GreyAsh

Allegedly… but generally Number Ones sells more than The Essential (still remains to be seen this week) - for example it’s had 15 weeks in the sales chart this year compared with 1 for The Essential yet The Essential is usually the one that charts higher. So either: The record company is allowed to nominate one album at a time (and for one week nominated Michael - Soundtrack and earlier in the year nominated Number Ones for 1 week.) Or: The priority is given to the album that would chart highest if allocated the streams for its top 16 tracks. From what I can see, everyone in this group disagrees with me on that, but I’m adamant that one of these scenarios must be the case.

True. But ironically that was literally the era when songs debuted at number 1 then started their decline! Every single Melanie C song peaked in its debut position. I know we are talking about albums though and it was a mixed bag: lots of the biggest albums did grow over time, whereas other albums peaked in their debut position. As well as Melanie C: Christina Aguilera and Gabrielle also released albums that week that peaked much higher than they debuted (Gabrielle debuted at 25 and eventually reached to Number 1. And the Number 1 that week was one of the biggest selling albums of all time – by Shania Twain – that debuted at 15, then fell out of the chart completely (like Gabrielle) before eventually climbing to Number 1. I guess the Singles Chart and Albums Chart have swapped over!

Likewise frustrating that ‘Human Nature’ is unlikely to chart. I’m assuming that as it is more than 3 years old, even if it is reset, it will go back on to ACR at the same time as Michael Jackson’s other tracks - and even though it is far ahead of his 5th track - and doing really well on Apple - it looks like it will remain far behind his top 3 tracks on Spotify.

please delete

Red and Blue - do these albums still sell on vinyl?

Love this song!

I assume the spike in interest for MJ increased sales of Number Ones. Plus when streams of songs from the soundtrack like Billie Jean are removed from both compilations , the streaming advantage of having lots of tracks was not enough for The Essential to overcome the sales advantage of Number Ones. It’s a delicate balance!

It is likely to get reset this week like the Justin Bieber songs were and therefore might climb into Michael Jackson’s top 3 next week.

Probably Billie Jean, Beat It and Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough but it could be close for Human Nature. I’m also intrigued by how close his albums are in the album chart. Assuming the soundtrack classes as a compilation, either of the other two compilations might end up cannibalising the streams from ‘Michael’ and it might end up with very few streaming sales - and a rare case of a new album ending the week with fewer sales than it had in the middle of the week.

I played it this morning and I couldn’t hear it.

I love ‘Another Crack In My Heart’ - at the time it was the only ‘Take That’ song that I liked. But I have never heard a sample of ‘Human Nature’ in it – I’ll have to listen again. Edit: there is no mention of ‘Human Nature’ in the credits.

I’ve not seen the film, so ‘Dirty Diana’ maybe in the film – but it’s not on soundtrack - I assume the reason why it is charting is that people are checking out Michael’s back catalogue, and realising that this is one of his underrated best songs.

That said, ‘Bad’ isn’t particularly high compared with the other MJ tracks.

Massive flop! 😉

One of the best songs on the album - much better than PYT - and also very different from the rest of the album. Really shooting up the Spotify chart - but pretty sure it will end the week as the 4th highest MJ track sadly.

So hoping that ‘Human Nature’ can become one of the 3 charting songs from Michael Jackson. Above ‘Beat It’ on Apple (at 37) and is on an upward trajectory. As Michael Jackson’s current most downloaded track, it might just slide above ‘Beat It’ on the Official Chart by the end of the week.

Looking in more detail - the film only has two songs from ‘Off The Wall’ on it - one of which isn’t currently charting on Spotify or Amazon. A third song from the album IS charting but isn’t in the film. And having two big songs is not enough to have a charting album. In general, the songs on the soundtrack are not necessarily the ones charting. For example, the only song from ‘Bad’ in the film - ‘Bad’ itself - is not charting on Spotify. But 4 songs from ‘Bad’ are charting on Spotify and 5 on Apple (including 4 in the top 100). So the film is inspiring people to play Michael’s back catalogue rather than songs from the soundtrack. And in general, his most played songs are those from Bad and Thriller - which both had a lot of singles released from them: at the time ‘Bad’ was the album with most singles released from it - and all were top 20 hits. ‘Bad’ has had almost every song certified at least silver.

Because the songs from Bad are streaming well.

So, by the end of the week (when streaming has a bigger impact) I think they might switch most of the streams to Essential, then Number Ones either won’t chart at all or will be low down.

The Soundtrack only had a few tracks on it, so streams for most of his songs will go to the other compilations. I’m not sure why both of the other compilations are in – but they do have different tracklists. Both have a large number of sales this week, and possibly this has been influenced which one would be ahead. Number One has more sales - therefore streams of all the songs on it will go towards that album. But there will be loads of songs on Essential that are not on the other two compilations. If one of them is sales heavy, it will slide down the chart as the week goes on.

A bit of a mess with 3 Michael Jackson compilations charting. I wonder how that situation will end! And 3 surprising tracks debuting in the bottom end of the top 100 - I guess from being strong on Amazon.

I was surprised that Noah was ahead of Foo Fighters at this stage, but I don’t think they have any chance of catching him now as his streams will be superior. Michael Jackson will be getting a lot of streaming, he may move into 3rd place.

Most of Noah’s songs are climbing! What a flop 😉

That does seem strangely low for a song that is streaming well - and for an artist who had a track in the top 20 First Look Chart on physicals alone last week.

Interesting that on Apple this morning many of the big climbers over the past 24 hours have been from Noah Kahan’s album (plus Michael Jackson). It will be interesting to see whether it is similar on Spotify.