- Andre Paine

LONDON Predictably, the death of Michael Jackson has had an immediate impact on his sales.

Five of the top 10 "trending topics" on Twitter are currently Jackson-related and his death dominates Google trends Friday morning.

The singer dominates the U.S. iTunes store's top albums rankings, with seven sets in the top 10 early Friday.

On iTunes U.S., The Essential Michael Jackson was No. 1, followed by Thriller at No. 2, Number Ones at No. 3 and Off The Wall at No. 4. Thriller (25th Anniversary Edition)" was No. 5, with Bad at No. 9 and The Ultimate Collection at No. 10.

Jackson also had eight of the top 10 music videos on iTunes, including U.S.A for Africa's "We Are the World," and Thriller at No. 1.

On Amazon.com, the Sony Music Entertainment album catalog and hits sets have the top 15 positions on the site's best-selling music chart.

Sales are likely to surge in European territories throughout the course of the day, where people woke up to the news of the singer's death. By 2 p.m. U.K. time, Jackson has eight of the top 10 selling albums on the U.K. iTunes store.

In Australia, where news broke on the morning of June 26, Jackson has five sets in the top 10 albums on the country's iTunes store.

The BBC reports that both Google and Twitter were overwhelmed by the volume of people using each service. Some Google News users briefly experienced difficulty accessing search results.


Nielsen Business Media