Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 12 March 2014

So the Canadian market is still 6% soft over last year, but at least it didn’t get any worse.  Physical CDs are lower by 5%, digital albums down by 3% and digital tracks down a disturbing 11% from this time in 2013.

Four of the Canadian Top 5 are debuts.  Serge Fiori’s self-titled debut sold a healthy 32,000 copies, putting it in first place, a long way head of Pharrell Williams’ GIRL (#2, 10,000 copies).  After that, we have Lea Michael’s debut, Louder, at #3 (5,700) and Mastermind from Rick Ross at #5 (5,200).

On the download side, Coldplay’s “Magic” debuts at #3 with sales of 18,000 .  Impressive, yes, but Pharrell’s “Happy” is still at #1 with another 42,000 downloads.

Things continue to be dire in the US with year-to-date album sales down 15% from 2013. Digital albums aren’t much better (-12%) and digital tracks are soft by 11%.  Is this the effect of streaming music services?  I’d bet on it.

The US also has four debuts in the Top 5.  Rick Ross is at #1 (179,000) followed by Pharrell Williams (112,000), Lea Michaels at #4 (60,000) and Eli Young Band’s 10,000 Towns at #5 (36,000.)  The biggest download on the singles charts is “Happy” (again) wtih 490,000 fresh sales.

As for the most-streamed song in the States–a stat we don’t have in Canada–is Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” with 8,466,476 listens.

All numbers courtesy Nielsen Soundscan.