Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 19 March 2014
It was a pretty crappy week. Then again, we haven’t exactly been deluged by big-name releases so far this year have we? No wonder year-to-date sales are down 6%, pulled lower by physical CD sales (-6%) and digital albums (-7%). Even single tracks are down by 11% over 2013.
The number one record in the land is still Quebec’s Serge Fiori with fresh sales of 12,500. A distant second is the only debut in the Top 10 this week, Luke Bryan’s Spring Break 6 (8,200). And that’s about it.
As for the biggest-selling single it’s still “Happy” from Pharrell Williams, which enjoyed another 31,000 downloads.
On the US side of the ledger, there were five debuts in the top ten, but album sales remain 15% (!!!) lower than at this time last year. CD sales are -18%, digital albums are -13% and digital tracks are down 11%. Brutal.
The Frozen soundtrack is back at #1 with sales of another 99,000 copies, making it the first album of the year to move more than a million units. In second spot is Luke Bryan (74,000) followed by Let Your Spirit by Aloe Blacc (#4, 45,000), 311’s Stereolithic (#6, 41,000), Young Money’s Rise of an Empire (#7, 31,000) and Slow Me Down from Sara Evans (#9, 27,000).
And it’s more Pharrell Williams at the top of the singles chart thanks to another 364,000 downloads of “Happy.” Finally, the most-streamed song in the US–a stat that is still not released for Canada–is “We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow” from Soko with 11,503,297 listens.
All figures courtesy Nielsen Soundscan.
