‘Compton’ Predicted To Hit Strong First Week Sales

This week it may have been hard to miss the news about the release of ‘Compton’, Dr Dre’s first album in 16 years, suffice to say its a BIG deal.

So with weekend sales kicking it its time to obsess on numbers and dig into the music sales charts. Early projections for the U.S Billboard projects for ‘Compton’ have been made and they’re fairing extremely well for Dre’s first album in 16 years. U.K projections have yet to be made.

So taking in two crucial factors this could be a major coup for Dr Dre and Apple;

  • Compton is only released exclusively on iTunes as a digital format only for 2 weeks.
  • The album is also streamed exclusively on Apple Music.
  • The album was announced 1 week prior to release on Dre’s The Pharmacy on Beats1
  • The soundtrack is inspired by the movie ‘Straight Outta Compton’ which is yet to open in cinemas.

So now set out the playing field, it seems that the U.S billboard chart projections from the first day of sales are showing that ‘Compton, A Soundtrack’ is expected to hit the no.2 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart with sales of 260-275k albums; 290-305k SPS (30-50m streams) – according to Hits Daily Double.

At the moment it’s looking like the U.S singer Luke Bryan’s Kill the Lights LP is expected to hit sales of 325-340k (340-355k SPS) units and nab the no.1 spot – but things could easily change.

Its all still early in the game but its going to be an interesting week for the the album charts, and for iTunes/Apple Music in particular. If Compton is able to deliver a robust sales and chart placement based solely on exclusive sales on iTunes and streaming on Apple Music – this could further cement the future for Apple music as leading the streaming charge.