CSPC: Avicii Popularity Analysis

Digital Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

True (2013) – 2,904,000 equivalent albums

Wake Me Up – 11,120,000
You Make Me – 960,000
Hey Brother – 4,730,000
Addicted to You – 1,580,000
Lay Me Down – 390,000
Remaining tracks – 580,000

Stories (2015) – 300,000 equivalent albums

Waiting for Love – 1,420,000
For a Better Day – 220,000
Broken Arrows – 150,000
Remaining tracks – 210,000

Orphan – 2,301,000 equivalent albums

Seek Bromance – 740,000
Levels – 5,160,000
Silhouettes – 720,000
I Could Be the One – 1,790,000
My Feelings for You – 420,000
The Days – 570,000
The Nights – 1,320,000
Without You – 340,000
Lonely Together – 340,000
Remaining tracks – 3,940,000

Digital sales can be broken down into 4 strong markets. US sales, Europe/Canada/Oz sales, South Korean sales and ringtones. This latter format was over when Avicii got big. In South Korea, his popularity is much lower than elsewhere. In the US, he got 3 sizable sellers – Wake Me Up, Levels and Hey Brother, but even them were nowhere near as massive as in Europe.

This market distribution is thus highly unfavorable for Avicii who only enjoyed one of the 4 main sections of the market, European / Australian sales. Worst, his strong places were Scandinavian countries who had already switched to streaming when he released his first hits! That’s why a song like Wake Me Up closes on a relatively disappointing 11,1 million units sold because of the more limited impact in the rest of the World. In Europe, the song was #1 in every official singles chart. On most of them, for many weeks.