Australia’s official albums chart was a sorry sight last week. To make a long story short, we have a new record holder for lowest selling No. 1 album ever and the only thing that kept a So Fresh album from taking the top spot is a rule about compilation albums.

As Tone Deaf reported last week, Disturbed officially now have the lowest selling No. 1 album in ARIA chart history, selling just 2,140 copies of their album Immortalized, taking the record previously held by Bring Me The Horizon, selling just 3,600 units back in 2010.

For the sake of context, note that the ARIA charts factor in both physical and digital sales, but does not, however, include compilation albums with no new material, which kept So Fresh Hits of Autumn from the No. 1 spot with its 4,422 copies sold.

So how did we go this week? A little better, thanks to a new release from pop juggernaut Beyonce and the unfortunate loss of music legend Prince. These chart hurricanes collided last week to cause a perfect storm that gave the Australian albums chart a much needed boost.

As News Corp reports, Beyonce’s new album, Lemonade, which she gave a surprise release last week, yielded 20,499 digital downloads in its first week of release. Meanwhile, The Very Best of Prince sits behind at No. 2, with 18,430 copies sold.

The Very Best of Prince is one of four of the late music icon’s albums in the Top 10. As News Corp notes, Prince’s sudden death meant record stores did not have enough of his albums in stock to meet demand and sold out of CDs and vinyls almost immediately.

As a result, most of the sales were digital, though nothing to scoff at, as various labels rush to press new units of the musician’s discography. The Hits/The B-sides is currently at No. 4 with 4,328 sales, Purple Rain sits at No. 5 (4,130 sales), and Ultimate Prince is at No. 6 (3,688 sales).

A similar phenomenon occurred following the passing of David Bowie. He had 13 albums in the Top 50 the week after his death (equal to Michael Jackson’s following his death in 2009) and set an ARIA chart record when he had 17 albums in the Top 100.

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