Michael Jackson has beaten contemporary pop stars Harry Styles and Olivia Dean to the UK’s best-selling album of 2026 so far, 17 years after his death, as the success of his billion-dollar biopic fuels renewed interest in his music.
The late King of Pop claimed the top spot with The Essential Michael Jackson, a greatest hits compilation released in 2005. The album amassed more than 508,000 chart units in the UK during the first nine months of 2026, according to the Official Charts Company.
Dean’s The Art of Loving ranked second, while Styles’ Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally took third place in the year-to-date album rankings at the end of September.
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