[WEEKLY SALES] The Weeknd Lands Third-Biggest Debut of 2016 with Starboy

James Donio, President of the Music Business Association (Music Biz), commented on this week’s sales numbers issued by Nielsen (published in Billboard) and Border City Media (published in HITS Daily Double).

“The Weeknd landed the third-biggest album debut of 2016 with his latest, Starboy, earning around 350,000 album equivalent units on the Nielsen and BuzzAngle Music charts. Beyonce’s Lemonade and Drake’s Views were the only two 2016 albums to earn more in their debut weeks. Pentatonix’s A Pentatonix Christmas, released in October, moved up to #2 in a sign that the holidays are fast-approaching, and their 2015 offering That’s Christmas To Me also entered the Top 10 this week as well. Michael Buble’s Holiday album from 2011 was another holiday record to re-emerge in the lead-up to the holidays. As for last week’s new releases, Metallica’s Hardwired…to Self-Destruct fell around 75% with around 75,000 album equivalent units earned, Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic dropped around 68%, and Miranda Lambert’s The Weight Of These Wings fell around 74%. Next week we’ll be watching hip-hop artist J. Cole, who is likely to make a notable debut with his fourth studio album, 4 Your Eyez Only.

We’re also encouraged by the numbers that were just announced for Record Store Day’s Black Friday weekend, in which 140 special releases spanning a wide variety of genres and audiences hit indie record stores nationwide. Of note, special Black Friday vinyl album sales were up 15% from the same weekend in 2015 and general vinyl album sales over Black Friday weekend were up 12% compared to 2015.”