A day after Michael Jackson's death, music retailers across the Northland reported that they were sold out of all the pop superstar's albums and CDs, or close to it.
Duluth's Electric Fetus had only a few CDs and albums left, store officials said. Shelves also have been picked clean or nearly so at the Duluth Target, the Hermantown Wal-Mart and the Vinyl Cave in Superior.
Vinyl Cave was out of all Jackson albums and CDs but still had some 45 RPM records left. Employees at the Target store said they were sold out but expecting another shipment of Jackson CDs in coming days. In the meantime, the store's music department was directing customers to target.com if they needed a quick Jackson fix.
Barnes & Noble at the Miller Hill Mall was down to one CD -- "Off The Wall" -- and two DVDs -- "Number Ones" and "Live in Bucharest" -- by mid-afternoon. They were expecting a Michael Jackson shipment on Saturday, according to Mar-cus McConico, who works in the store's music department.
"The studios weren't prepared for something like this," he said.
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Natalie Belich, the store manager of Disc Go Round at the Burning Tree Plaza said she started the day with a collection of nine Michael Jackson CDs and DVDs. Between the store and selling on Amazon.com, she was down to three CDs by the afternoon.
The Hermantown Wal-Mart said it had only four Jackson CDs left but suspected that those would be gone this afternoon.
Online music source iTunes listed eight Jackson songs in the Top 25 of most-downloaded on Friday: No. 9 "Thriller, No. 11 "Man in the Mirror," "No. 13 "Don't Stop," No. 16 "The Way You Make Me Feel," "No. 20 "Billie Jean," No. 21 "Smooth Criminal," No. 22 "Beat It."
The music video "Thriller" was No. 1.
