Paul McCartney, his team, and Capitol Records should be proud of themselves. “Egypt Station” finished its first week at number 1 with huge numbers. They were much better than predicted and er, came at the last minute.
The album, McCartney’s first in five years, sold 145,777 copies according to BuzzAngle. Not only that, but 140K of those sales were pure CDs and paid downloads. Streaming was minimal.
That news is great because those are ‘real’ sales, with higher royalties. And fans wanted the album package to keep, not just listen to passively. They were committed.
McCartney worked like a dog on this debut. The marketing campaign has been intense, starting with the two James Corden shows on CBS. McCartney also appeared at private fan shows in London and New York, and streamed the latter on YouTube. Spotify is carrying the audio of McCartney’s Abbey Road show from London.
And who knows? Maybe McCartney’s revelation that he and Lennon pleasured themselves together as young men back in the day was the final magic. Early in the debut week, “Egypt Station” was not doing that well. By Wednesday, before the NY Post cover recalling the raunchy story, the album was only at 25,000. But once the anecdote– which broke in GQ magazine’s UK edition– hit the media, there was a last minute, ahem, surge in sales.
Back on the 13th, Hitsdailydouble.com and BuzzAngle were predicting McCartney sales between 115 and 125K. So something definitely aroused those sales. Most punsters fashioned Beatles titles to go along with it, but few realized McCartney had already given them the best pun from the new album with the song “Come on to Me.”
