If you look solely at sales of all albums, this week Michael Jackson's special edition Thriller 25 would be lodged at #1 based on strong sales of 170,000 copies. However, a quick look at the Billboard Top 200 album chart shows Grammy-winning Amy Winehouse and her album Back to Black sitting comfortably at #2 with Michael Jackson nowhere to be seen.

The reason for this exclusion of Thriller 25 is that Billboard considers the album a catalog or oldies album, and Billboard publishes a special chart just for catalog albums. If you look at this chart, Michael Jackson is at #1 with the biggest one-week sales of a catalog album in over 10 years. Jackson's label Sony is complaining about the placement reasoning that the Top 200 chart is much more visible and likely to impact sales, but Billboard holds firm by their decision indicating they also spoke to major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy in making their decision. Sony also claims that it should be considered a new album because of the inclusion of new versions of songs featuring Akon and Fergie among others. However, past precedent shows that other albums including even more new material have been kept to the catalog chart.

Despite the controversy, it is quite an achievement for any 25 year old album to sell over 100,000 copies in one week!!!