Oh, that's it? Even aside from the Taylor thing - it looks to not even be her biggest sales week wtf - only 6 are predicted at 300k? There were 7 three years ago, and 8 two years ago.
It's weird, because overall year-to-year digital singles sales were up 5%.
I consider these numbers disappointing. Just two years ago, the entire Top 10 sold just as much Christmas week even though the week ended 4 days earlier on 12.26 instead of 12.30 (I'm referring to the year Grenade was #1 with 559K, Firework #2 with 509K, WRWWR #3 with 411K, WMN? #4 with 343K, etc.). These boosts, if looking at past years is any indication, should be much larger given the week fell in a perfect increment of time to feel the full effects of Christmas gift cards. Something is not right here.
I knew that people were overestimating how much LOOH and IKYWT would sell. The trend that is emerging--just as it did last year--was a LOT of sales...but for more people than just the top spot. The market as a whole is equilibrating--people are no longer flocking to just the top couple of hits. Rather, they are using their purchasing power to buy more broadly.
Amazing number for Locked out of heaven and I don't think it's disappointing at all, and people here were overestimating how much IKYWT is going to sell, they thought the song was going to sell 700k next week. Locked out of heaven is number one on the demand songs with more than 1M streams, so to sell that much is impressive
At the present, "Locked" seems like it will hold at No. 1 on the Hot 100 next week, even if Swift's "Trouble" sells as well as we're hearing. "Locked's" Hot 100 airplay lead over "Trouble" is still quite wide and "Trouble" has yet to become available to streaming services.