HDD – Album Sales Prediction : Nov 10-16

With 54.02% of reports in, Taylor Swift’s “1989” glides to an easy victory for it’s third week. Current estimates have her selling in the 300-325K. She’s a machine and could easily have the number one selling album of 2014 (she won’t be able to beat “Frozen” for the Billboard year, though).

Nobody big released last week because they rightly thought that Swift would dominate two weeks in a row. So, there are a lot of bigger releases this week hoping to get in between her and One Direction for the number one album. That was not to be. The Foo Fighters have come closest and will have the top debut of the week. The industry is predicting 190-200K and this would have been their second number one album. Their previous album was number one with 235K in sales.

Next up is Pink Floyd. The band is no stranger to the BB200 chart frequently visiting it despite not having released an album in 20 years. This mainly instrumental album will be their 10th top 10 album and is set to sell in the 150K range. Sometimes you don’t have to get practically naked in a video to move units. Big K.R.I.T. will top the Urban charts this week.

Garth Brooks experimented this week by not releasing to any of the traditional digital retailers. Instead, he released to bricks-and-mortar stores and his very own Ghosttunes. Ghosttunes is being launched as an alternative to iTunes that offers larger payouts to musical acts (80 cents per album as opposed to 70). “Man Against the Machine” will be the top Country album and sell around 125K, but does it prove the concept or disprove it? It will be his 16th top 10 album.

The Sing Off’s Pentatonix is having the Christmas album of the year so far. They should top the Holiday Album chart for their fourth week. The surge is due to a successfully released youtube version of one of the songs, people starting to buy Christmas albums, hard work and a lot of talent. Other big Christmas albums so far this year are from Idina Menzel, Darius Rucker, the Nashville crew and Ellen’s top picks. “That’s Christmas to Me” is number 6 this week. Sam Smith is ticking up to 7th with another radio hit under his belt, Nick Jonas is in the top 10, Frozen surges to 9th and Now 52 is 10th (it features a track from X-Factor US winners Alex and Sierra). Now 51 featuring UK X-Factor contestant Cher Lloyd is 49th. Carrie is featured on Miranda’s album at 50th.

Voice judges Adam and Blake are 23rd and 40th. Maroon V’s “V” is selling pretty steady at 23rd, but Blake’s new album seems to be struggling to find buyers.

The big release this week is from One Direction. They released on Monday, so we should see some 1 day predictions today. I have no vendors reporting to me, but I’ll make the prediction that they are number 1 for next week.

CHART DATE: 11/17/2014
LAST UPDATE: 11/17/2014 14:53:58
NOW IN: 54.02%

LW TW artist / album label sales index
1 1 TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 219,681
— 2 FOO FIGHTERS SONIC HIGHWAYS 114,150
— 3 PINK FLOYD THE ENDLESS RIVER 74,051
— 4 BIG K.R.I.T. CADILLACTICA 24,203
— 5 GARTH BROOKS MAN AGAINST MACHINE 20,606
22 6 PENTATONIX THAT’S CHRISTMAS TO ME 20,286
9 7 SAM SMITH IN THE LONELY HOUR 18,962
— 8 NICK J0NAS NICK JONAS 14,208
13 9 FROZEN SOUNDTRACK 12,852
2 10 NOW 52 VARIOUS ARTISTS 12,728

23 23 MAROON 5 V 7,800

11 40 BLAKE SHELTON BRINGING BACK THE SUNSHINE 3,018

— 43 NASHVILLE CAST CHRISTMAS WITH NASHVILLE 2,503

— 49 NOW 51 VARIOUS ARTISTS 1,405
15 50 MIRANDA LAMBERT PLATINUM 1,391

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Kirsten has had a long love affair with numbers. Marry that with her love of cheese and the Numbers Threads at MJs were born.