Halfway through 2014, only one album has managed to sell over one million copies—a sign of the consistent decline of all album sales that the music industry has witnessed since the advent of digital downloads.
That singular title is Disney’s Frozen soundtrack, which has sold 2.7 million copies this year. That number is especially impressive considering the second highest album on the mid-year tally, Beyoncé’s self-titled surprise release, is far behind with just over 700,000 sold so far in 2014.
After Frozen and Beyoncé comes country star Eric Church with his album The Outsiders (642,000), Lorde’s smash debut Pure Heroine (641,000), and Coldplay’s latest Ghost Stories (589,000). These five are the only titles on the tally that have sold in excess of 500,000 copies of a single album, though expect several more high profile acts to hit that golden mark by year’s end. While there are six months left in the year, barring any surprise releases from global stars like Adele, it is likely that Frozen will hold onto the top spot for 2014.
Interestingly enough, of the top five albums, three of them were actually released last fall (Frozen, Beyoncé, and Pure Heroine), proving the well-known fact that the biggest-sellers almost always come in the fourth quarter.
Since SoundScan started measuring all music sales back in 1991, there have only been three years (the last three in a row in fact) where only one title has hit the million mark by this time of year. Last year, that album was Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, which had also surpassed two million by the last charting week in June.
Just this past week, the Frozen soundtrack also passed the three million marker by just a few thousand, spurred by the continued and unabated popularity of both the film itself and it’s Oscar-winning, Idina Menzel (or Adele Dazeem if you’re John Travolta)-sung lead single “Let It Go”, which itself is actually number five on the mid-year best selling digital songs chart.
Disney has an outstanding record when it comes to successful the charting positions and sales numbers associated with the soundtracks of their animated films. Frozen is just one of four animated film soundtracks to ever sit in the number one spot on the Billboard 200, which it did for thirteen non-consecutive weeks. The other three are The Lion King and Pocahontas (both also Disney), as well as Jack Johnson’s Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the film Curious George.
Due to the shared success of both the film and the soundtrack, a stage version of the movie is being developed, and there are rumors of a sequel as well.
