Along with the passionate, explosive reaction to Prince's untimely death at retail, radio has also responded to grieving fans everywhere with a massive salute in terms of airplay.
Mediabase has compiled a nifty purple bar graph that measures the total spins of Prince music at radio since Thursday (4/21) comparing it to the previous pace of his best recurrents, and the results so far are staggering—over 20k spins in total in the first 48 hours since his death and 56K+ through Sunday (+1038% over the prior week).
To put that in perspective, Zayn sits at #1 at T40 with 11,906 spins, Jeremih at #1 Rhythm with 3.844 spins and Rihanna #1 at Urban with 3,296 spins—numbers these artists took an entire seven-day cycle to reach.
Let's take a gander at spins by song:
This airplay renaissance just further demonstrates the timeless, boundaryless appeal of Prince's music, which has always transcended era and format. As a new generation discovers him through this sudden loss, the resurgence could become even larger and more profound. Stay tuned.