SURPRISE! Olympics Were Popular on YouTube; Helped Artists’ Music Sales
Who knew that a bunch of ridiculous sports such as running and jumping with different legs three times, dancing horses, or throwing a pole would be SO popular? YouTube has released some numbers of its streaming partnership with NBC in the USA for the London 2012 Summer Olympics, and they look pretty good. The online peak saw 500,000 people streaming at once, and on NBCOlympics.com, 159 million total streams were watched (via Tech Crunch). In a sign of the times, 33% of these streams came from a mobile device. Across 65 countries, YouTube says 231 million video streams were watched. Sadly, none of these were for synchronized swimming.
In perhaps a surprise to no one, the artists that played at the Olympic Closing Ceremonies have received a sales boost because of their exposure (and not the indecent kind, unfortunately). Emeli Sandé’s debut album, Our Version of Events, is back atop the UK charts (via Billboard). Musicians and songs featured in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies ended up accounting for a massive 57 of the top 200 albums and 66 of the top 200 singles.
Ed Sheeran, who covered Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, had his album jump from 8 to 3. The cover song is Number 34 on the Official Charts Company list, while the original song is number 68. The “talent” that is Jessie J went from 15 to 7, One Direction jumped 19 to 10, and the Spice Girls’ Greatest Hits made it to number 18, despite being a blank album.
John Lennon’s Imagine returned to number 18 in the charts, and Muse’s Survival went from 62 to 22. Despite playing in a ridiculous octopus on stage, Fatboy Slim’s Right Here Right Now is number 62.
Elbow sung two songs – One Day Like This from the album The Seldom Seem Kid. The album jumped to number 6, while the single 4. The other song was Open Arms from the album Build a Rocket Boys. The album went to number 35, while the song was number 58. Check out One Day Like This below, and then buy the song and continue to help the Olympic boost. Just because.
Elbow – One Day Like This
