Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 23 April 2014

Wow.  I’m really late this week–but in my defense, the numbers didn’t arrive until sometime Friday.

So how is the market suckage this week?  About the same.  Year-to-date album sales are down 7% with physical CDs down by the same amount. Digital album sales are softer by 9% from this time last year and digital tracks are down 12%.

People who love the movie Frozen continue to buy the soundtrack.  It sold another 13,000 units this past week, putting at #1 for the fifth consecutive week.  Pharrell Williams’ GIRL moves to #2 with 5,000 copies, a bump of 90% from last week.

Quebecoise artist Gilles Vigneault’s Vivre Debout has the highest debut this week, selling 3,500 copies.  Then we have Oliver Dion–also from Quebec–showing up at #5 with 3,300 copies of his self-titled album.  At #6, it’s the debut of Needtobreathe’s Rivers in the Wasteland.  And the fourth Top 10 debut belongs to Ingrid Michaelson at #8.

If you need to ask about the most popular download, it’s still Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” with 28,000 fresh sales, an increase of 23% from last week.

Over in the US, there are four debuts in the Top 5, but they aren’t helping htings much.  Year-to-date album sales are down 16% from 2013 with physical CDs down by–get this–a full 20%.  Digital album sales are down by 13% and digital tracks are down by a similar number.

Frozen is #1 in ‘Murica, too, with 259,000 copies sold–an incredible number given that the soundtrack has been out since November.  It’s up 94% from last week.  NINETY-FOUR PER CENT.  (I checked the math!)  That’s the second-biggest one-week sales total for any album in 2014.

In second spot is August Alsina’s Testimony with 67,000 copies.  Needtobreathe is third with 49,000 with Talk Dirty from Jason Derulo is at #4 with 44,000. And the last Top 10 debut is Lights Out from Ingrid Michaelson with 37,000 copies.

The biggest single?  “Happy,” of course with another 274,000 downloads.  Finally, the most-streamed song in the US–a stat we still don’t have access to in Canada–is “All of Me” from John Legend with exactly 7,599,950 listens.

All numbers courtesy of Nielsen Soundscan.