Michael Jackson has been gone since 2009, and Thriller is now more than four decades old. So how is it that in 2026, that same album almost climbed back to No. 1, going head to head with the biggest names in music today?
This is real. On Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart, which tracks the best selling records on actual vinyl, Thriller just jumped up to No. 2. People are still buying it by the crate, all these years after it first came out. The only thing standing between Michael and the top spot was Ariana Grande, whose brand new album petal shot all the way up from No. 25 to No. 1 in a single week.
So Michael came up just short this time. But think about what nearly happened. A record made in 1982 almost knocked a current chart-topping superstar off the No. 1 spot, in a year when that superstar is at the peak of her career. That is not supposed to be possible.
Here is the part that makes it even more ridiculous. Thriller was not the only Michael Jackson album on that vinyl chart this week. He had four of them selling at the same time. His greatest hits collection, Off the Wall and Bad were all in there too, quietly outselling records that came out last month.
If you are too young to understand what all the fuss is about, this is the song and video that helped turn Thriller into the best selling album of all time:
Michael Jackson – Thriller
Thriller has now spent more than 420 weeks on that vinyl chart. That is over eight years, spread out across the decades, of people choosing to buy a physical copy of an album they could stream for free in about two seconds. Something about it just refuses to fade.
A lot of that comes down to one simple truth. Nobody performed quite like Michael Jackson. The music still sounds ahead of its time, and the moves still stop people in their tracks. There is a reason brand new generations keep discovering him and falling for him all over again.
Want to see the moment that helped make him a legend? This is the night he first did the moonwalk on live television, and the crowd completely lost it:
Michael Jackson – Billie Jean (First Moonwalk, Live)
So no, Michael did not quite reclaim No. 1 this week. But the real story is that he was even in the race at all. More than forty years after Thriller, the King of Pop is still selling records faster than most living artists. Press play, and it is easy to understand why.