With 54.02% of reports in, Taylor Swift looks to be soaring to another victory on the charts. But don’t count out Pentatonix. HDDs Weakend report had them pegged to be in a neck-and-neck race with Taylor for the top of the sales chart (in the 190K range). HDD numbers cannot be extrapolated because different vendors report at different times with different customer bases. Look for Pentatonix to see some strong gains today. They won’t be able to top the BB200 because Taylor kicks their butt on streaming/single sales (look for Taylor to have 235-245K on the combined chart while Pentatonix has 200-210K). Still it would be cool for Pentatonix to grab the top of the sales chart during some of the busiest sales weeks of the year. Their sales will fall off a cliff (and die) after Christmas while Taylor can continue to dominate the charts well into February.
AC/DC (when their drummer isn’t in the news for allegedly trying to get somebody whacked) found time to release a new album (maybe it’s such a short album because their drummer was too busy to be in the studio – it’s their shortest album by two minutes – 35 minutes) and they will have the top debut of the week. It is a good thing they have strong sales numbers because they aren’t going to do much on the streaming/single charts. Rock fans buy albums.
Garth Brooks continues to sell quite well. He may have been a little disappointing out of the gate, but he is showing some legs week after week. One Direction’s “4” continues to have higher than usual drops. Usually, second week drops are in the 40% range, but they will probably see around 45%. That’s not entirely unexpected for a tween act though (whose buyers tend to rush to the store the first day) and last week was Black Friday. I would expect sales to get a little better as we near Christmas and people look to find stocking stuffers.
Now 52 features X-Factor US winners Alex and Sierra. Now’s are great stocking stuffers so I’m not surprised to see this album move up the chart. Now 52 is at 6th and Now 51 is at 42 (now 51 features UK XFer Cher Lloyd). Idina Menzel is settling in to have the second biggest Christmas album of the year at 7th. Mary J. Blige is here debuting at 8th. Mary J. may be having sessions in the UK, but Sam Smith is from there and he is 9th (why did it not surprise me that he sang the most depressing Christmas song in the entire canon?). Meanwhile, Michael Buble’s re-release of his Christmas album is 10th.
Carrie Underwood is releasing an album this week (go Carrie!) and she is featured on Michael W. Smith’s album which is 27th on this week’s sales chart. Judges are represented by Adam, Blake and Blake. Maroon V’s “V” is just in front of Blake’s Christmas album at 29th and 30th while Blake’s new album continues to struggle at 48th.
CHART DATE: 12/08/2014
LAST UPDATE: 12/08/2014 14:57:31
NOW IN: 54.02%
LW TW artist / album label sales index
1 1 TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 168,690
2 2 PENTATONIX THAT’S CHRISTMAS TO ME 99,351
— 3 AC/DC ROCK OR BUST 85,210
8 4 GARTH BROOKS MAN AGAINST MACHINEE 42,065
4 5 ONE DIRECTION FOUR 33,346
12 6 NOW 52 VARIOUS ARTISTS 24,204
10 7 IDINA MENZEL HOLIDAY WISHES 23,871
— 8 MARY J. BLIGE THE LONDON SESSIONS 21,750
5 9 SAM SMITH IN THE LONELY HOUR 21,271
11 10 MICHAEL BUBLE CHRISTMAS 20,270
…
44 27 MICHAEL W. SMITH & FRIENDS THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS 7,466
…
15 29 MAROON 5 V 6,917
— 30 BLAKE SHELTON CHEERS, IT’S CHRISTMAS 5,939
…
— 42 NOW 51 VARIOUS ARTISTS 4,053
…
45 48 BLAKE SHELTON BRINGING BACK THE SUNSHINE 3,046
…
— 50 NEIL DIAMOND MELODY ROAD 2,797
