Kanye West finished at number 1 this week because of streaming. Otherwise, his “Vultures” was number 2. And now, sales have stopped by and large because his distributor has pulled the album.
West’s total sales were 152K sold in total, with just 16K in downloads (there are no CDs). Usher sold 91,375 copies of his”Coming Home.” Of that 54,000 were actual downloaded albums our purchased CDs. Technically he was number 1. Usher can’t be too happy about “Vultures” upstaging his album release and Super Bowl show.
As I wrote earlier, West’s request to upload “Vultures” was turned down by his distributor. Downtown/FUGA Music. He apparently waited until Saturday and went around them. The result is that Downtown/FUGA removed the album almost all platforms.
The result of getting pulled and starting 24 hours late: sales were down for the first week at least 55% from his previous release, “Donda.”
The one platform where you find most of the album is Spotify. So they’ve either ignored the takedown notice, or West has found a distributor who was willing to work with Spotify.
But with Apple, Amazon, iTunes and almost everyone else gone, West faces two issues. One is that he’s invisible in the retail market except for his own website. The other is that if he’s left with streaming on Spotify, the number 135K copies sold translates to very little revenue.
And the beats go on.
