France Album Sales: Radiohead

In Rainbows (2007) Era

With no more contract with EMI by 2007, Radiohead were free to do whatever they wanted. In fact, they asked their fans to do exactly the same thing – whatever they wanted, defining themselves the price they were willing to pay for their new album, In Rainbows.

The set was one of the best rated 2007 albums. Thus, although it was downloaded 1,2 million times during the pay-what-you-want time frame, the physical release in December 31 2007 was a huge success. Distributed by an independent label and with no communication done, it still went to #1 in France for two weeks. Although it benefited from the lack of competition in January, those results were still unexpected. The album charted for 37 weeks. By the end of 2008, the physical release had sold 82,800 units.

In December 2007 a few weeks prior the album CD release, a Box Set of all their albums was issued and sold 6,100 units by the end of 2008. In June 2008, EMI used the success of their new album to drop a Best Of containing their biggest songs from their EMI years. It went to #1 for two weeks in the Compilation chart, selling 58,000 copies in 2008 and 85,000 by the end of 2009.

As for their catalog, from the start of GFK figures in 2003 until 2008, which isn’t comprehensive and decreases slightly sales of Radiohead, the album OK Computer sold over 69,000 physical copies. Pablo Honey appears to be fairly close at nearly 66,000. Amnesiac (52,000), Kid A (47,000), My Iron Lung (30,000), The Bends (30,000), I Might Be Wrong (25,500) all sold notable numbers as well.

Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify

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