King of Pop among the UK’s top ten best-selling albums

After the airing of the television competition X Factor on ITV1 in the UK last Saturday, October 18, the “King of Pop” album returned to the UK’s top ten best-selling albums. In that day’s competition, an 11-member group of contestants—accompanied by eight female dancers—performed a Michael Jackson song.

Aston, one of the group’s 20-year-old members, said they had practiced hard for the performance:

“Michael Jackson is one of our favorite artists. That’s why we don’t want to ruin his songs. We were extremely busy. It was our busiest week of work, but it was great. He’s the King of Pop.”

According to an HMV spokesperson, the show has turned into the biggest music advertising stage in Britain, and people line up to perform on it.

The King of Pop album, which includes a selection of Michael Jackson’s songs and was released in some countries starting in late August this year to mark the 50th anniversary of his birth, after entering the UK’s top ten best-selling albums, fell to as low as number 47. Then, a major promotion brought it back into the UK’s top ten best-selling albums.

The HMV spokesperson sees this as evidence of the public’s desire for Michael Jackson and a reminder of how prominent his songs are. At the same time, he says this event also shows the extraordinary power of X Factor in promoting music in Britain.

Of course, the spokesperson believes the impact of such promotion is short-term and predicts that the King of Pop album will gradually fall out of the top ten best-selling albums.

“If this album hadn’t made it into the top 15 or 20, I would have been surprised. And now that it’s in this position, it will probably enjoy good sales for a few weeks.”

Source: eMJey / BBC