Santa could be coming early for the King of Pop.
“Michael,” the posthumous album of new Michael Jackson material, looks poised to grab the Christmas number one spot this year.
According to Billboard magazine, the 10-track “Michael,” which was released on Dec. 14, could sell up to 225,000 copies by Dec. 19. Those numbers might be just enough to push the album past Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now,” the third album by the country star which presently sits at number two on the Billboard 200, and even take down Susan Boyle’s “The Gift,” which is number one right now.
The answer will be revealed on Dec. 23 when the charts come out. As of Thursday afternoon, “Michael” is the number three album on Apple’s iTunes chart, behind R. Kelly’s “Love Letter” and the Christmas album from the cast of Fox’s “Glee.”
Michael Jackson died in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009 as he was preparing to begin a series of comeback shows in the UK.
With material pulled from the singer’s musical vaults, some song snippets as recently as 2007, “Michael” is the controversial first album in a $250 million, 10 album deal that the singer’s estate struck with Sony Music.
Read TheWrap’s Review of “Michael” here
“This Is It,” the soundtrack to the documentary about preparations for Jackson’s later aborted comeback concerts, sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan, 373,00 copies the week after it was released on Oct. 27, 2009. Essentially a greatest hits compilation, the two-disc “This Is It” debuted at number one, the sixth MJ album to do so.
“Thriller,” the best selling record worldwide of all time at an estimated 100 million plus in sales, was Jackson’s first solo number one in 1983. That was followed by 1987’s "Bad," 1991’s "Dangerous," 1995’s "HIStory,” 2001’s "Invincible." While Jackson did not release any new material after “Invincible,” in the immediate weeks after the singer death from an overdose of prescription medication, his 2003 greatest hits album "Number Ones" went exactly to that spot.
The prediction is “Michael” could be the star’s seventh number one.
“Critics may be lukewarm on the record, but Michael’s hardcore fanbase is still large enough to put down their money for this album,” a music label executive told TheWrap. “That’s all that matters in the end.”
With the manslaughter trial of Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray scheduled to begin in January 2011, getting that Christmas number one could be the last present the King of Pop’s fans will be able to deliver for a while … if that’s what the Charts Santa drops down the chimney.
