Beyoncé’s ‘B’Day’ Reissue Dethrones Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ After 17 Weeks at No. 1

By Mockulus Editorial
September 28, 2026

Michael Jackson’s 17-week reign at Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart has come to an end. Beyoncé’s 20th-anniversary reissue of B’Day debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated September 19, pushing Thriller out of the top spot after a run that stretched across most of the year.

How B’Day Took the Top Spot

Beyoncé released an expanded 31-track edition of B’Day on September 4 to mark two decades since the album’s original 2006 release, adding rare B-sides, unreleased vault tracks and new collaborations, including songs featuring Pharrell Williams and Maluma. According to Luminate data reported by Billboard, the reissue generated 38,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during its first tracking week, with roughly 22,000 of that coming from streaming and 16,000 from traditional sales. The debut gives Beyoncé her sixth career No. 1 on the Top R&B Albums chart and her first since Renaissance topped the list in 2022. B’Day also landed at No. 2 on both the Vinyl Albums chart and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and reentered the all-genre Billboard 200 at No. 8.

Thriller’s Run at the Top

Thriller first appeared on the Top R&B Albums chart back in February 2017 but didn’t reach No. 1 until May of this year, nearly a decade after debuting on the list, which launched in January 2013. Once it got there, it stayed for 17 consecutive weeks, one of the longer runs the chart has seen. That surge coincided directly with the release of “Michael,” the Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic starring Jaafar Jackson, which became the highest-grossing biopic in history after crossing $1 billion at the global box office earlier this year. The film’s success is widely credited with driving renewed streaming and sales activity across Jackson’s catalog throughout 2026, and Thriller, already regarded as the best-selling studio album of all time, was the clearest beneficiary.

Two Catalogs, Same Chart

The handoff at No. 1 puts two of music’s most enduring catalogs side by side on the same week’s chart: Michael Jackson’s Thriller, still widely considered the most successful traditional studio album ever made, and Beyoncé’s B’Day, itself a 5x-platinum album now finding new life two decades after its original run. Thriller’s fall from the top doesn’t mean it’s disappearing from the charts altogether; the album remains one of the most consistently present titles across Billboard’s various rankings, a reflection of the sustained interest in Michael Jackson’s music that the “Michael” biopic helped reignite this year.

Why It Matters

For Jackson’s catalog, losing the top spot after 17 weeks doesn’t diminish what was an unusually long and commercially significant run for a 44-year-old album, driven almost entirely by renewed cultural attention rather than a new release. For Beyoncé, the anniversary reissue’s debut at No. 1 extends a pattern of legacy albums finding fresh chart success through expanded reissues, the same trend that helped return Thriller to the top of this chart in the first place. Between them, the two artists have now controlled the Top R&B Albums chart’s summit for the better part of a year.