zane76moody: Amy Winehouse's Music Sales Spike

Mittwoch, 27. Juli 2011

Amy Winehouse's Music Sales Spike

Back to Black has stormed back onto the Billboard 200 albums chart since the singer's death on Saturday.
By Gil Kaufman

Amy Winehouse
Photo: Ben Stansall/ AFP/ Getty Images

In the same way that fans rushed out to buy Michael Jackson's music following his passing in June 2009, Amy Winehouse's album and single sales have skyrocketed in the days since her death at age 27 on Saturday.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, Winehouse sold more albums in the past reporting week (which ended on Sunday) than she did in the first six months of this year, moving 50,000 copies versus 44,000 year-to-date as of July 17.

MTV celebrates Amy Winehouse's music with a special show this Wednesday.

That sales push has sent her second album, 2006's breakthrough Back to Black, into the #9 position on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week, with 37,000 copies sold. In the previous week, the album had sold just 1,000 copies. In a testament to the power of the Internet, of those Black sales, 36,000 were digital.

Sales of Winehouse's 2003 debut, Frank, were also up, charting at #57 with nearly 8,000 in sales, a 4,100 percent jump from the week before. As with Black, nearly all of the Frank sales (7,000) were digital, with online purchases accounting for more than 95 percent off all of Winehouse's sales this week.

The figures for Black were the highest weekly tally since the week ending March 2, 2008, when it moved 38,000 units just two weeks after the British singer won five Grammy Awards.

Fans were also snatching up some of Winehouse's most beloved singles, with "Rehab" racking up 34,000 in digital sales, or nearly one-third of the total 111,000 in digital track sales for the singer this week. That's a major jump from her digital sales in the previous week, which topped out at 5,000.

Given the fact that Nielsen's reporting period ends on Sunday, it is expected that next week's chart will see an even bigger boost in Winehouse record sales.

Celebrate Amy Winehouse on Wednesday night (July 27) at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT, when MTV will air an encore presentation of a performance she taped in the MTV studios in 2007.

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