Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis for April 09 2014 (Yes, It’s Late)

April 11, 2014 Alan Cross 0 Comments

Sorry about the lateness of this week’s report, but the data got caught in an obscure folder. Weird.

The industry’s rough ride continues. Here in Canada, year-to-date sales are still down 7%. CDs are down 7%, digital albums down 8% and digital tracks are down 12%. There’s no way to spin these numbers. Business sucks.

Looking at the album charts, there are four new entries in the Top 10 led by 5 Seconds of Summer, an Australian band whose She Looks So Perfect EP sold 11,500 copies in its first week. It’s followed by Head or Hearts by Christina Perry (#6, 3,000 units), Chevelle’s La Gargola (#9) and the Ronnie James Dio tribute album, This is Your Life (#10).

And if you need to ask, yes, “Happy” from Pharrell Williams is still the top download in the country. The 26,000 fresh downloads was enough to keep it at #1 for the seventh straight week.

Things are pretty dire in the US, too, with year-to-date sales down 16%. CD sales are lower by a whopping 20% while digital albums are down 14%. And it’s not much better for digital tracks. They’re lower by 13%. Ouch.

The Frozen soundtrack is still at #1 in the US, selling another 149,000 copies, making this the ninth non-consecutive week it’s been at the top. In second spot is 5 Seconds to Summer with 143,000 copies followed by Chevelle ($3, 45,000), Christina Perri (#4, 40,000), Dan + Shay’s debut Where It All Began (#6, 29,000) and Nickel Creek’s Dotted Line (#7, 27,000).

And Pharrell is at #1 on the US singles chart, too, movie 284,000 downloads of “Happy.” That’s eight weeks in a row. Meanwhile, the most-streamed song in the US–a stat they don’t release for Canada–is still “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry with 7,656,138 listens.

All figures courtesy of Nielsen Soundscan.