Michael Jackson’s Michael Is The #1 Selling Global Album

MICHAEL JACKSON’S MICHAEL IS THE #1 SELLING GLOBAL ALBUM
The Legendary Icon Continues His Worldwide Success
Shipping Platinum or Gold in 31 territories

New York – The King of Pop showed once again that his music knows no borders as the Sony Music/Epic Records release MICHAEL – the first album in nine years of new Michael Jackson tracks –– debuted globally at #1 in its first week of sales and shipped over 3 million units worldwide making it one of the biggest albums of 2010.

Hailed by TIME as “a carefully assembled recreation of his finest moments as a solo artist and a reminder of why we cared about him to begin with,” MICHAEL clearly has been embraced not only by his most passionate fans in virtually every corner of the world, but a new generation discovering his recent artistry, collaborations and poignant gems featured on MICHAEL.

Wrote Neil McCormick, chief rock music critic for the London Daily Telegraph: “It has the extraordinary confidence of a pop classic and presages an album that may well be Jackson’s best work since his Eighties glory days.”

Today’s worldwide results underscore Michael Jackson’s prophetic vision in seeing the world as one territory and his fans part of a single community, which helped endear him to countless fans and make him the global icon and superstar he remains today. Some of the sales figures from across the world show the following:

MICHAEL shipped Platinum in 14 territories including the United States, UK, Germany, France (2x), Italy (3x), Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Belgium, Czech Republic (4x), Canada, Korea and the Middle East.

The album debuted at #1 in Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden.

And on top of the # 1 album chart entry in Germany, sales of MICHAEL broke the country’s 2010’s first-week record with over 85,000 units sold.

Opening week sales of more than 113,000 in the U.K. scored the biggest opening week for a new Michael Jackson studio album since ‘Dangerous’ nearly 20 years ago.
In Japan, the album is the fourth Michael Jackson album to ever debut in the top 3, joining Bad, Thriller and last year’s “This Is It” companion album.

The album is in the top five in Belgium (#2), US (#3), Japan (#3), the UK (#4), France (#4), Denmark (#4). In the US, the album shipped platinum and debuted at #3 of the Billboard Album chart with just under 230,000 copies sold.

The album went Gold in 17 territories on arrival in Japan, China, Australia, Ireland, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, India, Philippines and Taiwan.

The album marks another release under the new agreement between the Estate of Michael Jackson and Sony Music announced in March that continues the label’s 35-year relationship with Michael and his music. During that time, Michael sold hundreds of millions of records, had 13 #1 singles and released the pop culture phenomenon “Thriller,” which remains music’s all-time bestselling album with more than 100 million copies sold worldwide.

Information on Michael can be found at www.MichaelJackson.com.