Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 18 March 2015
Sorry about being so late this week, but the data didn’t arrive until sometime on Friday whilst I was on a plane to LA. I feel shame.
There were three debuts in the top four positions on the Canadian album charts this past week, keeping year-t0-date album sales at +2%. CDs continue to slide–they’re down 6% from a year ago–which digital albums are ahead by 10%. But digital tracks didn’t help with a -6% YTD showing.
This was one of those weird weeks where the Canadian and American charts diverged sharply on a couple of releases. For example, Madonna’s Rebel Heart debuted at #1 in Canada with 18,000 copies, given her seven straight #1 debuts in the SoundScan era.
Coming in second was Luke Bryan’s Spring Break…Checkin’ Out with 9,3000 units followed by Ariane Moffatt’s 22H22 at #4with 4,800 units sold.
What’s missing from the Canadian Top 10? The soundtrack culled from the hit Fox TV show, Empire. It debuted at #26 with total sales of less than 1,300. For all of Canada. More on that in a moment.
The biggest download in Canada was still “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson, which racked up another 21,000-ish sales. And as for streaming, there was no change in position in the Top 30: Mark Ronson, Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” and “Love Me Like You Do” from Ellie Goulding. All were streamed more than one million times.
Back to Empire. The soundtrack debuted at #1 on the US album charts, greatly pissing off Madonna who was relegated to second place. The only other US Top 10 debut was Luke Bryan. And on the digital track side, it was still “Uptown Funk” with another 188,000 purchase.
All numbers courtesy Nielsen SoundScan
There is no sales data of 11 march 2015???
No. I didn’t get it that week for some reason. People were beaten as a result.