Make it Purple Rain – One Year Later, Prince Outsells Everyone
One year after Prince’s death, the pop star’s catalog out-performed every single artist, including Adele. According to Nielsen Music, his catalog sold a combined 7.7 million copies in the United States. Of that total, 2.3 million came from traditional album sales, while 5.4 million came from digital song downloads (5.65 million of those album and song sales were registered within a month of his death).
Collectively, Prince’s catalog has sold 18.64 million song downloads, since Nielsen began tracking digital sales in 2003. The aforementioned 5.4 million song downloads account for almost 1/3 of those sales!
As for traditional album sales, Prince sold 2.23 million copies in the year following his death. In 2015, Prince’s entire catalog sold 280,000 copies.
Top Selling Albums (Posthumous)
The Very Best of Prince (668,000 copies)
Purple Rain (498,000)
1999 (169,000)
4Ever, Greatest Hits Released November 20, 2016 (67,000 copies)
Top Selling Song (Posthumous)
“Purple Rain” (621,000 downloads)
