Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: August 6, 2014

August 8, 2014 Alan Cross 0 Comments

So where is the recorded music market this week? I’m glad you asked…

Believe it or not, Tom Petty has never had a #1 album during the SoundScan era (i.e. post 1991 in the US and post 1995 in Canada). That drought came to an end this week with a top-of-the-charts start for Hypnotic Eye, which sold 12,000 copies in its first week.

He was followed by Eric Clapton & Friends’ The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale at #2 with 5,000 copies. Interestingly, one of the “friends” is Tom Petty, meaning he has a very rare 1-2 punch on the charts this week.

Also new in the Top 10 this week is Theory of a Deadman’s Savages (#4, 4,800 copies) and the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack (#7, 3,700 copies). As for the biggest digital track in the country, it’s “Bang Bang” from Jessie J, Nikki Minaj and Ariana Grand with 18,00 downloads.

Over in the US, overall album sales are down by 15% from 2013, pulled lower by a 19% decline in CD sales and a 13% drop in digital albums from last year. Digital tracks are also down by 13%.

There are six new records in the American Top 10. Tom Petty at #1 (131,000 units), Eric Clapton and his posse at #2 (61,000), Guardians of the Galaxy (#3, 60,000), Shawn Mendes’ self-titled debut at #5 (42,000), Theory of a Deadman (#8, 28,000) and Jenny Lewis’ Voyager at #9 (23,000).

The biggest download in the US is that J/Grande/Minaj track with 230,000 downloads while the most-streamed song of the week is still “Fancy’ from Iggy Azalea with 7.3 million streams. That’s the 12th week in a row, too.

All numbers courtesy of Nielsen SoundScan.