THANKSGIVING WEEK NO TURKEY!

Overeating leads to increased record sales. That’s one theory, anyway, as retail pundits mull the results of this year’s Thanksgiving-week buying frenzy.

A whopping 28 titles sold over 100k apiece for the week, up from only 12 the week before. Of those, eight broke the 200k mark, compared to only four the previous week. Clearly, the frenzy is real.

The good news is that this year’s tally compares favorably with last year, when only 20 albums broke 100k for turkey week (and only six sold more than 200k). Consider the following:

Added together, this year’s Thanksgiving-week Top 10 sellers accounted for 3.6 million units sold—up 600k from last year’s 3 million.

This year’s Top 20 adds up to 5.2 million—up 900k from last year’s 4.3 million.

The Top 30 accounts for 6.3 million—up 1.3 million from last year’s 5 million.

And the entire Top 50 Albums chart for the holiday week adds up to just under 7.7 million. That’s up 1.8 million—or 31%—over last year’s 5.9 million.

Retail experts are quick to point out, however, that one week does not a year make, and that sales are still down overall—as much as 12%, by some estimates. Also tempering the above increases is the fact that, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving last year, there were consistently many more records selling over 100k than in the current year. For example, 20 albums sold over 100k for the week just before Thanksgiving last year, compared to only 12 this year.

Nevertheless, many are cautiously optimistic about the signs of life shown by last week’s sales—and we’ll take any kind of optimism over that other thing (what is it, pacifism?) any day. It’s just the way we are.