Usually, when one says a label dominates an album chart, that means it has most of the top ten — seven, for example, or maybe sometimes eight. This week in Germany, however, UMG has all 10.
This seems to be the first time this has happened in Germany, although it is hard to say this authoritatively, since both the charts, as well as the underlying business, have changed so much.
The 10 albums that occupy the top of the chart are very different: German rappers Kontra K and Shirin David come in at No. 1 and No. 4, respectively; albums from K-pop stars Stray Kids and Jung Kook come in at No. 2 and 10; The Rolling Stones are No. 3; The Beatles occupy Nos. 5, 6 and 7 (with the “blue album,” the “red album” and a deluxe box set of the “red” and “blue” albums); Taylor Swift is No. 8, with 1989 (Taylor’s Version); and the band Santiano comes in at No. 9. Konta K also has the No. 1 single in the country this week with “Die Sonne,” a collaboration with SANTOS.
Scoring all 10 albums on the top 10 is “likely unparalleled in the history of the German album charts and is a great example of our entire team effort with our amazing artists,” Frank Briegmann, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Central Europe and Deutsche Grammophon, told the German music trade magazine Muzikwoche. “I find it particularly remarkable that we can find our domestic as well as our international acts from a wide variety of genres at the top of the charts.”
Germany still sells more physical product than any other major market, which is one reason why legacy acts like the Stones and the Beatles chart higher than they do elsewhere in Europe. The country’s charts are also calculated in a way that assigns more weight to higher-priced packages, such as vinyl box sets.
