France Album Sales: Bruno Mars
Unorthodox Jukebox (2012) Era
Going through various artists, we often met the configuration of an artist popular among the 15-25 years old people segment that never managed to fully cross over, like P!nk and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The typical run of albums successful with this target of consumers is an extensive 50-80 weeks chart run with many weeks Top 40 but very few inside or even none the Top 10. This is exactly the case of Bruno Mars debut album.
When his comeback single Locked Out Of Heaven started 85-170, it was hard to pretty a huge crossover success with his second album, upcoming Unorthodox Jukebox. The song then went on a roll climbing 170-116-59-33-26-17-9 before hitting #3 on its week 21. In total, the song spent the outstanding total of 24 weeks inside the Top 10 and charted 130 weeks since.
Such a juggernaut single clearly gives a new dimension to the artist. The album debuted at #8, a huge achievment considering it came out only one week before Christmas. With nearly 26,000 sales on its first week, it was the highest English-speaking album of that week. After only three weeks, Unorthodox Jukebox was up to 65,000 units. Such weekly sales for an artist who doesn’t really benefit from holiday season was definitely going to provide him strong positions once other artists slow down, that’s exactly what happened as the set instantly returned to its peak position at #8.
From there the LP became an unstoppable train. After reaching a new peak of #5 in March thanks to the lasting success of  Locked Out Of Heaven and the arrival of new #9 hit When I Was Your Man, months passed with no slow down coming. Indeed, the album had almost no time to leave the Top 10 when third hit Treasure started to gain airplay. This song peaked at #6, the third Top 10 hit of the album and the third spending at least 60 weeks inside the Singles chart.
Out of its first 62 weeks, Unorthodox Jukebox featured inside the Top 20 for 59 of them. Even a single like Gorilla, the fourth one which peaked very low at #117, rocketed the album inside the Top 10 once again. It had the sensational total of eight distinct trips inside the Top 10, the all-time record for a foreign record. By the end of 2013, 484,000 units were sold, enough for Diamond certification as it shipped over half a million copies.
With such a monster era, previous album Doo-Wops & Hooligans benefited by charting most of the year including 25 weeks Top 100. It sold over 45,000 copies during 2013.
Wait, promotion of Unorthodox Jukebox wasn’t over. In early 2014, a fifth single Moonshine was released, peaking at #113. While such a single is usually irrelevant, Bruno Mars was into such an immaculate period that the album stayed Top 20 thanks to this song. It remained inside the Top 60 every 7-days periods during an incredible 89 weeks. In the sales area, Unorthodox Jukebox added 107,000 more units in 2014 while catalog sales of Doo-Wops & Hooligans continued to be stellar at 35,000 units. As it wasn’t enough, a 2CD package containing both sets was released and featured consistently inside the Top 200 during the Christmas season. This package sold nearly 15,000 units in each 2014 and 2015. Both individual albums are still selling as well with Unorthodox Jukebox reaching the Top 40 in 2015. Up to date, Bruno Mars two albums charted the insane total of 177 and 147 weeks respectively, plus 27 weeks for the 2CD pack.
The end of 2014 / start of 2015 was also the era of utterly gigantic smash hit Uptown Funk. This song was #1 for 11 weeks, Top 20 for 32 weeks and still never dropped below #110 since being released 81 weeks ago. Sadly, as it was a featuring of a Mark Ronson production, this song wasn’t part of a Bruno Mars album. One can only guess how much would have sold an album by him with such a terrific hit used as a lead single.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- Locked Out Of Heaven – 265,622,000
- When I Was Your Man – 239,846,000
- Treasure – 183,615,000