A Musical With Unreleased Prince Music May Be In The Works
A Musical With Unreleased Prince Music May Be In The Works
Photo by Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Prince Was The Best Selling Artist of 2016

Numbers don't lie.

It's clear that interest is still at a premium for the legendary artist. According to Nielsen Music, Prince has sold more albums than any other artist in 2016.

Prince albums and songs have sold a combined 7.7 million copies in the United States. Of those albums, 2.3 million were in traditional album sales and 5.4 million came from digital song downloads. Not surprisingly, the majority of these sales — we're talking $5.65 million worth — came right after his death, where fans mourned by flocking to his catalog.

Some more interesting stats: the best selling album from the singer was The Very Best Of Prince which sold 668,000 copies. This was followed by Purple Rain, duh, which sold 498,000 copies. As for songs, his best selling one was "Purple Rain," duh, which had 621,000 downloads. Behind "Purple Rain" was "Little Red Corvette," "Let's Go Crazy" and "Kiss," which all had sales in the 300 thousand range.

So Prince if was number one, then who was number two? Adele, of course. Her 25 album sold 2.21 million albums last year.

H/T: Nielsen Music

Sign Up To Our Newsletter