Posted on 06/27/2009 2:15:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Jackson albums occupy nine of the top ten slots, with the iTunes Essential Michael Jackson as the top-seller. In addition, a quarter of the top 100 songs purchased on the site are
Since Michael Jackson's shocking death Thursday, legions of fans have been scrambling to purchase lasting memories of the pop star.
Only two hours after Jackson's passing was confirmed, his hit album Thriller reached number one on iTunes. As of Friday afternoon, Jackson albums occupy nine of the top ten slots, with the iTunes Essential Michael Jackson as the top-seller. In addition, a quarter of the top 100 songs purchased on the site are either by Jackson or the Jackson Five. On Amazon, it's all Michael Jackson all the time, as the top 15 albums all belong to him.
News of the pop icon's death quickly spread across social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook. More than 7,000 fans even created memorial playlists featuring their favorite Jackson songs and videos on Facebook and iLike.com.
With round-the-clock coverage on the King of Pop – all of the morning shows devoted their programming almost exclusively to Jackson, and MTV has been running his videos non-stop – a summer sale by Julien's Auctions, featuring 21 items from his career and personal life is sure to generate intense interest. A few gems include hand-written lyrics to his number one hit "Bad" (estimated value $500-$700) and a pearl-and-Swarovski-crystal-studded shirt from The Jacksons' "Victory" tour in 1984 (estimated value $1,000-$1,500).
It's been 25 years since Jackson enjoyed this kind of commercial buzz. After selling nearly 750 million albums worldwide, reports claim the singer died nearly $400 million in debt. Of course he was hoping to put a dent in that figure, as he was about to embark on a sold-out 50-show concert series, all of which was to take place in London. It is still uncertain whether the $85 million in sales will be refunded. While, some reports estimate Jackson was to make a $1 to $1.5 million per appearance.
I heard that MJ was $4Bn in debt...?
Considering that most of today’s music sucks, this is not a surprise.
It wasn’t Jesse Jackson showing up that had Papa Joe so giddy and jumping for joy yesterday. Ka-Ching!!!
It boogles the mind considering all the publishing rights he owned.
bump
For about two decades, South African-born liberal talk show host Michael Jackson dominated daytime talk radio in Southern California with his show on KABC. His luck changed in 1989, when Rush Limbaugh debuted on KFI and quickly blew him away. KABC later went conservative.
This was a wise move on Jackson’s part!
Hopefully, this innovative business tactic will be adopted by other notable “artists”!
He learned it from Elvis.
Elvis demonstrated more imagination!
I heard it was 400 million. How this can be, God only knows. If he was smart enough to buy the beatles publishing rights, I just can’t figure how he could go through so much money. He had to have some business sense at one point.
I heard that he had another 100 songs in his catalog that were to be released upon his death. He wanted to provide for his kids. That’s a nice thought. But can you imagine having to live through the media hype when a new Jackson album is released year after year, over the next decade. And there’s probably a ton of live material to exploit. His career ironically is healthier now than ever.
Evidently lawyers have swooped in and gathered up all the tapes from that night.
The bucks will be huge for that performance.
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