SoundScanner: Who Benefited From The Grammy Bump?
The nation is frozen, and so are SoundScan’s sales charts. The soundtrack to Disney’s smash hit “Frozen” grips this week’s charts, where the effect of Sunday’s Grammy Awards are just beginning to be felt. We dive further into the week’s sales news in this week’s SoundScanner:
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Grammys impact charts: While the full effect of Sunday’s Grammy Awards won’t be felt until next week’s charts, the show still made a dent on this week’s sales rankings. (SoundScan’s sales week ends Sunday.) Aside from the Grammy compilation CD, artists such as Lorde (No. 5, up 19 percent from last week), Katy Perry (No. 9, up 11 percent), Imagine Dragons (No. 11, up 16 percent), Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (No. 14, up 38 percent) Sara Bareilles (No. 24, up 92 percent) and Kacey Musgraves (No. 28, up 147 percent) all felt the effect of a Grammy bump. As for Album of the Year winners Daft Punk, their big win didn’t come until the end of the broadcast, but “Random Access Memories” jumps 41 spots to No. 39 this week, up 91 percent from last week, while their Record of the Year-winning “Get Lucky” jumps to No. 36 from No. 114 on this week’s Digital Songs Chart on a 206 percent increase. Expect next week’s charts to give even more love to the robots.
‘Frozen’ back on top: As another round of the dreaded polar vortex grips our nation, the “Frozen” soundtrack returns to No. 1 on this week’s Nielsen SoundScan Top Current Albums chart. The album sold 93,000 copies this week, up 7 percent from last week, bringing its nine week total to 769,000 sales. As for last week’s No. 1, Bruce Springsteen’s “High Hopes” slides to No. 8 this week on a 74 percent sales decline. The album, a loose ends compilation from the Boss, has sold 125,000 copies in two weeks.
Grammy compilation leads debuts: This year’s Grammy compilation leads the week’s debuts, coming in at No. 2 with 60,000 first-week sales. Next up is “Say Something” hitmakers A Great Big World, whose “Is There Anybody Out There?” arrives at No. 4 with 48,000 scans. Young the Giant’s latest, “Mind Over Matter,” shows up at No. 7 with 34,000 sales, while “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” the latest album from Florida punks Against Me!, debuts at No. 23 with 11,000 sales, giving the group its highest chart showing to date.
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‘Dark Horse’ still No. 1: Katy Perry and Juicy J’s “Dark Horse” spends another week at No. 1 on this week’s Digital Songs chart, its 294,000 sales representing a 12 percent sales uptick over last week. That puts it a full 100,000 sales ahead of the week’s runner-up, Jason Derulo and 2 Chainz’ “Talk Dirty,” which is up four spots from No. 6 on a 31 percent sales surge. And Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” continues its run at the top, coming in at No. 3 this week with 188,000 sales, up 57 percent from last week. We can only guess the publicity generated from Skateboard P’s hat at the Grammys will continue to generate sales gains for the super-producer.
Lee Brice hits gold: Hats off to country singer Lee Brice, whose 2012 album “Hard 2 Love” irks across the 500,000 sales marker this week, earning him his first gold record. The album, which peaked at No. 5 on the chart, was released in April 2012, and has hit gold four singles and 21 months later. The album is No. 185 this week, and its 1,700 sales put it over the top. Nothing hard to love about that.