The death of Michael Jackson has had an immediate impact on his sales.
Five of the top ten “trending topics” on Twitter are currently Jackson-related and his death dominates Google trends.
The singer dominates the U.S. iTunes store’s top albums rankings, with seven sets in the top 10 this morning.
At 2pm BST on iTunes U.S., “The Essential Michael Jackson” was No. 1, followed by “Thriller” at No. 2, “Number Ones” at No. 3 and “Off The Wall” at No. 4. “Thriller (25th Anniversary Edition)” was at No. 5, with “Bad” at No. 9 and “The Ultimate Collection” at No. 10.
Jackson also had eight of the top ten music videos on U.S. iTunes, including U.S.A for Africa’s “We Are the World,” with Thriller at No. 1.
On Amazon.com, the Sony Music Entertainment album catalog and hits sets have the top 15 positions on the site’s best-selling music chart.
Sales are likely to surge in European territories throughout the course of the day, where people woke up to the news of the singer’s death. By 2pm BST, Jackson has eight of the top 10 selling albums on the U.K. iTunes store.
In Australia, where news broke on the morning of June 26, Jackson has five sets in the top 10 albums on the country’s iTunes store.
The BBC reports that both Google and Twitter were both overwhelmed by the volume of people using each service. Some Google News users briefly experienced difficulty accessing search results.