One Direction continues in the top 10 while Carrie and Pentatonix surge to join them. Black Friday sales…let’s see how everybody fared.
Adele continues to reign at the top of the chart. Everybody else get in line. hDD now predicts she will sell 7M by year end. They have her selling 1M this week (only artist to ever to sell more than a million albums two weeks in a row) two relatively calm weeks for her (but at 600 and 800K more than most artists get from an album in total sales) and back to 1M for the pre-Christmas week (biggest week for albums of the year).
Right behind her in line is Justin Bieber who would be snatching all the headlines for his stellar sales if Adele had not sucked all the oxygen out of the room and the rest of the building. But, he’s all over the single charts so he’s got to be pretty happy. Everybody knew Adele would be owning everybody so it’s all good. His album continues to show lower than expected drops (that’s what hit single will do for you). He is defying those that said his career was over.
Speaking of artists who defy convention, Pentatonix is plowing their own path. For the second year in a row, they are dominating Christmas album sales as their “That’s Christmas To Me” moves into the third slot in overall album sales. The album was released last year, but there are some new tracks for this year. But they simply aren’t willing to stop there, they also released an album earlier this year and it has held relatively steady in sales and is sitting at 12th right now. But that’s not all (I feel like an informercial now) because they also chart their “PTXmas” at 42.
One Direction moves down one spot to 4th, but their sales are exceeding predictions so Simon should be happy this Christmas. Carrie Underwood’s “Storyteller” is also consistent and she’s moved up to 6th this week. That’s 3 reality singing show competitors in the top 10. Not too shabby. She also appears on the latest Now Christmas album at 38.
This chart also features our newest and oldest Idols. Kelly Clarkson’s “Wrapped in Red” re-appears on the chart (remember back in 2013 when she battled that horrible Duck Dynasty album for that year’s Christmas album of the year?) at 47th. Meanwhile, Nick Fradiani has his coronation song on Now 56th sitting at a 7th. Tori Kelly has a track on the “We Love Disney” album which is 25th. The Voice is represented by judge Blake Shelton at 11th.
Erykah Badu is the only debut in the top 10 this week, but it’s really not all that surprising that few wanted to release a new album the week after Adele.
Coldplay has a new album out this week and they are playing the Superbowl. What are they not playing? Spotify. They only released their albums to the higher priced streaming platforms. Their fans skew older so it probably won’t hurt them.
HDD Sales Chart (89%)
1 1 ADELE 25 XL/COLUMBIA 764,618
2 2 JUSTIN BIEBER PURPOSE DEF JAM 100,076
4 3 PENTATONIX THAT’S CHRISTMAS TO ME RCA 54,952
3 4 ONE DIRECTION MADE IN THE A.M. SYCO/COLUMBIA 45,852
12 5 TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 BIG MACHINE 38,502
11 6 CARRIE UNDERWOOD STORYTELLER 19/ARISTA NASHVILLE 35,231
8 7 NOW 56 VARIOUS ARTISTS NOW/LEGACY 31,198 [Nick Fradiani]
— 8 ERYKAH BADU BUT YOU CAINT USE MY PHONE MOTOWN 29,437
9 9 THE WEEKND BEAUTY BEHIND THE MADNESS XO/REPUBLIC 23,677
6 10 CHRIS STAPLETON TRAVELLER MERCURY NASHVILLE 22,390
35 11 BLAKE SHELTON RELOADED: 20 #1 HITS WARNER BROS. NASHVILLE 19,994
14 12 PENTATONIX PENTATONIX RCA 19,970
…
10 15 ADELE 21 COLUMBIA 17,212
….
34 25 WE LOVE DISNEY VARIOUS ARTISTS VERVE 10,288 [Tori Kelly]
…
16 27 ADELE 19 XL/COLUMBIA 9,494
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— 38 NOW COUNTRY CHRISTMAS VARIOUS ARTISTS NOW 6,498 [Carrie Underwood]
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— 42 PENTATONIX PTXMAS RCA 6,104
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— 47 KELLY CLARKSON WRAPPED IN RED RCA 5,468
