With 50.65% of the reports in, I am agog. Taylor Swift’s “1989” is already at 112K. Sure, this is HDD and that could be all she sold, but it could be higher. 112K is a very respectable number to get in January – the long cold month of miserable sales where hope comes to die and when record execs reach for the bottle (antacids or booze – it all depends). You can often be the top selling album of the week with less than 60K in sales. But Swifty, like the Adele’s before her (Adele and “Adele Dazeem”) has come to play. As she moves toward 4M in sales, HDD thinks she could reach the 6M in sales. She beat “Frozen” at the post last year for the number one album in 2014 with 3.66M. Might she have the best-selling album in 2015 too? Too early to say, but her numbers are hard to match.
Next up are two Soundtracks from the Disney studio. While other studios are burning old album covers in barrels to keep their hands warm, Disney execs keeps their hands warm by rubbing them with glee. Soundtracks aren’t what they were back in the 80s and early 90s, but Disney is making a go of it. “Frozen” has been out for more than a year and it’s still managing to make the top 10 at a time when people would rather not hear about the cold. “Guardians of the Galaxy” featured a bunch of super-heros that only those who inhabit the darkest corners of comic book stores have ever heard of, but not only was it the biggest hit of the summer, it also produced an album that is still selling well today – Number 2 this week. “Into the Woods” is a more recent release for Disney (Christmas Day), but it must be nice to see it sitting at 3rd on the chart.
Taking 4th and 5th are two urban acts. J. Cole and Nicki Minaj are holding pretty steady on the charts. Their sales will be down this week, but relatively, they are holding well. These two acts will likely move past “Into the Woods” once SEAs and TEAs are counted. They are followed by 3 British acts. Sam Smith had the 3rd best selling album last year (one of only 4 albums to cross the 1M mark) and 2015 is starting out well for him. Ed Sheeran has moved on from his “+” album to “X” (will his next be “-” or “/” or will he continue on the additive side of the equation and go for “^”?). His first first single kind of stalled mid-pack and his second was a bit of a departure for him (though a pretty big hit), but his third single looks like it may be the one that drags him to the top echelon of the Hot 100. Finally, we have X-Factor UK’s own One Direction. They are working their second single and gearing up for another monster tour.
Now 52 fills the last unmentioned spot in the top 10 – 9th. It features a track by the last X-Factor US winners, Alex and Sierra. American Idol’s Carrie Underwood’s greatest hits album is at 18th. Judges are represented by Adam and Blake at 31st and 36th respectively.
CHART DATE: 01/05/2015
LAST UPDATE: 01/05/2015 11:29:02
NOW IN: 50.65%
LW TW artist / album label sales index
2 1 TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 112,231
11 2 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY SOUNDTRACK 49,937
— 3 INTO THE WOODS SOUNDTRACK 33,303
1 4 J. COLE 2014 FOREST HILLS DRIVE 32,431
— 5 NICKI MINAJ THE PINKPRINT 31,888
9 6 SAM SMITH IN THE LONELY HOUR 30,370
18 7 ED SHEERAN X 26,672
7 8 ONE DIRECTION FOUR 21,054
16 9 NOW 52 VARIOUS ARTISTS 19,638
15 10 FROZEN SOUNDTRACK 19,199
…
5 18 CARRIE UNDERWOOD GREATEST HITS: DECADE #1 10,336
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26 31 MAROON 5 V 5,741
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43 36 BLAKE SHELTON BRINGING BACK THE SUNSHINE 5,082
…
23 50 MARY J. BLIGE THE LONDON SESSION 3,447
Hits Daily Double
