Some people must still love paying for music.
Even though every citizen on the planet with access to iTunes had the chance to download the new U2 album for free, roughly 29,000 souls chose to lay down hard cash for it anyway.
That’s according to official numbers from Nielsen/SoundScan for “Songs of Innocence.”
The album was available for free between Sept. 9 and Oct. 14. The figures just measured by Billboard arrived during its initial sales week period, which ended Sunday.
The 29,000-plus sales figure was just enough to sneak the album into Billboard’s Top Ten. It landed at No. 9.
Billboard hadn’t charted the work earlier because it does not count music that’s free.
Unsurprisingly, 95% of U2’s sales came in physical form, since those who wanted to download the music could have done so by that method during the free grace period. A full 90%, or 26,000 copies, were sold on CD while 5%,, or 1500 copies, came on vinyl. Only 4% of sales (of 1200 units) were digital downloads, according to Nielsen/SoundScan.
It’s likely that many of the sales came from a deluxe version of the album, not available until last week. That package includes four extra songs (including two remixes and two previously unavailable tracks), plus six acoustic versions of songs from the original work.
iTunes has said that 26 million people globally downloaded the entire official U2 album and 81 million consumers listened to some portion of it.
In other charts news, Florida Georgia Line will top the album list this week. Their second work, “Anything Goes,” has moved 197,000 copies in its first flush. Also hitting the charts this week will be Bob Seger’s first album of new music in eight years, “Ride Out.” Hits puts Seger’s figure at over 59,000 copies, enough to earn it a No. 3 position. That’s the top album chart position of Seger’s entire career. Jessie J’s second U.S. album (and third global work), “Sweet Talker,” sold just over 25,000 copies — good enough to give her the No. 10 spot, just below U2.