Michael Jackson's Thriller Hits No. 2 on a Record Vinyl Week
Michael Jackson's Thriller sold 19,000 vinyl copies in the United States between Oct. 30 and Nov. 5. It is the album's biggest vinyl week since Luminate began electronic tracking in 1991. Those records, plus 34.34 million streams, moved Thriller from No. 13 to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 dated Nov. 14, its highest rank since the spring of 1984.
The album finished the week with 55,000 equivalent units, up 89%. Olivia Rodrigo held No. 1 with about 57,000, a margin of roughly 2,000 units.
What the 55,000 units are made of
Streaming accounted for 32,000 units, up 37%. Album sales accounted for 22,000, up 335%, and 19,000 of those were vinyl. Track-equivalent units made up the remaining 1,000. Billboard attributes the jump to seasonal streams of the title track and to new physical versions of the album released that week.
The song moved too. "Thriller" reached No. 2 on the Hot 100, its highest position ever and better than the No. 4 it hit in 1984, behind Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas."
A catalog year, not a Halloween fluke
Thriller has been on the Billboard 200 every year since 2009, the year Jackson died. This year it has been in the top 20 every week since early May, including 15 consecutive weeks in the top 10 through August, spurred by the record-setting biopic Michael.
The last time Jackson ranked this high was 2014, when the posthumous album Xscape debuted and peaked at No. 2. Thriller itself holds the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a single artist: 37, the last of them on the chart dated April 14, 1984.
What is not confirmed
Billboard does not say which new physical versions drove the 22,000 in sales, and the sources reviewed do not break down how much of the vinyl total came from them. The share of the streaming increase tied to Halloween versus the biopic is also not published.
