For the seventh consecutive week, Michael Jackson has three of the five best-selling albums in the U.S. Number Ones sold 98,000 copies and would have topped The Billboard 200 for the sixth week if catalog albums were eligible to compete there. The Essential Michael Jackson sold 54,000 and would have held at #3. Thriller sold 47,000 and would have inched up from #5 to #4..

This ongoing success will enable Jackson to make history (or should I say HIStory?) on Nielsen/SoundScan's year-end charts. Do I have a crystal ball? No, I have something better: the tracking company's year-to-date sales chart. Jackson has three albums in the top 15 on that list. Number Ones holds at #2 and will probably pull ahead of Taylor Swift's Fearless, the long-time leader, in two weeks. Thriller jumps to #10, while The Essential Michael Jackson climbs to #15. Jackson is likely to become the first artist to have three albums in Nielsen/SoundScan's year-end top 20 since Garth Brooks achieved the feat in 1992. (All three of Brooks' albums--Ropin' The Wind, The Chase and No Fences, ranked in the year-end top 10.).

Number Ones is vying to become the only the third greatest hits album to rank #1 for the year on either Billboard's "year-end" charts or Nielsen/SoundScan's calendar year rankings. Elton John's Elton John--Greatest Hits was Billboard's leader for 1974. The Beatles' 1 was the magazine's champ for 2001. (On Nielsen/SoundScan, 1 was the #6 seller of 2000.) Number Ones is also likely to become the first catalog album and the first album by a deceased performer to wind up as the #1 album of the year on either list, going back to 1956.

(Paul Grein)