Great insight! I didn't realise the History singles was that massive upon release! Thanks again

The Way You Make Me Feel has just passed 100m plays on Spotify. This means Bad joins the elite field of pre- 2000 albums with 3 x 100m songs!

The other 7 albums being:
GnR Appetite, Dr. Dre 2001, RHCP Californication, Nirvana Nevermind, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Bob Marley Exodus and of course MJ's own Thriller.

With the song Bad at 64m there's also a chance Bad is gonna be one of the first albums with 4 x 100m songs. Thriller is likely to be the very first (P.Y.T is now at 93,5m)

In the future the two albums could race each other for 5 x 100m songs 🙂 Dirty Diana is only 0,75m plays behind Wanna Be Starting Something, both at around 51m.
Dr. Dre is leading this race though with his 2001 album. Xxplosive is at 57m.

I follow your articles and evaluations now for a long time. Truly an incredible job you are doing here.
I have a question. Surely you heard from the Quincy Jones interview where he claims MJ stole Billie Jean. It really annoys me how the media takes everything negative so unchecked when it comes to Michael. It has been a strategy of Quincy Jones for years now to tarnish him as a artist and portray himself as the true maker(architect of Michael Jackson. In fact, the media are only too happy to portray it as if MJ was made by others and he has the lowest of all shares in its own success. I think it is not a surprise he took his signature song because it gives the most damage. Do you think this Jones attack to portray Michael as the thief of Billie Jean harms him in the long run.
I think more interviews from him will come around his 85 birthday (Oprah is obviously one of the next).
I'm always amazed how MJ after all these attacks not only his personal life but also the attacks to him as a artist he continues to have this success.

Hi Marlene!

To be honest, I don't think many people care about Quincy's rants for many years. The ones giving him credit are the same ones outside of the black culture, mostly rock fans on their 60s+, which anyway never liked MJ since it broke various Beatles' records and never played instruments live. Basically, Quincy comments will only convinced people who already convinced themselves!

Hi MJD,

thank you for your prompt reply. It's just that main stream media (not limited to tabloids) spreads it, so you think people who hear it casually just take it as a real news and it will be cemented in their head.
But yes, in the end I think and hope that you are right.

P.Y.T. has passed 100 million plays on Spotify. It is the 4th song from Thriller reach this milestone after Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller.
Thriller is the first pre-2000 album to ever accomplish this. Truly magnificent!

Here is the top pre-2000 ALBUMS ranked by biggest 4th track:

MJ Thriller: 340.1m/210.2m/157.0m/101.2m
Dr. Dre 2001: 266.2m/250.6m/167.5m/89.2m
Pearl Jam Ten: 120.1m/109.1m/100.0m/75.2m
MJ Bad: 137.1m/111.2m/107.7m/68.9m
Nirvana Nevermind: 376.7m/243.7m/136.3m/67.3m
Metallica Black Album: 234.0m/211.0m/103.2m/62.4m
AC/DC BIB: 228.7m/150.3m/62.5m/61.7m
Bob Marley Exodus: 215.2m/135.2m/115.9m/58.9m

He would have caught up already had the glorious American justice system and media not done their best to ruin his reputation. From the moment he started to break white records and became the first black person to trigger mass hysteria by whites, blacks, browns, yellows alike many in the white US and UK media considered him a threat. Once he bought the ATV catalog, with Beatles songs and all, the character assassination started in full force. By the time Evan Chandler teamed up with that pedophile Victor Gutierrez to concoct the molestation story Jordan Chandler was coached to memorize MJ's media coverage escalated to a point that you could say anything about the guy , no matter how irrational, obscene, bizarre, absurd it was the public just believed it. No question asked.

It would be great to see where MJ's sales would be without the Chandlers and Gutierrez starting to brand him as a monster.

Splitting up was their decision it was not an injustice it was not a bunch of lies it did not hurt them.
You can't compare that to massive injustice that was inflicted upon MJ. A hell of a lot of people wanted him to fall, including some pedophiles like Victor Gutierrez who started the whole witch hunt in the 1980s

One thing is sure Thriller's sales would not be at this level without those three music videos and Motown 25 and those three videos and Motown 25 wouldn't have had the impact without the outfits, the choreographies and MJ's dancing.

Yes the tabloid media will try to tear anyone down, but Britney was ridiculed for things she actually did do, nobody was accusing her of horrible crimes he did not commit. Lennon was killed by one crazy. He was not relentlessly persecuted, bullied by law enforcement and the global media like MJ was. And let's not forget MJ is the only black person whom the white media branded with the name of an ape: Jacko. That is no coincidence. It's blatant racism (no it's not just an innocent nickname for Jackson , context matters) especially since they are still calling him that after he virtually begged in 1997 that the press should stop calling him an animal.

Very good work Thomas keeping us updated with these truly interesting stats! Some real massive albums there!

Were ringtones included in the stats for MJ's digital single sales? They've made big adjustments to younger artists, and while MJ is obviously of a different generation, I thought he would still do well in the format as his music seems to bizarrely do fantastic in pretty much all formats! It may increase Billie Jean's immense total even further.

Hi RyanS!

Yes, they were included. New formulas could give him a boost but not as much as big hits from years 2007-2009.

Thanks for the reply. One last thing, I've seen from UKMIX posters that MJ is currently the biggest-selling solo artist in terms of albums in the UK, and based on their estimates is almost identical in sales to Queen (23.5M-24M range) and therefore only behind The Beatles overall (31.5M) in terms of pure albums range. Is this true?

Hi RyanS!

Most lists online about UK sales are inaccurate mostly because they act as if OCC figures are the bible while they are incomplete and inaccurate. All artists sold more than their suggested retail sales for several reasons, starting with Music Clubs.

The Beatles are over 33m with identified releases only, MJ is on 26,3m. This latter figure includes compilations credited to MJ and J5/Jacksons, but not releases of the J5/Jacksons only. Queen are at 26,7m.

Among the Top 4 male artists in the UK, 3 are missing: Elvis, Rod and Robbie. The last 2 sold close or over 20m. The former is at least as high as MJ, I would say most likely ahead. Madonna is at 23m.

That Bad sold over 15 million in Europe - Wow.

Hi MJD,
I was just wondering, isn't likely that Bad already crossed the 10 million threshold even before the adjustment was made to incorporate digital streams ? Most of the sources I've seen that puts its total at around 9,900,000+ date from 2013, and given that he would be less than 100,000 units away, isn't it possible he would have shifted enough physical units between that 5 year period ?

I had the same question with Dangerous, as I've seen other sources list its total sales at around or over 30 million, and wasn't sure if possibly they had more updated data, or had were incorporating worldwide data from countries which hadn't been included before.

Thank you !

Hi Jean!

All your answers (and more) are detailed on this article 😉

Thank you MJD !

I had read that article prior to commenting, so I think what I was trying to say is do you think its possible for BAD to sell enough physical unit in the near future to be certified for 10 million in pure sales even before taking into account EAS ? I just that the gap was so narrow that it was inevitable that he might be able to push enough albums to cover that >100,000 shortfall in time. I apologize for not articulating that clearly.

Also, I was wondering, if Dangerous does manage to reach 8 million domestically, would that make Michael Jackson the only artist (or solo artist ) to have 4 albums in a row sell 8 million in the United States ? Or at the current moment the is he the only artist to have 4 albums in a row to be certified for 7 million in pure sales / have 5 albums with a 7X Platinum certification ? I've yet to see any other artist equal these figures, and was curious as to whether he might have set a record in terms of the last two ?

Thanks, I find your commentary very insightful.

Hi Jean!

Undoubtedly, yes! The article detailed with MJ's US sales is 8 months old. By then, Bad was on 9,85m pure units sold. Since then, it already added 60,000 more units! As you can see, it should be over that 10m mark in 2 years at most.

As for consecutive albums, I can think of Led Zeppelin who sold 7m+ with each of their first 6 albums! One of them remains 6xP but it's only a matter of time before it gets updated. In the same way, although that's subject to some controversy, all Garth Brooks' first 7 albums are at least 7xP, 4 of which are past Diamond!

Gwen Stefani + No doubt would be interesting.
Tragic kingdom is one of the biggest era's you didn't include in your biggest CSPC of the 90s article so i'm interested to see its results.
Also on your old website Fan of music you said said L.A.M.B sold 7,500,000 pure in 2009.
I assume L.A.M.B would be over 10,000,000 CSPC and Tragic Kingdom 20,000,000?

How many albums has MJ sold in Latin America?How Dangerous sold 1.995 million units in Southeast Asia while sales in Thailand,Malaysia and Singapore combined only up to 870k?There are only two markets left in Southeast Asia.

Maybe I missed it, but why is "We are the World" counted in digital singles but not physical singles?

Hi Nathan!

It's a situation similar to some singles that are released as Orphan physically but then get downloads / streams as part of an album. We are the World was a charity single with plenty of artists, so it's normal that it isn't counted as part of Jackson's total. Then, his solo version enjoys large downloads / streams and has been hotter after his passing, so it got added since it is no more a charity thing but instead one more song from his catalog.

BC, any act with an RIAA diamond album (like Tragic Kingdom) is going to be interesting. I figure another 50 or so acts and chartmasters will have covered most of the US and UK superstars and monster albums.

The gap between releasing one album to another is just way too long. If he had shorten the gap and release an album every 2 years, instead of every 4-5 years. He would've probably outsold the beatles.