A wild week on the pop charts:
Beyonce’s “Lemonade” is number 1 with 95,000 copies in physical CDs and paid digital downloads. Her total number was 131, 047 if you add in streaming.
But Drake’s “Views” total came to 240,621 with streaming. Without streaming, Drake was number 2 with 85,250.
Who was number 1? Beyonce– her “Lemonade” is pricey at $17.99 and you need it physically to get the videos.
Drake– that audience seems not to need the music in their hands. They don’t mind just listening over and over on streaming services. Trust me, Drake would rather they bought it.
Where are real music fans? Cyndi Lauper’s country album produced by great Seymour Stein had no streams and second week sales of 4,900. This is a real shame. But this is the problem with Rhino, a great catalog company that can’t do new releases. They’re not equipped for it.
Taylor Swift’s “1989” album had a sales spike this week thanks to deep discounting to $7.99.
Kanye West’s “Life of Pablo,” the most botched record in modern history, is still not available for much of anything. No charting for digital downloads at all this week. Streaming came to 20,000. “Pablo” didn’t generate enough cash for Kanye to buy baby food this week. Maybe he doesn’t care.
