Just as Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience had an immense opening week sales-wise, selling 968,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan and subsequently debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the album had a major week on audio on-demand services where it broke several records.
Each of the 10 tracks from The 20/20 Experience‘s standard edition were present on the On-Demand Songs chart in its opening sales week, nine of which were debuts, as “Suit & Tie” (which rises 6-1 to helm the chart) was released to streaming services, prior to the album dropping, as its lead single. Not only is this Timberlake’s first No. 1 on the chart, but it’s the first time in the On-Demand Songs’ chart’s year-long history where every song from an album charted in its opening week.
It’s worth noting that at least one album has charted its entire tracklist on the On-Demand Songs at one time — just not in the album’s debut week. Last year, Mumford & Sons’ Babel saw all 12 of its standard version’s tracks simultaneously chart on the On-Demand Songs chart dated Oct. 20, 2012 — one week after the album debuted at No. 1. (The week previous, 11 of the 12 cuts were on On-Demand Songs.)
But, back to Timberlake’s 20/20. “Mirrors,” the album’s second single, breaks another On-Demand Songs chart record: With 1,317,000 combined U.S. streams, it debuts at No. 5 in the tally, making it the chart’s highest debut to date.
Each of 20/20‘s 10 tracks received a combined 8.6 million U.S. streams on Cricket, Rdio, Rhapsody, Spotify and Xbox Music (according to Nielsen BDS). Here’s how each track broke down, in the sequence they are presented on the album.
The 20/20 Experience
Song Title (Streams)
Track 1: “Pusher Love Girl” (988,000)
Track 2: “Suit & Tie” (1,888,000)
Track 3: “Don’t Hold the Wall” (766,000)
Track 4: “Strawberry Bubblegum” (730,000)
Track 5: “Tunnel Vision” (672,000)
Track 6: “Spaceship Coupe” (561,000)
Track 7: “That Girl” (631,000)
Track 8: “Let the Groove Get In” (553,000)
Track 9: “Mirrors” (1,317,000)
Track 10: “Blue Ocean Floor” (546,000)
On a service-specific level, Spotify accounts for 90% of The 20/20 Experience‘s total subscription service streaming activity. According to Spotify, Timberlake posted the biggest first-week streams of 2013 and the second-biggest first week for an album in the service’s history, with 7.73 million U.S. streams. Mumford & Sons’ Babel garnered 8 million streams, but that album contained 12 tracks as opposed to 20/20‘s 10 selections.
Furthermore, every track on the album has been streamed at least 500,000 times on Spotify, suggesting that most fans are listening to the set in its entirety. Taking a look at the number of overall plays each track received presented above, the first two singles (“Suit & Tie” and “Mirrors”) received the most followed by each of the other tracks in the order that they appear on the album in descending order with the exception of “That Girl.” This is expected; as previously reported by Billboard’s Gary Trust, “data suggests that the earlier a song appears on an album, the more likely a listener is to stream it.”
Since “That Girl” breaks the mold in that regard, the data suggests that it’s a stand-out favorite among listeners. With the conversational intro evoking a cocktail lounge setting easing listeners into the track’s smooth yet punctuated horn lines, could this 20/20 Experience deep cut be a good candidate for the album’s next single? [Billboard.biz]