Numbers Game Michael Jackson’s Album ‘History’ Is Not As Popular As The Music Industry Suggests

Michael Jackson’s ego isn’t the only thing that’s inflated these days: The numbers surrounding the dethroned king of pop’s “HIStory” double album apparently are also bloated.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. The now-boring and predictable Jackson, whose career is starting to sag more than a mall rat’s pants, needs whatever help he can get - manufactured excitement included.

Check out the Billboard Top 200 lately? (Well, probably not, unless you get paid to do so.)

According to the chart, Jackson’s half-greatest-hits, half-new-stiffs “HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book 1” has been certified as a five-time platinum album by the Record Industry Association of America, the top trade organization for the record labels.

In industry-ese, platinum means 1 million albums shipped, although platinum certification is often confused with 1 million albums sold - which is probably just the way the record companies want it.

But as all good business students know, the reality is that quantity shipped and quantity sold are two very different things. The association requires that the record companies wait a mere 60 days after an initial shipping before they can be awarded platinum status, even though most retailers generally take longer to return excess unsold albums to the labels.

Simple math (platinum times five) tells us that “HIStory” has shipped 5 million copies - not great by Jackson’s imposing standard (“Thriller,” 24-times platinum), but not entirely bad for a double album that’s only been on the market since June 20, either.

Truth is, though, that’s not exactly the truth.

Epic - Jackson’s Sony-owned record label - has actually only shipped 2.5 million copies of “HIStory.”

And sales? Try 1.4 million copies.

It doesn’t tell you this anywhere in Billboard, the weekly music-industry bible, but the Record Industry Association of America actually counts a single sale of a double album (such as Pink Floyd’s “Pulse,” Phish’s “A Live One” and Jackson’s “HIStory”) as two albums sold. Hence, 2.5 million “HIStorys” magically become 5 million in the industry’s books.

Presumably, the association does this nifty multiplication trick because double albums sell for twice as much as single albums. But, in what appears to be a marketing move of desperation, Epic has been offering “HIStory” to major retailers at a discounted price since its release. As a result, the album has been selling for about $24 on CD instead of the $33 list price.

Music writers call this cheapening the charts.

And then there’s that little matter of the actual album sales figures.

Considering that Epic has invested a ludicrous $30 million in the most extensive - and possibly the most hype-filled - marketing campaign in pop history, the 1.4-million mark (courtesy of SoundScan, a New York firm that tracks national sales figures by computer) is about as impressive as Jackson’s bare chest, which the megalomaniac proudly flaunts in his silly new “You Are Not Alone” video.

The remaining 1.1 million copies of “HIStory” that Epic has shipped will surely be scooped up in time - certainly by Christmas of 1996, when Epic’s $30 million marketing campaign expires.

But recall, if you will, that Guns ‘n’ Roses sold 1.4 million combined copies of “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” in ONE WEEK when the two albums were released simultaneously in 1991.

And they did it without a $30 million promotional push. (Earth to Epic and Jackson: Popularity is not a commodity.)

Of course, with perhaps the exception of the continuously discounted price of “HIStory,” Epic is just doing what most record labels do when it comes to the Record Industry Association of America: following its rules.

But as Mike Ellis - Billboard’s associate publisher of charts and research - recently told the New York Daily News: “It’s time for the industry to think about the value of those shipment figures.”

Meanwhile, Jackson and his camp are doing whatever they can to save his sliding career. For instance, when “You Are Not Alone” last month became the first song in history to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (a chart based on retail sales plus Top 40 radio airplay), Jackson’s publicist fired off a press release that read, in part: “Michael has accomplished something that the Beatles or the Rolling Stones could not manage. No one can beat him now - his record can only be tied.”

What the release didn’t say was that the Beatles and the Stones likely would have had No. 1 debuts during their peaks had the computerized SoundScan system existed then. SoundScan replaced the sluggish manual reporting system in 1991. Since then, the face of the charts has changed drastically, with, for instance, rap, country and hard rock albums debuting at No. 1 for the first time.

And Jackson’s publicist also neglected to mention that, after the radio and much-hyped video debuts of “You Are Not Alone,” Epic didn’t release the single to retail for three weeks. Most singles are released one week after they reach radio.

The uncommon three-week buildup, which included a fluffy Jackson interview special on MTV, was probably the only thing that helped the song debut at No. 1; within a week, it had already dropped to No. 2.

Actually, that seems to be a trend for Jackson now. His first “HIStory” single, “Scream,” debuted at No. 5 on the Hot 100, then began a free-fall. It now sits at No. 70 - not exactly a chart position that’s fit for a king.

Of course, Jackson, who clearly lacks the staying power he once had, is probably the only person who thinks he still rules the pop world.

Watching his, uh, epic, lip-synced and visually stale performance that opened the “MTV Video Music Awards” recently, we couldn’t help but think that he’ll soon be history - in spite of whatever the Billboard charts tell you.