Prince Set to Outdo Michael Jackson With Top Five on British Albums Chart
http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2016/04/prince-set-to-outdo-michael-jackson.html
When Michael Jackson died in 2009, it set off a flurry of buying his music that was unprecedented in music.
For weeks after his death, Jackson's albums regularly held three of the top five spots on the British Albums chart and had four of the the top six on the chart of July 5, 2009 with albums by La Roux and Kasabian interspersed. Overall, he had 11 of the top 100.
The mid-week chart in Britain is showing an even stronger reaction to the passing of
Prince with five of his albums taking the top five spots:
* The Very Best of Prince
* Ultimate Prince
* Purple Rain
* The Hits/The B-Sides
* Sign O' the Times
In addition, he has 16 albums in the top 100 but, to be fair, Prince had a much more extensive catalog than Jackson.
Over on the singles chart, it also appears there has been a flurry of downloads on his individual songs, too. Purple Rain is number 2 mid-week, When Doves Cry is 6 and Kiss is 11. In total, fifteen of Prince's tracks have reentered the Singles list.
Whether the singer will be able to duplicate the feat in the U.S. is doubtful with Beyonce's new album hitting the market.
The final British charts will be out on Friday.
Prince sells 1M songs, 231K albums posthumously
http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/life/music/2016/04/22/prince-sales-death/83376684/
On Thursday alone, Prince sold a total of 231,800 albums — a staggering jump from the 4,300 sold between April 15 and April 20, according to BuzzAngle Music, a sales and streaming tracking service by music technology company Border City Media. Greatest-hits album The Very Best of Prince led the pack with a whopping 94,600 copies sold. (
Billboard predicts it will hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.) Next best one-day sales included Purple Rain (55,300), The Hits / The B-Sides (22,400), 1999 (11,600) and Ultimate Prince (9,000).
The High Priest of Pop also sold a total of 1.1 million songs Thursday, jumping from the 18,800 sold between April 15 and April 20. Best-selling songs included Purple Rain (125,800), Little Red Corvette (90,000), Kiss (86,400), Let's Go Crazy (77,800), and When Doves Cry (66,500).
The numbers aren't surprising when one looks at digital retailers. At the time of publication, Prince has 19 of the 20 top albums in Amazon's digital music store and 45 of the 50 best-selling songs. On iTunes, His Royal Badness holds 13 of the top 20 album slots and 17 of the 20 highest-selling songs.
The singer released his 39th and final album, HITnRUN Phase Two, as a Tidal exclusive last December, before putting it on iTunes in January. He withdrew his music from all streaming services (except for the Jay Z-backed Tidal) last summer, and spoke out against Spotify: tweeting a quote from The Daily Beast saying that it is "co-owned by record labels, who hold 20 percent of the company’s stocks (sic)."
Prince's 'The Very Best Of' Album Headed for No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart
The late icon's 'Very Best Of' album is on course to re-enter the chart at No. 1.
In the wake of Prince’s death on April 21, the music legend is heading for No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with the greatest hits album The Very Best of Prince. If the set tops the list, it will mark Prince’s fifth No. 1, and first since 2006’s 3121.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new May 7-dated Billboard 200 chart is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, April 24.
Prince died on the final day of the most recent Billboard 200 chart tracking week, so the chart will reflect the immediate reaction to his passing. Anything beyond that (purchases and streams occurring on April 22 and later) will be reflected on the following week’s chart.
Industry sources suggest The Very Best of Prince could earn more than 150,000 equivalent album units in the week ending April 21, with between 90,000 and 100,000 in traditional album sales. (Sources say the album sold around 85,000 through the iTunes Store alone on April 21.)
The overall total unit figure for The Very Best of Prince is large because of the popularity of its 17 tracks, which includes 13 of his 19 top 10-charting hits on the Billboard Hot 100. The highlights set -- which was released in 2001 and debuted and (so far) peaked at No. 66 -- boasts iconic tracks like “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Kiss,” and “Purple Rain.”
It’s likely that his second-biggest-selling album for the week will be the classic Purple Rain soundtrack, which, according to sources, moved more than 40,000 copies through iTunes yesterday. The album spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1984 and 1985.
Prince’s catalog is selling incredibly well, not just because of the artist’s extraordinary popularity, but also because his music has limited availability on streaming services and YouTube. The only streaming service with access to his songs is Tidal. And, as noted in Billboard magazine’s cover story about Prince in 2013, finding classic videos or performance footage of Prince on YouTube or anywhere else on the Web is difficult. "I have a team of female black lawyers who keep an eye on such transgressions," Prince said at the time. "And you know they’re sharp," he added with a laugh.
Thus, outside of listening to his music on the radio, for many the primary way to experience Prince’s music is to purchase it.
Prince has led the Billboard 200 four times previously, with 3121 (for one week in 2006), the Batman soundtrack (six weeks in 1989), Around the World in a Day (three weeks in 1985) and Purple Rain.
Prince Has Sold Nearly 3.5 Million Albums & Songs in U.S. Since His Death
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7341907/prince-sold-35-million-albums-songs-us
Since Prince died on April 21, fans have paid tribute to the late legend by purchasing his music in huge quantities.
According to Nielsen Music, Prince’s catalog of albums sold 654,000 copies in the U.S. between April 15 and April 24, while his individual songs sold 2.82 million downloads in that same span of time.
In the week ending April 21, his catalog of albums sold 256,000 — up from only 5,000 the week previous. One can assume most of the 256,000 sales occurred on the final day of the tracking week, after news broke that he died around 12:55 p.m. ET, as fans rushed to digital retailers to buy his music.
As for his song downloads, 1.04 million were sold in the week ending April 21 — up from only 14,000 in the week previous. Again, assume that the bulk of those million downloads were registered on the day of his death, April 21.
As for the days immediately following Prince’s passing, here’s how the sales story unfolded: On Friday, April 22, his albums sold 227,000 while his songs moved 960,000 downloads. On April 23: 113,000 albums and 521,000 songs. And on April 24: 58,000 albums and 301,000 songs.
His biggest selling albums in the April 15-24 frame were The Very Best of Prince (259,000), Purple Rain (152,000) and The Hits/The B-Sides (64,000). In terms of songs, the best sellers were “Purple Rain” (326,000), “When Doves Cry” (246,000) and “Little Red Corvette” (201,000).
As earlier reported, The Very Best of Prince, Purple Rain and The Hits/The B-Sides re-entered the Billboard 200 albums chart dated May 7 at Nos. 1, 2 and 6, respectively. “Purple Rain,” “When Doves Cry” and “Little Red Corvette” were the Nos. 1, 4 and 6 best selling songs of the week ending April 21.
Prince's Music Set to Flood U.K. Charts
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7341914/prince-music-flood-uk-charts
Prince is poised to rule over the U.K. sales charts.
The late music icon’s albums currently lock-up the Top 5 at the half-way stage of the chart cycle, as fans clamor to pay tribute to their hero. The chart Update is led by The Very Best Of (Warner Bros), which will be Prince’s sixth No. 1 album in the market if it remains at the top when the chart proper is published this Friday.
The Top 5 as it currently stands includes Ultimate (No. 2 via Warner Bros), the Purple Rain soundtrack (No. 3 via Paisley Park), The Hits/The B-Sides (No. 4 via Paisley Park) and Sign O’ The Times (No. 5 via Paisley Park).
Another five Prince albums are on track to enter this week’s Official Albums Chart Top 40: 1999 (No. 18 via Paisley Park), the Parade soundtrack (No. 21 via Paisley Park), Diamonds And Pearls (No. 25 via Paisley Park), Hitnrun Phase One (No. 30 via NPG), and Lovesexy (No. 39 via Paisley Park), while Around The World In A Day (No. 42 via Paisley Park) and Dirty Mind (No. 46 via Paisley Park) are hovering just outside the Top 40.
It’s a similar story on the Official Singles Chart Update, where two of Prince’s biggest hits have moved inside the Top 10 and six are on target to re-enter the Top 40. At the halfway stage, the multi-instrumental genius’ signature tune “Purple Rain” (Warner Bros) explodes to a peak-position of No. 2, behind only Drake’s "One Dance" (Cash Money/Republic Records). "Purple Rain" originally reached No. 8 following its release in 1984.
Other Prince tracks re-entering the chart include “When Doves Cry” (No. 6 via WEA), "Kiss" (No. 11 via Paisley Park), "Raspberry Beret" (No. 15 via Paisley Park), "1999" (No. 17 via WEA) and "Little Red Corvette" (No. 26 via WEA).
How the Prince Sales Spike Compares to Other Icons After Their Deaths
http://time.com/money/4307726/prince-death-music-sales-bowie-michael-jackson/
Prince tops Michael Jackson—in the streaming era.
In the first five days following his January death, coincidentally timed with a new album release, David Bowie reclaimed his rightful place at the top up the charts one last time. Bowie netted a combined 682,000 combined album and song sales over the five-day span, according to Billboard. In the sparse music economy, glued together by Spotify and iTunes, these are huge numbers.
But Prince’s would be bigger.
The second extraterrestrial pop icon we lost this year, Prince eschewed contemporary streaming models for monetizing music—which do a poor job of it, as far as the musicians are concerned—and instead insisted that people actually purchase his music.
Because of this and Prince’s aggressive copyright policing on sites like YouTube, it’s almost impossible to legally listen to his music without paying for it. The scenario has driven sales to astronomic heights seldom seen in streaming-first music today.
During the first few days after Prince’s death, 654,000 of his albums were sold, and 2.82 million songs were downloaded, according to Billboard. On the day he died alone, April 21, roughly 1 million songs were sold. Just under a million (960,000) sold the next day, and 521,000 and 301,000 sold the next two days after that, respectively.
Simply put, these are Michael Jackson-like death numbers, which were pre-Spotify. In the full week after he died, the King of Pop moved 422,000 albums and 2.8 million individual song downloads. (Interestingly, Prince and MJ, who had a notoriously intense rivalry throughout their careers, seem to be competing with each other even after they’ve both passed away.)
Putting these musicians’ numbers into context, the week after he died the Notorious B.I.G. sold 689,000 copies of his new album “Life After Death” in the pre-digital download and streaming era in 1997. On a smaller scale, but one that still represented an 150% jump, Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide drove sales of 77,000 albums in 1994.
I do remember the announcement about Fox's phone lines blowing up afterward, but their ratings went through the roof too.
