Features
Elite 100: Here Comes Camila Cabello, Anderson East
John Davisson – Camila Cabello
Camila Cabello performs during 93.3 FLZ’s Jingle Ball at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla., Dec. 16.
As predicted last week, Camila Cabello shot to the top of the Elite 100 chart for the week ending Jan. 18, while chart newcomer Anderson East also made some noise.
Cabello dropped her eponymous solo debut album Jan. 12 and her fans showed tons of love, with 67,700 album sales, 170,100 song sales and 55.9 million streams for the week. That means a total of 122,000 album units for Cabello, nearly doubling the No. 2 artist, Ed Sheeran, who logged 68,700 album units, largely thanks to his 154,300 song sales and 53 million streams.
Camila got in front of huge crowds in 2017, opening for Bruno Mars throughout North America. Mars was the No. 4 artist on Pollstar’s Worldwide Top 100 Tours chart and was one of the most dynamic shows of the year, so Camila no doubt got tons of momentum from those dates. She also played various Jingle Ball radio shows throughout December with the likes of Demi Lovato, Fall Out Boy, Kesha, and her former bandmates of Fifth Harmony.
Another newcomer on the chart this week is Anderson East, who came in at the No. 78 position with 11,800 total album units. He mostly got there off his album sales, with 9,300. East is scheduled to play large clubs and theatres in 2018, including 9:30 club in Washington, D.C., Terminal West in Atlanta and The Fillmore in San Francisco. He is booked pretty solidly into May, the last date currently being a play at The Hangout Beach, Music & Arts Fest in Gulf Shores, Ala., May 20.
Some established artists also randomly climbed or re-charted. The Beatles rose to No. 17 with 26,400 album units on the week, coming up from No. 45 the previous week. This was largely due to a surge in albums sales, to 9,900 from 900 the previous week, though the Fab Four’s song sales and streams also more than doubled.
Beyoncé also reappeared on the chart at the No. 41 position after falling off briefly last week. Her strongest metric was song sales, with 23,100.
Another outlier on the chart is Carrie Underwood, who sold a massive 75,600 songs, enough to carry her to the No. 59 position on this week’s chart, along with 900 album sales and 8.5 million streams. Underwood released her latest single, “The Champion,” through an NFL playoffs commercial that aired Jan. 6, and the song was available on Spotify Jan. 12.
Kidz Bop 37 was released Jan. 19 and the promotional hype was enough to get the Kidz Bop Kids to the No. 98 position on the chart, despite the fact that the album missed the cutoff date for the chart by one day, so look for the Kids to rise next week.
Another group to watch for the next week is Migos, who will likely move near the top of the chart with the release of Culture II scheduled for Jan. 26. Other artists with albums coming out next week include former Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo as a part of
Finally, last week we noticed a disproportionate number of movie soundtracks on the Elite 100 chart, and we have since realized the boost in sales likely came from the coinciding Golden Globe Awards. “The Greatest Showman Soundtrack” contained the Globes’ Best Original Song, “This Is Me,” by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek, no doubt propelling it into the No. 1 spot that week. Songs from the films “Moana” and “Trolls” were nominated in that category in 2017 and those soundtracks also did well on the charts last week.
Look out for critically renowned albums to make a resurgence in the coming weeks as the Grammy Awards are scheduled for Jan. 28.