Over on the Digital Songs chart, history is made. The top three songs each sell in excess of 300,000 downloads for the first time outside of the Christmas holiday season.
Lorde's "Royals" jumps 3-1 with 307,000—up 17% for its first week at No. 1 and best sales week yet. Behind her is Katy Perry's "Roar," which holds steady at No. 2 with 301,000 (down 10%) and Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball," down 1-3 with a little more than 301,000 as well (down 37%). (The sales of both titles have been rounded to the nearest thousand. "Wrecking Ball" is behind "Roar" by a margin of less than 1% in sales.)
The top three songs on the tally have each moved 300,000 downloads in six previous weeks, but all were during the post-Christmas time period. That's when digital song sales are extraordinarily high thanks to consumers redeeming just-received gift cards.
Perry has a second song in the top 10 this week, as her new track "Dark Horse" (featuring Juicy J) bows at No. 4 with 194,000. Right behind it is Avicii's "Wake Me Up!," which slips one rung to No. 5 with 189,000 (down 6%).
Britney Spears' "Work B**ch!" debuts at No. 6 with 174,000 downloads. It's the first single from her forthcoming studio album, due in December. Comparably, her last album's first single, "Hold It Against Me," launched with 411,000 in January 2011.
Lady Gaga's "Applause" is down 13% this week, slipping 5-7 with 160,000. Drake's "Hold On, We're Going Home" (featuring Majid Jordan) is steady at No. 8 with 150,000 (up 5%).
Eminem's "Berzerk" descends 6-9 with 147,000 (down 11%), and Jay Z's "Holy Grail" (featuring Justin Timberlake) moves 7-10 with 134,000 (down 8%).
Digital track sales this past week totaled 21.9 million downloads, down 1% compared with last week (22.1 million) and down 7% stacked next to the comparable week of 2012 (23.5 million). Year-to-date track sales are at 954.3 million, down 3% compared with the same total at this point last year (986 million).
http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...-billboard-200
