Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 15 April 2015

Mid-April! Are things warming up for the music industry like they are outside?  Not really.

There’s only one debut in the Canadian Top 10 this week (more anon) but we’re still ahead 3% over the same period in 2014. I probably shouldn’t have to tell you that physical CD sales continue to drop and are now 6% lower year-to-date. However, digital album sales  up 12% over 2014.  Meanwhile, digital track sales are down 4% from this time last year.

Francophone artist Yoan’s self-titled debut album hangs in at #1 on the Top Albums chart for the third straight week, with 13,000 units sold. We haven’t seen an album stick at #1 this long since Taylor Swift’s 1989 in January and a Canadian artist hasn’t done it since Michael Buble’s To Be Loved in May 2013. The one debut in the Top 10 comes from All Time Low’s Future Heart which enters at #3 with 5,100 units sold.

On the digital tracks chart, Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” had 44,000 downloads, bumping off “Uptown Funk,” which only say 14,000 downloads.  Streaming-wise, Khailfa had a whopping 2.36 million streams, the second-highest one week stream total ever in Canada.  “Uptown Funk” falls out of the top spot for the first time in 11 weeks but still had 1.52 million streams. At #3, Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” is at # 3 with 1.12 million listens.

Over in ‘Mercia (where they have a complicated way of determining the top albums), it’s the Furious 7 at #1, moving the equivalent (don’t ask) of 111,000  copies.  Thank Wiz Khalifa for that, because “See You Again” is a single from the soundtrack.

There are two debuts on the American album charts: All Time Low’s Future Hearts (#2, 80,000 copies) and Lord Huron’s Strange Tails (#10, 18,000 copies.)  Wiz is at #1 on the digital chart with 464,000, kicking “Uptown Funk” out of the top spot after 11 weeks. It also was streaming 25 million times.

All figures courtesy Nielsen SoundScan.