Weekly Canadian music sales and streaming stats: 21 June 2021
I was expecting more this week, if I’m honest. With anecdotes of long lines and busy stores for Record Store Day on June 12, I thought the numbers would be higher. Interesting.
Let’s compare last week’s sales with the same week a year ago.
- Total album sales, -9.5%
- CD sales, -8.3%
- Digital albums, -23.3%
- Digital tracks, -26,7%
- Vinyl LPs, +55.6% (That’s correct)
- On-demand audio streams, +15.0%
Here’s where the surprise comes in with the week-over-week numbers. Record Store Day fell within this period.
- Total album sales, +0.6%
- CD sales, +10.7%
- Digital albums, -6.2%
- Digital tracks, -2.4%
- Vinyl LPs, -5.0% (See? Vinyl sales actually dropped despite Record Store Day?)
- On-demand audio streams, +0.5% (1.954 billion streams in the country last week)
Why the drop in vinyl sales during Record Store Day week? It could be that the many indie record stores aren’t hooked up to the SoundScan system, so sales weren’t completely tabulated, but that’s just me speculating. Any other theories?
Information courtesy MRC Data.
I’d say that the choices for this edition of RSD were lackluster. Usually there are five or six albums that I was hoping to find and pick up, but this time there was one or two. Also, why all the picture discs? A shame to fork out all that kind of cash for something you’ll never really listen to. RSD sghould be about listening to vinyl as a superior music listening experience, but instead we get something kids these days will just hang on their walls. Yes, I can hear it now — OK, Boomer.
Sunrise in Ontario wasn’t open to walk in and explore. As a music buyer, that’s what I would have done. Once they open, I’ll go in.