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Michael Jackson’s Thriller Returns to No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart for the First Time Since 1984
Michael Jackson’s Thriller returns to No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums for the first time since 1984, fueled by streaming gains.
Michael Jackson has gone back to the top of Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with Thriller reclaiming No. 1 on the list dated May 16. It is the album’s first week at the summit since 1984, and its 38th overall week in charge.
The surge comes in the wake of the Michael biopic, which has driven major streaming gains across the King of Pop’s catalog. Released in November 1982, Thriller is certified by Guinness as the world’s best-selling album and is the highest-certified studio album in the United States, according to the RIAA.
For this latest run, the album earned 62,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during the May 1-7 tracking week, according to Luminate. That total was up 36% from the previous week’s 45,000. Streaming accounted for 48,000 of those units, which came from 50.3 million official on-demand audio and video streams of its songs. Traditional album sales added 13,000 units, while track-equivalent albums contributed the remaining 1,000.
That kind of chart control is hardly new for Thriller. In 1983 and 1984, powered by “Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and the title track, the album spent 37 weeks at No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, setting a mark that stood for 41 years. SZA’s SOS, boosted by SOS Deluxe: LANA, finally passed it in June 2025.
With its latest week at No. 1, Thriller now extends its record among albums by a male artist and sits second overall behind SOS, which has led for 46 weeks.
Number Ones at No. 2
Jackson is also competing with himself this week. His 2003 best-of set Number Ones jumps 5-2 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, also with 62,000 equivalent album units. That puts Jackson at Nos. 1 and 2 simultaneously, something no artist had done on the chart since Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You occupied both spots for three straight weeks in April and May 2024.
Leave out rap acts, and the last artist to double up in the top two was The Temptations, who did it on the chart dated Feb. 22, 1969. At that point, the group were at No. 1 with TCB, a collaborative album with The Supremes, while Live at the Copa sat at No. 2.
Thriller’s return also adds another line to Jackson’s already sprawling chart history. As chart watcher Simone Del Niro notes, the late artist, who died in 2009, is now the first act to reach No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums in each of the last six calendar decades.
1970s: Off the Wall (No. 1 for nine weeks in 1979)
1980s: Off the Wall (seven weeks, 1980); Thriller (37 weeks, 1983-84); Bad (18 weeks, 1987-88)
1990s: Dangerous (12 weeks, 1992); HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book 1 (two weeks, 1995)
2000s: Invincible (four weeks, 2001); Michael Jackson’s This Is It Soundtrack (four weeks, 2009)
2010s: Michael (two weeks, 2011); Xscape (three weeks, 2014)
2020s: Thriller (one week, 2026)
The streaming momentum is showing up everywhere else, too. On Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Jackson has 13 titles inside the top 25 this week. “Billie Jean,” his most-streamed track in a typical week, climbs 5-3, while “Human Nature” moves 10-6, “Beat It” rises 9-7 and “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” advances 11-9.
There are a few returnees in the mix as well. “Bad” comes back at No. 19, “You Rock My World” lands at No. 22 and “Chicago,” the posthumous cut from Xscape in 2014, resurfaces at No. 23. The song has no connection to the Michael biopic, which covers Jackson’s life from 1965 to 1988, but it has benefited from its prominent place on Jackson’s Spotify artist page, where it often appears in his top 10, along with an Internet clip of animated birds dancing to the track.
Jackson’s full showing on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs this week is as follows: No. 3, “Billie Jean”; No. 6, “Human Nature”; No. 7, “Beat It”; No. 9, “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough”; No. 12, “Rock With You”; No. 13, “Dirty Diana”; No. 15, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)”; No. 16, “Smooth Criminal”; No. 17, “The Way You Make Me Feel”; No. 19, “Bad”; No. 21, “Remember the Time”; No. 22, “You Rock My World”; No. 23, “Chicago”.
Thriller may have first ruled the chart more than four decades ago, but this week makes the case that Jackson’s catalog still moves like a living thing. Fans have clearly shown up for it again, and the numbers are doing the talking.
