It was not until mid-day Thursday — the final day of the sales and streaming tracking weeks — that the world learned of Prince’s passing and began purchasing his music in droves.
That half day’s worth of activity was nonetheless enough to thrust six Prince songs back onto the all-encompassing Billboard Hot 100.
Leading the charge is Prince’s “Purple Rain,” which returns at #17. The impressive re-entry comes thanks to what Billboard reports as 122K tracking week sales.
Even though the total was almost entirely generated in the final ~12 hours of the tracking week, it still ranks as the week’s best. “Purple Rain” takes #1 on Digital Songs.
As for the Hot 100, the iconic artist is also represented by “When Doves Cry” (#20), “Kiss” (#28), “Little Red Corvette” (#29), “Let’s Go Crazy” (#39), and “1999” (#41).
Why is Prince only represented in the upper half of the chart? Due to Billboard chart rules, older/recurrent songs can only re-enter if they have a significant degree of new activity (as these obviously do) and would place in the Top 50.