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Guests dance to Prince music as a slide show flashes images of the artist above the stage during a memorial dance party at the First Avenue nightclub on April 21, 2016 in Minneapolis.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Days after the tragic death of Prince at age 57, the pop legend’s music is predictably swelling in sales.
USA Today reports that on the day he was pronounced dead, Prince sold a total of 231,800 albums—a staggering jump from the 4,300 sold during the week preceding it. His greatest-hits album,The Very Best of Prince. led the pack with a whopping 94,600 copies sold followed by Purple Rain (55,300), The Hits / The B-Sides (22,400), 1999 (11,600) and Ultimate Prince (9,000).
Billboard predicts The Very Best will hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart this week.
Moreover, Prince reportedly sold 1.1 million songs on Thursday, jumping from the 18,800 sold between April 15 and April 20, according to Buzzangle Music, a music sales tracking service. The top of these songs include “Purple Rain” (125,800), “Little Red Corvette” (90,000), “Kiss” (86,400), “Let’s Go Crazy” (77,800) and “When Doves Cry” (66,500).
At the time of publication, Prince had 18 of the 20 top albums in Amazon’s digital music store and 45 of the 50 best-selling songs. On iTunes, his royal badness holds 13 of the top 20 album slots and 17 of the 20 highest-selling songs.
Because Prince reportedly owned all of his masters, this incredible surge in sales will add considerably to his estate. In life, he was a vehement activist when it came to artists’ rights and being fairly compensated. Presently, his cataloge of albums is only available for streaming on Tidal.
USA Today reports that he withdrew his music from all streaming services (except for Tidal) last summer, and spoke out against Spotify, saying it was “co-owned by record labels.”
His 39th and final album, HITnRUN Phase Two, was released as a Tidalexclusive last December, before it went to iTunes in January.
Read more at USA Today and Billboard.
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