Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: July 2, 2014

I’m on time with this week’s report.  Imagine that.  But I’m a bit light on stats for year-to-date sales figures because those are missing from the data I received.  Sorry about that.

There are two debuts in the Canadian Top 10 this week, led by Ed Sheeran who barreled in at #1 with X, selling a solid 31,000 copies.  That makes it the third-highest-selling debut of the year, trailing just Coldplay and Serge Fiori.  Given that his last album debuted with 8,1000 copies, it’s obvious that the marketing people at Warner Music Canada have been working very hard.  Another fact:  72% of all those sales were digital.

The only other debut in the Top 10 was Once More Around the Sun (another Warner release), showing up at #4 with 4,000 units.

The last thing I can report from Canada is that Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” is still the #1 most-downloaded single in the country.

In ‘Murica, year-to-date album sales are down 15% from 2013. CD sales are down 20%, digital albums are down 12% and digital tracks are down 13%.

Ed Sheeran is also at the top of the charts, selling 209,000 copies of X, a marked increase of +, which entered at #5 with 42,000 units back in 2012.  The next debut comes from G-Eazy with 46,000 copies of These Thing Happen, good for #3.  After that, we have Mastodon (#6, 34,000) and Phish’s Fuego (#7, 32,000).

The top download in the US is Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” and the most-stream song is still “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea Ft. Charlie XCX.

All numbers courtesy Nielsen SoundScan.