Elite 100: Sam Smith, Maroon 5, Blake Shelton

This week’s Elite 100 Artists Chart saw another shakeup in the top 5, with LP releases from Sam Smith, Maroon 5 and Blake Shelton.  

Chris McKay / GettyImages.com – Sam Smith
Fox Theatre, Atlanta, Ga.

Smith takes the top spot, with album sales for new LP The Thrill Of It All nearly doubling the next closest (Maroon 5) with a score of 189.8 on the chart. 

The data comes from the week ending Nov. 9. 

Taylor Swift, who just announced the first leg of a stadium tour, dropped her reputation album Nov. 10 and will certainly destroy everyone on next week’s chart. She was still No. 8 on this week’s chart.

Pollstar, with the BuzzAngle Music-powered Elite 100 Artists Chart, gives a snapshot of the week’s top-selling artists based on music sales and streaming, counting data from the U.S. and Canada.

All product, not just current releases, by that artist are included in the figures and the total for ranking purposes is based on an album sale equaling 1, 10 song sales equal 1 album, and 1,500 on-demand streams equal 1 album.

Smith announced North American and European dates  putting him on the road for most of 2018, including four dates at The O2 London in April, June dates at Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center, two shows in August at Staples Center, and ends with two dates in Alberta in September.

Other European markets include Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Italy, Spain and others. He’ll also play Mexico in July.

Smith’s sprint tour in 2015 was cut short when he required surgery because of a hemorrhage on his vocal cords.

His 2015 tour, its abrupt end, landed at No. 57 on Pollstar’s Year End Top 100 Worldwide Tours feature, grossing $26.3 million, with an average tickets sold of 9,440 and average gross of $505,769. 

Box office reports to Pollstar from 2015 include Jan. 15 at Madison Square Garden, which sold 13,966 tickets and grossed $827,000. Other big shows include Aug. 14 at Toyota Center in Houston (11,210, $748,892), and two shows at the Forum in Inglewood Jan. 29-30, which moved a combined 25,770 tickets and grossed $1.56 million). 

At No. 2 on this week’s chart, Maroon 5’s Red Pill Blues dropped Nov. 3, with tickets for the band’s accompanying tour coming with a voucher to buy the album. The first leg of its upcoming 2018 Red Pill Blues World Tour starts May 30 at the Tacoma Dome in Washington and runs through Oct. 14-15 at Madison Square Garden. 

The Adam Levine-fronted band has been on tour for parts of the last few years, charting at No. 17 on Pollstar’s 2016 Year End Top 100 Tours with 853,637 ticket sold worldwide, No. 13 in 2015 with 871,493, and No. 57 in 2013 with 444,478 tickets. 

Pollstar recently spoke with the band’s manager, Jordan Feldstein, about touring and managing the band, which is fronted by his childhood friend. On touring Feldstein said: “Entertainment dollars is a competitive market and there’s only so much free time out there. It’s not easy. But the live concert experience is the one thing that, thankfully, I don’t think it can be really be recreated online yet.” 

Mark Zaleski / Invision / AP – Blake Shelton
CMT Awards, Bridgestone Arena outdoor stage, Nashville, Tenn.

Blake Shelton also charted high, at No. 4, after releasing new album Texoma Shore Nov. 3. He too announced new dates, in October, The Country Freaks Tour, with arenas from mid-February to mid-March, with Brett Eldrege and Carly Pearce on support.  

He’s been on the road for much of 2017, with arenas in the spring and festivals this summer including Country Thunder Canada in Calgary as well as Saskatchewan, Country USA in Wisconsin, CMA Music Festival in Nashville and Bayou Country Superfest in New Orleans May 28, which also included Thomas Rhett, Hank Williams Jr., Dan + Shay and others. 

2017 shows reported to Pollstar, promoted by Messina Touring Group / AEG Presents, include Allstate Arena in Rosemont March 17, which sold 12,909 tickets and grossed $872,783, Golden 1 Center in Sacramento March 9 (14,248, $864,022), and Tacoma Dome in Washington Feb. 25 (14,155, $769,380).