Weekly Music Sales Report, 29 January 2014

If there’s going to be a Grammy bump, it better be a good one because 2014 is off to a horrible start.

Let’s begin in Canada where sales are already 5% behind where they were at this time last year.  CD sales are down by 7%, digital albums are down by 4% and digital tracks are down 10%.  Not pretty, is it?

The Grammy nominees compilation is at #1 in Canada with sales of 8,100 copies.  It might have done better over the long term since in past years this comp was released several weeks before the Grammys. This year, though, it came out just five days ahead of the event.

The debut from A Great Big World, Is Anybody Out There, shows up in 3rd (5,300 units) and Mind Over Matter from Young the Giant shows up at #7 (3,400 units).

“Dark Horse,” the latest single from Katie Perry, takes over at #1 on the download chart with a 25% increase.

On the other side of the border, things are also pretty dire.  US album sales are down 14% over last year, led lower by CD sales which are -16% year-to-date.  Digital albums are at -13% so far this year and digital tracks are at -12%. Yuck.

The Grammy nominees album is at #1 with just 59,000 units.  A Great Big World is third (48,000) and Young The Giant is at #7 (34,000).  Meanwhile Katie Perry’s “Dark Horse” is both the most-downloaded song and the most-streamed song in the US (2,688,689 listens).

Let’s see what the Grammy Awards will do for Lorde, Macklemore & Lewis, Bruno Mars, Daft Punk and all the other winners and performer.

All numbers courtesy Nielsen Soundscan.