I’ve been listening to Michael Jackson all day. Not only was he my hero as a child of the 80s growing up (along with being everyone else’s), but his song “Black and White” totally changed my young adult life in that I finally felt like a conversation about racial equality in entertainment was starting — I loved the part where he danced next to the Indian Bharat Natyam dancer. That’s only part of the reason I, along with the rest of the world is so affected by his death, or as John Mayer so eloquently Tweeted about it, “A major strand of our cultural DNA has left us.”

While this week has been tough for entertainment, it’s been booming for music retail. As I write this blog right now, Michael’s 25th Anniversary Thriller album remains at the top of Amazon.com’s music bestseller list, followed by Off the Wall, Bad, Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection, and the list goes on and on. Not the Transformers 2 soundtrack, not the new Green Day album — just our beloved King of Pop’s classic chart-topper filled albums.

And that’s no surprise — after all, Thriller is the best selling album of all time with all 10 of its tracks making Billboard’s Top 100 list. Now fans are reported to be scrambling to hold onto something from Michael whether it be an album, music videos, or even the books he’s written — his autobiography Moon Walk, his essays in Dancing with a Dream, or Moonwalker: The Storybook, the children’s story he wrote.

Michael Jackson’s albums have climbed to the top of Apple’s “Top Albums” list, the search for his name has devastated the internet world, dominating Twitter and Google and practically breaking both sites, and his page on Wikipedia has been viewed more than a million times in the last 2 days, not to mention it’s undergoing an editing war — just take a look at its editing history.

With all this Michael Jackson craze, I’m tempted to go out and find some comfort in the part of my childhood that died along with MJ by purchasing an album or a music video DVD that I don’t have. But I’ve decided that I’m perfectly content to dig out my old glittery silver Michael Jackson glove belt and watch YouTube all day…