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Jackson’s Death Sparks Unprecedented Album Sales

Posted on: Saturday, 27 June 2009, 06:40 CDT

In the wake of pop legend Michael Jackson’s death, retail sales of his albums and videos have predictably gone through the roof, with both traditional and online retailers selling out of Jackson products at a rate that industry insider’s call “stunning.”

After the news of Jackson’s death broke on Thursday, Amazon.com VP Bill Carr said that the website was flooded with fans looking to snatch-up any morsel of media connected to the larger-than-life pop icon.  Within a matter of minutes the online merchant had sold out of every Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 CD in their catalogue, Carr said.

Albums from Jackson’s repertoire constituted a prodigious sixty percent of Amazon’s total music orders placed on Thursday, while their Friday figures showed the King of Pop’s CD’s filling all 10 slots in websites “Bestsellers in Music” list. Last year’s 25th anniversary edition of “Thriller”—the internationally bestselling album of all time—commanded the number one spot on the list.

And Amazon.com is certainly not alone in reaping the benefits of the phenomenon.  There’s enough demand to go around.

Barnes and Noble’s website saw similar sales figures, with Jackson’s CDs, DVDs and biographies selling out in less than 24 hours, leaving merchandising directors scrambling to restock their inventories to meet the demand.

While Apple Inc. wouldn’t offer exact figures on how much demand for Jackson’s music had risen in the last two days, a quick peek at the current best-sellers list in their iTunes store are revealing enough.

On Wednesday, prior to the troubled superstar’s death, he had a mere one album in the top 100 iTunes downloads in the U.S.  But by Friday morning, a stunning eight of his albums had skyrocketed into the top-ten list.

With a number of vendors running out of physical stock of Jackson’s music, Carr said many customers were turning to digital downloads of his music.

The boom in sales will likely be of enormous benefit to Jackson’s surviving relatives as well, who in the coming weeks will be faced with the daunting task of sorting through his person ledger.  Though purportedly one of the shrewdest businessman in the music industry, Jackson’s financial legacy remains dubious.  Despite leaving behind an estate loaded with assets—the most valuable of which being a 50 percent share in Sony/ATV Music Publishing which owns the rights to more than 200 Beatles songs—Jackson’s lavish lifestyle also led to a mountain of debts, the exact amount of which is not yet clear.

How long the boom in Jackson music and paraphernalia will last, no one can guess. Carr says that for now, Amazon is just trying to concentrate on filling orders and responding to their customers’ wishes on a “minute by minute” basis.

“They love him, he's a legend, and they're anxious to make sure they have his music in their collections,” he said.

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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