The posthumous sales rush that sent Prince’s “The Very Best Of Prince” to #1 on the weekly US album sales chart also thrust the late artist’s most iconic song to #1 on the single sales chart.
According to BuzzAngle Music, Prince’s “Purple Rain” sold approximately 125.8K paid US downloads on April 21 alone. That amount, combined with a nominal amount of sales earlier in the week, results in the best single sales total for the April 15-21 tracking period.
While Billboard’s more authoritative data will differ slightly from that reported by BuzzAngle, the discrepancy should not affect the song’s chart placement. It will take #1 on Digital Songs.
“Purple Rain” was one of many Prince tracks to receive a massive sales boost in ~11 hours between confirmation of his passing and the close of tracking.
In all, BuzzAngle says Prince sold 1.075 million US tracks within the April 15-21 tracking week, with 1.056 million of those sales coming on April 21.