With 58.36% of reports in, we have another Soundtrack topping the charts. It’s actually been a pretty healthy market for Soundtracks for the last year or so (there are 4 movie soundtracks and 2 television soundtracks in the top 50 this week). This time, it’s the “Pitch Perfect 2” soundtrack which features an all-girls singing group who have to overcome various challenges to win the day (kind of like a college version of Glee without all the Ryan Murphy nonsense and with consistent characterization…meow). Pitch Perfect 2 is doing even better than it’s original outing. The movie opened with $69.2M which is reportedly the best debut weekend for a musical ever. They pushed the critically acclaimed “Mad Max” right off the road. Considering the original movie only made $65M in domestic box-office during it’s original run, that’s pretty impressive.
The industry was predicting the Soundtrack would sell in the 60-65K range with maybe 80K in combined sales. People must have left the movie humming the songs and heading to the music stores because the sales already exceed 82K. The original soundtrack peaked at number 3 on the BB200, but would go on to sell 1.2M. Sales were fueled by a break-out song “Cups” (which sold 2.1M downloads and spurred many people to learn the clapping/cup tapping sequence – con-cen-tra-tion).
Mumford and Sons were number 1 last week and they slide down to the second position (looking to have a drop of about 80% in sales). Now 54 is currently 3rd in its second week (Tori Kelly, Kelly Clarkson and One Direction) while Josh Groban moves down to 4th for his 3rd week (Mother’s Day is over). DJ David Guetta is debuting in fifth(featuring a bunch of people from Sia to John Legend). Zac Brown Band is down a spot to 6th in their third week. “Fifty Shades of Grey” continues to sell well even though the movie is out of the first run theatres. Snoop Dogg isn’t selling like he used to and debuting at 8th. Taylor Swift is steady at 9th (her blanket exposure during the BB will probably have more of an effect this week) and Sam Smith may not be able to speak, but he is at 10th.
No singing show competitors are in the top 50. One Direction is featured on Now 53 at 29th, Voice Judge Adam Levine’s band is at 21st and two shows about the music industry have soundtracks at 15 (Nashville) and 24 (Empire).
What should be interesting next week is the Voice. They tend to release a compilation album for each of the finalists. Those sell okay (most interested buyers have been buying the singles all along so why buy the compilation album), but this year, they will get to include all the TEAs from all those singles they sell. They should do pretty well this season.
HDD
Chart Date: 05/19/2015
Last Updated: 05/18/2015 18:06:49
Status: Building 82.03%
LW TW Artist / Album Label Sales Index
— 1 PITCH PERFECT 2 SOUNDTRACK UME 82,376
1 2 MUMFORD & SONS WILDER MIND GLASSNOTE 40,281
3 3 NOW 54 VARIOUS ARTISTS NOW 30,727
2 4 JOSH GROBAN STAGES REPRISE 29,790
— 5 DAVID GUETTA LISTEN PARLOPHONE 28,880
5 6 ZAC BROWN BAND JEKYLL + HYDE SOUTHERN GROUND/VARVATOS/BMLG/REPUBLIC 26,232
6 7 FIFTY SHADES OF GREY SOUNDTRACK REPUBLIC 24,644
— 8 SNOOP DOGG BUSH COLUMBIA 21,219
9 9 TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 BIG MACHINE 18,583
8 10 SAM SMITH IN THE LONELY HOUR CAPITOL 17,857
….
— 15 THE MUSIC OF NASHVILLE (S3, VOL. 2) VARIOUS ARTISTS BIG MACHINE 11,194
…..
15 21 MAROON 5 V 222/INTERSCOPE 7,509
..
25 24 EMPIRE CAST SOUNDTRACK, SEASON 1 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX/COLUMBIA 6,910
….
— 29 NOW 53 VARIOUS ARTISTS NOW/LEGACY 6,349
