Adele #4 in UK, chart positions could be hurt by mid-week release

07-Oct-2012 • Skyfall

Releasing Adele's title song for the new James Bond film "Skyfall" on Friday could hurt the chances of a number #1 ranking. The charts in the UK and USA consider this a 'mid-week' release, meaning that competing songs have had extra days sales.

In the UK's official singles charts released today, Adele landed at #4 behind "Diamonds" by Rihanna, "Gangnam Style" by PSY and "Live While You're Young" by One Direction. All but PSY's track were new releases. Only two days of sales for Adele factored in to this week's chart.

Over in the USA, "Skyfall" is already trending around the No. 30 rank on the building all-format Nielsen BDS-based Radio Songs chart (which runs from Wednesday through Tuesday each week). So far, it's garnered 21 million audience impressions. As for genre airplay charts (which run from Monday to Sunday), "Skyfall" is already No. 16 on the building Adult Contemporary chart (with slightly more than 200 plays so far), No. 33 on Adult Pop Songs with (more than 300) and No. 37 on Pop Songs (about 700), according to Billboard.

"Skyfall" is selling big digitally. Label sources suggest it sold twice as many downloads on Friday (across all retailers) as it did the day previous. That said, "Skyfall" may move between 200,000 and 250,000 downloads by the end of the SoundScan sales tracking week on Sunday, Oct. 7. That's a mighty number for being on sale less than four full days. Billboard reminds readers that predicting "Skyfall's" sales is difficult, as traditional sales projection models can't necessarily be used for mid-week releases.

At the rate "Skyfall" is selling, it should debut in the top four on the Digital Songs chart this coming Wednesday (10), possibly with One Direction's "Live While We're Young," Taylor Swift's "Red" and PSY's "Gangnam Style" likely at Nos. 1-3, respectively.