Another week, another big opening sales figure for a major album release.
In fact, first week numbers for AC/DC’s Power Up (Columbia) are so big that the veteran rockers have secured the fastest-selling album of the year so far.
Power Up opened with sales of 61,979, according to the Official Charts Company. Physical dominated that performance, with 52,955 copies sold (including a deluxe lightbox edition selling for around £50).
Last month’s Music Week cover stars also racked up 2,600 album-equivalent streams – a respectable result for a rock act on DSPs. With almost 23 million monthly listeners on Spotify, AC/DC have cracked streaming thanks to their genre-defining back catalogue.
The No.1 for AC/DC helped Sony Music to a No.1 market share position for corporate group in both Top 75 Artist Albums (36.11%) and Top 75 All Albums (35.16%).
A busy promotional schedule and positive reviews appear to have paid off for AC/DC. Power Up is the band’s first UK No.1 since 2010’s Iron Man OST album (601,348 sales to date). Power Up is their first studio album to reach No.1 since 2008’s Black Ice (500,993 sales to date).
The new album has improved on the No.3 peak of 2014’s Rock Or Bust, although that opened with 92,780 sales (its career sales now stand at 295,757, though just 8,832 are from streams).
The performance of AC/DC’s Power Up means that Kylie Minogue held the title of fastest-selling album for just one week. Her No.1 album Disco opened with 54,905 sales. In week two, it has dropped to No.5 but still registered an impressive 15,183 sales.
It’s a big Q4 week on the charts with Top 10 debuts for McFly’s Young Dumb Thrills (BMG) at No.2 (20,750 sales), Andrea Bocelli’s Believe (Decca) at No.3 (16,303 sales), Paloma Faith’s Infinite Things (RCA) at No.4 (15,916 sales) and Jolly Holiday (Decca) by Andre Rieu And The Johann Strauss Orchestra (14,700 sales).
Further down, there’s a strong result for Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Cooking Vinyl’s lockdown project Songs From The Kitchen Disco (No.8, 9,809 sales). Sony Music CG also has a Q4 contender with its Johnny Cash And The RPO album (No.10, 7,861 sales).
Despite the lockdown forcing HMV and indie retail to close, there was a strong physical sales performance. Alongside the huge tally for AC/DC, each of the other albums in the Top 6 moved more than 14,000 physical units.
In the compilations chart, Dreamboats & Petticoats – Music That Lives (Decca) held at No.1 with sales down just 12.5% week-on-week (6,693). A branded Dreamboats & Petticoats collection, The Shadows – The First 60 Years, debuted at No.22 with 4,016 sales.
Physical sales accounted for 27.9% of the overall albums market, up from 24.5% in the prior week. Physical artist album sales were up 23.3% week-on-week at 483,007.
CD and vinyl powered a 5.4% week-on-week increase in the albums market to 1,994,727 (a new high this year). Physical sales hit a 46-week high of 556,584 (up 20.2%), while album streams (SEA2) were up just 0.3% on the prior week at 1,357,446.
However, physical artist album sales are still down 22.2% (13,475,518) for the year to date, compared to the same period in 2019. The overall albums market, including streams, is up 2.2% for the year to date.
Subscribers can read our AC/DC cover feature here.
* To make sure you can access Music Week wherever you are, subscribe to our digital issue by clicking here.
FOLLOW 
