For several weeks or longer Columbia Records has had almost nothing on the charts. No Adele or Beyonce, no Springsteen, Streisand, etc. Harry Styles’ debut album was not a hit (335K sales total). For Columbia, only Epic Records was doing well thanks to music left behind by L.A. Reid, who was forced out of the company last spring. Not good.
But this week Kenny Chesney rode to the rescue on his Blue Chair label for Columbia. The country superstar sold 220,000 copies and finished at number 1 yesterday for his new “Live in No Shoes Nation.” And that was 219,000 copies purchased as a CD or paid for as a download.
The album could have been called “No Streaming Nation.” Chesney’s fans did not use Spotify or any other platform to express their devotion. He had about 1,000 streams. Otherwise, it was just pure sales.
For Columbia, that’s a nice return to the charts after a long drought even if it came from the Nashville division. It’s unclear what they have coming up, too. The great label has nothing listed on the hitsdailydouble report for albums coming through January. But I’m sure there are some surprises down the road.
