Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Kanye’s iTunes Punishment Cut Sales of His “Vultures 1” in Half from First Week, Just 1,485 Downloads

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I told you overnight that Apple/iTunes restored Kanye West’s album, “Vultures 1,” to the platform.

But the whole prior week or more, iTunes had pulled the album down over possible copyright infringement — not because the album is full of gross language and has an antisemitic lyric.

Anyway, the numbers are in for this past week. “Vultures” dropped to 2nd place and sold just 1,485 paid downloads.

All other sales were from streaming, cutting the album’s sales in half, from 159,000 to just 732,418.

Amazon dropped the album from its music service as well. But Spotify — which has the morals of frothing dog — kept it up. Most of the downloads sales would have come from them.

When “Vultures” returned last night, it shot to number 1. But with new releases today, West is down to number 5 and sinking, it is hoped.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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