Pharrell Williams and Bruno Mars both have plenty to be happy about this week. While the Grammy-winning master of hats appears poised to break Katy Perry’s grip on the top of the Billboard Digital Songs chart, Mars finally got the post-Super Bowl halftime bump he was looking for.
Skateboard P Aims For The Top
Katy Perry has had a lock on the singles charts for much of this year, selling more than two million copies of “Dark Horse” and topping the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in a row.
But Pharrell is breathing down her neck on the Billboard Digital Songs chart and seems poised to snatch the top spot from her soon. As “Dark Horse” celebrated another week at the peak of the Digital and iTunes singles chart, it was down 22 percent to 291,000 on the Billboard tally, while Pharrell’s Oscar-nominated “Happy” had a big week.
As “Horse” appears to be slowing down, P’s “Despicable Me 2” hit was up 15 percent and one spot to #2 on sales of 252,000, rising in the lead-up to his performance of the song at the March 2 Academy Awards ceremony.
Menzel Lets it Go Top 10
The rest of the top 10 was pretty much the same, with Jason DeRulo’s “Talk Dirty” down one to #3 (242,000), Passenger’s “Let Her Go” at #4 (182,000) and A Great Big World’s “Say Something” at #5 (171,000).
The biggest movie was Broadway star Idina Menzel’s “Let It Go,” which shot up 10 spots to #6 on sales of 138,000. Lorde rounded out the top 10 with Team,” which moved up two after shifting 113,000.
Mars Gets His SB Bump
In a slow week when none of the albums broke the 100,000 mark, the top debut came from the NOW 49 compilation, which features recent hits from Pitbull, Lorde, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and One Direction. The latest in the series moved 98,000 copies, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan.
The “Frozen” soundtrack continued to do big business, dropping down a spot to #2 as sales hit 88,000, landing it on the cusp of platinum status. And Bruno Mars finally got his Super Bowl halftime bump, as the year-old Unorthodox Jukebox was up four more spots to #3 as sales exploded by 92 percent to 81,000. His debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, also had another solid week, up 58 percent and eight spots to #11 on sales of 26,000.
Bells, Mixes And Braxtons
Toni Braxton’s duets album with Babyface, Love, Marriage & Divorce, debuted at #4, moving 67,000, edging out debut of the second album from Broken Bells, After the Disco, which moved 44,000.
Demi Lovato opening act British girl group Little Mix got into the, um, mix, at #6 with Salute, which came up just shy of 43,000. The rest of the top 10: Beyoncé, Beyoncé (#7, 38,000), Lorde, Pure Heroine (#8, 35,000), 2014 Grammy Nominees compilation (#9, 35,000) and Katy Perry, Prism (#10, 27,000).
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