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Michael Jackson Scores a Billboard 200 Top 10 in Every Decade Since the 1970s
Michael Jackson's Number Ones hits No. 6 on the Billboard 200, giving him a top 10 album in every decade since the 1970s.
Michael Jackson has done something only a handful of artists can claim: he now has a new Billboard 200 top 10 album in every decade from the 1970s through the 2020s.
On the Billboard 200 dated May 16, Number Ones jumps seven places to No. 6, giving Jackson his 11th top 10 and his first fresh top 10 of the 2020s.
That puts him in rare company. Jackson is now only the fifth act with at least one new top 10 album in each decade beginning with the 1970s, alongside Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor. It is the kind of chart feat that makes you stop and run the list twice.
Originally released in 2003, Number Ones has found its way back into the upper reaches of the chart thanks to the renewed attention around Michael, the Jackson biopic that opened in U.S. theaters on April 24. By May 10, the film had grossed more than $240 million in the U.S. and Canada, making it the top-grossing music biopic ever, ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody before inflation is factored in.
The new top 10 also places Number Ones alongside Jackson’s other enduring juggernaut, Thriller, which rises 7-5 on the same Billboard 200 and returns to the top five for the first time since May 1984. Thriller spent 37 weeks at No. 1 in 1983-84, still the most weeks at the summit for an album by a solo artist.
Jackson’s top 10s, decade by decade
Jackson’s run across the decades starts in the 1970s with Ben, which peaked at No. 5 in 1972, followed by Off the Wall, which entered the top 10 in September 1979 and later peaked at No. 3 in February 1980. The 1980s brought Thriller and Bad, which hit No. 1 for six weeks in 1987.
The 1990s added Dangerous, a No. 1 for four weeks in 1991-92, and HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book 1, which spent two weeks at No. 1 in 1995. In the 2000s, Invincible reached No. 1 for one week in 2001, and his first posthumous top 10, the soundtrack to Michael Jackson’s This Is It, also spent one week at No. 1 in 2009.
The 2010s brought two more: Michael, which peaked at No. 3 in 2011, and Xscape, which reached No. 2 in 2014. Now Number Ones has carried that streak into the 2020s.
Billboard 200 rankings are based on multi-metric consumption in the U.S., measured in equivalent album units and compiled by Luminate. Those units combine album sales, track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums. One 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 audio and video streams generated by songs from the album.
The May 16, 2026-dated Billboard 200 will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on May 12. For chart updates, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
