HITS:
THE IT FACTOR: Based on Monday’s sales and a few early, hourly reads today, our abacus-wielding numbers-crunchers are calling Michael Jackson’s This Is It album on Epic at 300-350k. This guesstimate takes into account the expected surge in sales from the movie, which opens on 3k screens tomorrow, though the impact of the film won’t be truly known until the end of the week.
(10/27a)
Billboard:
Michael Jackson On Track For 6th No. 1 On Billboard 200
As Michael Jackson's movie "This Is It" is about to open in theaters, the film's companion album of the same name is already doing brisk business.
Industry prognosticators suggest that the Epic Records set -- which was released on Monday, Oct. 26 -- could shift 300,000 copies by week's end on Sunday (Nov. 1) night.
Depending on how much the movie's opening impacts the album's sales through the course of the week, the set could post a higher figure -- perhaps 350,000 copies.
With numbers like that, it would seem like Jackson will be a sure thing for the No. 1 slot next week on the Billboard 200 albums chart. If the King of Pop hits No. 1, it will mark his sixth chart-topper, following "Thriller," "Bad," "Dangerous," "HIStory" and "Invincible."
Jackson already owns the No. 1 selling album of the 2009 calendar year with "Number Ones" -- 2 million sold this year and counting. Additionally, his "Thriller" is the year's 11th best-seller (1.1 million) and "The Essential Michael Jackson" is the 15th biggest (986,000).
The "This Is It" album contains 14 studio recordings of Jackson's hits like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" and two versions of the from-the-vaults title track, which plays over the film's end credits. It also includes three demo recordings and a spoken word poem titled "Planet Earth."
http://www.billboard.com/news/michae...04030856.story
Michael is going to smash things up once again!
![worship](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/korn0818/971600d3.gif)