Michael mania grips the City afresh

Albums that remained unsold for months are flying off the music store shelves

Across Bangalore, music shops are running out of his CDs. Old stocks that remained unsold for months have been bought in two days flat, and fresh stocks are expected only on Monday.

A salesman at Landmark, Forum, confirmed the sudden spurt in demand:  As soon as the news broke out of his death on Friday afternoon, there has been a mad rush for his CDs.  The music section at Landmark had just around 35 MJ CDs in stock which includes CDs of King of Pop, Thriller and Dangerous.  "Hundreds of customers have enquired for MJ CDs and have placed orders at our shop.  We really do not know how much to order.

We have just placed a bulk order to get the maximum".

Ironical but true Jackson’s death ironically injected life into his CDs. As Manjunath from Temptations Music store  says, "I had 30 copies of MJ CDs like ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Thriller’ kept in my shop for a long time. Now I have sold everything.  I got around 50 customers asking for MJ CDs."

Planet M on Brigade Road had just one CD  'Bad' left by Saturday evening. The shop’s floor manager, Sarvana had this to say: "We had around 25 MJ CDs and all are sold out.

A month ago, we used to sell around three to five CDs a day. Now we are running out of stock," he said.

Crossword Bookstore store manager, Steve said: "The demand was very high. We have taken orders from nearly 30 customers for Jackson CDs. Hopefully we will receive the supply tomorrow".

Some music videos of MJs song released long back ran into censor problem and was not easily available in the Indian market. However Jackson’s death is expected to clear this hurdle as his music videos will soon hit the stands.

The store’s sales executive in charge of Karnataka, Rajith Kumar said he had received huge orders from many music stores, "I used to normally receive orders from 5-10 clients. Now, I have received more than 50 orders from different music shops".

Indian editions of the CDs, he said, will arrive on Wednesday. However, to import CDs and music videos from abroad, it will take nearly 45 days.

The King of Pop had mesmerized a whole generation with his music. Tomorrow’s generation might not find that attachment. Yet, the music would live on. Here’s a quote from Shivangi, a third standard girl, for proof: “I know that girls used to faint at his concerts. Through his CDs and television, me and my friends should be able to appreciate his music.”