Michael Jackson’s Thriller vaults 13-2 on the Billboard 200 (dated Nov. 14), scoring its highest rank on the list since the spring of 1984, when it logged its 37th and final week at No. 1 on the April 14-dated list. Thriller continues to hold the record for the most weeks atop the list for an album by a singular artist. (Only the film soundtrack to West Side Story spent more weeks at No. 1: 54, in 1962-63.)
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Nov. 14, 2026-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Nov. 10. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
In the tracking week of Oct. 30 through Nov. 5 — thus, including Halloween — Thriller earned 55,000 equivalent album units (up 89%), boosted by seasonal spooky streams of the set’s title track, as well as new physical versions of the album that were released. Of that unit total, SEA units comprise 32,000 (up 37%, equaling 34.34 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it moves 14-5 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 22,000 (up 335%; it rises 14-3 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (up 30%).
On Oct. 30, Thriller was reissued across three new vinyl variants (two color editions and a liquid-filled version) and a cassette tape. The album’s 22,000 sales for the week mark its largest single-week sales sum in nearly four years, since it shifted 23,000 (Dec. 31, 2022-dated list).
Notably, of Thriller’s 22,000 sold in the latest tracking week, vinyl purchases account for 19,000 — the album’s largest sales week on vinyl since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991.
With Thriller’s jump to No. 2, Jackson has his highest rank on the Billboard 200 in more than a decade, since the posthumous album Xscape debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the May 31, 2014-dated chart.
Notably, Thriller has appeared on the Billboard 200 each year since 2009, following Jackson’s death that June. It has resided in the top 20 each week since early May, with 15 consecutive weeks in the top 10 through August, spurred by the record-setting biopic Michael.
