Vampire Weekend Roosts Atop Elite 100; Taylor Swift Leads Song Sales

Ross Stewart – Vampire Weekend
Ezra Koenig and Chris Baio jam out during Vampire Weekend’s marathon Webster Hall show.

After releasing its first album in six years, Vampire Weekend is riding high on the Elite 100 artists chart for the week ending May 9.

The band unleashed Father of the Bride upon the world May 3, and it was welcomed with open arms. The group’s strongest metric for the week was its 121,400 album sales, a figure miles ahead of everyone else on the chart, and making up the bulk of its 143,200 total album units.

Pollstar recently reviewed Vampire Weekend’s return to the stage May 5 at Webster Hall in New York, writing: “Vampire Weekend’s three-set marathon at New York’s Webster Hall on Sunday was a celebration of many things: Father of the Bride, the indie-rock band’s first album in six years; an expanded lineup with a reinvigorated sound; new creative partnerships with artists from Haim to Dev Hynes; and the enduring legacy of one of the most influential groups of the past decade.”

VW now has a full slate of dates in North America and the U.K. planned throughout 2019. The routing includes festival plays at Hangout, Firefly, BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Mad Cool, Roskilde, Open’er and Life Is Beautiful, and a two night run at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colo., Oct. 8-9.

Shawn Mendes released a new single, “If I Can’t Have You,” on May 3, which no doubt contributed to his 73,700 song sales for the week. In that category he trailed only Taylor Swift – who released her bubbly single “ME!” April 26 and led the category with 81,900 – and Lil Nas X, who recently announced his signing with CAA.

PNB Rock released his TrapStar Turnt PopStar project May 3, which no doubt boosted his 61.7 million on demand streams for the weekend.

YG released his latest project, Go Loko, May 3, which got him a combined 25,500 total album units. His strongest metric was 24.9 million on-demand streams.

AJR enters the chart at the lucky No. 100 after the April 26 release of its album Neotheater. The band logged 16,900 total album units for the week, most of which were in its 16.8 million album units.

Next week’s chart will include data for releases from Logic, Mac DeMarco, Jamila Woods, Colebrook Road, and Ari Lennox.

Also, be on the lookout for new projects from Tyler, The Creator, The National, Interpol, Dj Khaled, Rammstein, Lil Kim, Meghan Thee Stallion, The Head and the Heart, Blue Moon Rising, Steel Pulse, and Dionne Warwick.