

The MJ situation was probably the impetus behind changing the rules. It seems pretty ridiculous for an album to be called the #1 album of the week when it’s being outsold by an album that came out years ago!

#1 (debut) John Mayer - Battle Studies

I’m not a fan of John Mayer, but I’ll give him this: He’s probably much more of a musical artist than most of the crap that lands at #1. I know he’s a talented guitarist but I find his stuff way too “safe” for my tastes. It’s just all a bit too much “by the numbers.” But, I haven’t actually heard anything off this album - so don’t take this as any kind of review of Battle Studies.

#15 (14 weeks) Casting Crowns - Peace On Earth

This a “re-entry” because of the rule change and we can expect to see a lot of these Holiday themed albums on the Billboard 200 now over the next month because of it. I actually have no idea who Casting Crowns are. Never heard of ‘em.

#16 (debut) Paul McCartney - Good Evening New York City

According to Billboard this is Paul’s 8th solo/Wings live album. Eight! That’s a lot. I wonder how many of them have a version of “Hey Jude” on them? I’m a pretty big fan of Paul (yes, even his solo and his Wings stuff) but I really have very little interest in hearing this one.

#37 (32 weeks) Michael Jackson - Number Ones

This is also “re-entry” because of the rule change - and because this is actually the album that would have been #1 six of those seven weeks after Jackson died - it’s also probably the biggest reason for the rule change.

#85 (123 weeks) Michael Jackson - Thriller

It’s seeing things like this that makes this week’s charts so much different. This is an album that came out in 1982 but this last week it was the 85th biggest selling album of the week. That’s pretty cool. Of course it was much higher than that (in the top 10 for quite a few weeks if I remember correctly) after MJ died.

#118 (130 weeks) The Beatles - Abbey Road

Thriller came out in 1982, that’s pretty good. But Abbey Road came out in 1969. It’s too bad these new rules were not in place for the 9/9/9 release of the Beatles remasters because much of the top 40 would have been filled with The Beatles back catalog. That 130 weeks doesn’t seem to actually go back to 1969, I’m not sure when it begins because it’s listed as having a chart peak of only #69 which is obviously not the case. You should also consider that from 1991 through this week it was ineligible to appear in these charts.

#151 (8 weeks) The Beatles in Stereo Box Set

This is counted as a new release (it peaked at #15) so it didn’t need the change in rules to show up here. A peak of #15 and only being at #151 this week may not seem particularly impressive until you realize that it’s a box set which includes The Beatles entire 1960s discography and that it sells for $180 on Amazon.

#152 (57 weeks) The Beatles - The White Album

Ah yes, Marvin just did a couple of entries on The White Album (”The Beatles in their Own Words” — The White Album - Disc 1 & The White Album - Disc 2. )

#181 (88 weeks) Michael Jackson - Bad

Not as good as Thriller, no. But it did have more #1 hits and I think it’s a bit underrated these days.

#189 (176 weeks) The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The sales numbers for all of The Beatles individual albums are being greatly cut into by the sales of the box sets (obviously most of the people who are buying the box sets are buying those instead of buying the individual albums.) This is the oldest album on the top 200 as it was originally released in 1967.

Billboard, 2009, Michael Jackson, The Beatles

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