It was a tough week for Justin Bieber.
His new single, “Hold On,” did not. Unable to crack the top 5, the single eventually dropped like a rock on the iTunes chart. I guess his fans figured out that it sounded like every other shortly worded titled Bieber single of the last six months.
Total sales: around 85,000 mostly from streaming. Actual sales from downloads: about 12,000.
The big winner this week was Drake. He released three new digital singles and sold the equiv of 750,000 or more copies of “What’s Next,” “Wants and Needs,” and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle.” The final number may actually be 1 million. Let’s say the same number of fans — around 300K+–streamed each single. Actual iTunes sales were around 20,000 for each.
If Drake announced a tour today, it would sell out before I finished typing this sentence. Bieber is having trouble selling tickets to his tour, which starts June 5th and is awash in open seats at every venue.
Drake is an R&B artist. Bieber is a pop star who is boycotting the Grammys because they didn’t put his last album in the R&B category.
Final numbers later this afternoon.
