Beyoncé Knowles album sold only 4290 copies to be the lowest selling number one this year

Ed Sheeran was this week’s British hit maker when he topped the ARIA album charts with just 4646 copies of his album X sold nationally. The album, which hit No. 1 on over 10,000 sales upon release five weeks ago, took advantage of low sales and no big new releases to return to the top.

But this week’s figures are not even the lowest-selling No. 1 of the year. Beyoncé’s self-titled album holds that unwelcome record with just 4290 copies giving her a No. 1 in January, which is traditionally one of the lowest-selling months.

While INXS’s The Very Best is the most popular album 2014 so far, it has been subject to the extremes of this year’s sales figures. After the INXS miniseries the album sold over 22,000 copies one week to hit No. 1, and a few weeks later it sold as few as 4460 copies also to reach No.1.

But not everything is bad on the chart — Coldplay sold 34,087 copies of Ghost Stories in its first week of release.

This is yet another sign of how illegal downloading is crippling the music industry and comes on the back of reports the Australian Government is going to finally crack down on internet Service Providers.

Do the work, Google ‘Ed Sheeran x’ and the first thing that comes up is ‘download’ which takes you to all manner of sites to illegally obtain the record. It can be streamed (legally) for free or listened to in its entirety on YouTube — none of which count for the ARIA chart, which only registers streaming for individual tracks.

Sheeran’s new single Don’t is No. 8 on this week’s ARIA Streaming Tracks chart.Sheeran’s previous album, +, has sold over 300,000 copies in Australia and is at No. 41 this week after 112 weeks in the chart.

Meanwhile, record labels will be hoping a new Taylor Swift album, due to drop later this year, will once again reactivate music sales. This year could also see a new Adele album — her 21 album bucked every trend and was the first album to sell one million copies in Australia in over 10 years — proof that people will buy albums if they think it’s a quality product.

New albums by Ariana Grande, Foo Fighters, Pink Floyd, Rihanna, the Madden Brothers, Madonna and Tony Bennett with Lady Gaga should all help sales in the rest of the year.

By Adriana Rueda

Source: The Courier Mail

Image: The Courier Mail