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Prince Sold More Albums In Half A Day Than Anyone Did All Of Last Week

He tops the <i>Billboard</i> 200 album chart

Given Prince's status as a musical icon and his unexpected death last week, it's not entirely surprising that fans would flock to buy his albums following the news. But how quickly they did so is staggering.

The late singer, who died Thursday at 57, scored the top two slots on this week's Billboard 200 albums chart: The Very Best of Prince at No. 1 and Purple Rain at No. 2. Here's the truly incredible part, though: The album counting for the week ends on Thursday, meaning that from the time news broke of his death until the end of the day, he sold more albums than anyone else did for that entire week.

Another notable figure here is how many actual albums were sold -- versus album streams, which have become a crucial part of chart positioning. Prince's music is widely unavailable on streaming sites, which likely explains why 100,000 of the 179,000 units of The Very Best of Prince and 63,000 of the 69,000 units of Purple Rain were in album sales. In addition, The Hits/The B-Sides made it to No. 6 on the 200.

Again, this is all in half a day. Imagine how much Prince music is going to show up on next week's Billboard 200, with a full seven days of lead-in.

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