Music News

Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 13 February 2013

Yeah, I’m late again–but I have an excuse. I had to fly to Ireland and I’m a little discombobulated by the time difference. It’s only five hours but my brain doesn’t seem to want to reboot properly. I seem to have a couple of corrupted .lib and .dll files. Maybe my brain needs to upgrade to Yosemite.

Where was I? Right. Music sales for this past week.

The Grammys did their job, pushing up sales 13% over last week. This has allowed year-to-date sales to moderate to -2% from this point last year. CD sales are down 8% year-over-year while digital album sales are up 3%. Then it’s another minus sign in front of digital track sales: -8%.

There’s a new #1 album in the country:  Paradis City by Quebec artist Jean Leloup. No big surprise since it’s his first album in six years. About 21,000 people (mostly in Quebec) went out and bought it. That’s the biggest one week sales total so far in 2015.

At #2, we have Diana Krall’s Wallflower”with 13,000 units sold. Other debuts in the Top 10  include the various artists’ collection Deschampsons at #7, Fifth Harmony #8 and Bob Dylan # 10,

The biggest digital download in Canada? Still Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk.” And looking at Canadian streaming numbers, “Uptown Funk” remains #1 with 1.9 million streams, one of three songs to post a total of over one million last week. Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” was called up 1.3 million times and Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” remains at No. 3 (1.0 million).

And in case you’re wondering, “FourFiveSeconds,” from Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney enters at #6 with 733,000 streams. Not bad, really. (Point of trivia: this is Paul McCartney’s first return to the Top 10 since February 1986 when he released “Spies Like Us.” That was 29 years and 2 weeks ago, the longest Top 10 hiatus/drought by any artist.

Checking the US, Taylor Swift remains at #1 on the album charts with 1989. That’s now 11 non-consecutive weeks. Using Billboards mult-metric data acquisition methods (don’t ask), the album sold 108,000 units, good for top spot.

New at #2 is the latest Now That’s What I Call Music compilation, Now 53, with 99,000 units. Other Top 10 debuts include Fifth Harmony and Reflection at #5,  Shadows in the Night by Bob Dylan at #7 and Diana Krall at #10.

The biggest single in the US is “Uptown Funk” (319,000 fresh downloads).

All numbers courtesy Nielsen SoundScan.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

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2 thoughts on “Weekly Music Sales Report and Analysis: 13 February 2013

  • 3 other fabulous Canadian debuts which I hope will sell well ‘cos they deserve it–Tom Cochrane’s “Take It Home”, Colin James “Hearts on Fire” and Ron Hawkins and the Do Good Assassins “Garden Songs” All excellent albums. Check out TC’s song “Pink Time” especially.

    Reply
  • How many downloads of “uptown funk” in Canada this week????

    Reply

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