Since Amy Winehouse's almost inevitable death Saturday, the drug-abusing singer has found herself back on top of the charts. Her hit 2007 album Back to Black promptly peaked on the iTunes chart, and continues to rival records by Beyonce and Adele. Winehouse isn't the first artist whose music enjoyed a spasm of renewed popularity after their deaths. (See: Michael Jackson, John Lennon, and others.) A guide to the phenomenon, by the numbers:
1
Chart position of Back to Black on the iTunes Top Albums chart just hours after Winehouse's death was announced, according to the International Business Times
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37,000
Number of copies of Back to Black sold (so far) in the days following Winehouse's death, according to Billboard
1,000
Number of copies of Back to Black sold the previous week
3
Number of years since Back to Black last sold 37,000 copies in a single week
111,000
Number of digital tracks of Winehouse's music sold in the week following her death
38,000
Number of downloads of Winehouse's Grammy-winning single "Rehab" this week
8
Number of singles Michael Jackson had in the Top 10 of iTunes Top Songs chart in the week following his death in June 2009, according to Billboard
38
Number of singles Michael Jackson had in the Top 100 of the iTunes Top Songs chart in the week following his death
7
Number of Michael Jackson albums in the Top 10 of the iTunes Top Albums chart in the week following his death
570,000
Number of albums Michael Jackson sold in the week following his death, according to Billboard
15,600
Percentage increase in album sales that week over the week before
1
Chart position of John Lennon's Double Fantasy album the week after his death, where it remained for eight weeks straight, according to Bloomberg Businessweek
4.4 million
Number of solo albums John Lennon has sold since his death
690,000
Number of copies of the Notorious B.I.G.'s album Life After Death sold in the week after he was killed in 1997
82,000
Number of Nirvana albums sold in the week following Kurt Cobain's death in 1994
1
Debut chart position of Pearl, an album released several months after Janis Joplin's death in 1970, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. It is the singer's best-selling album ever.
25 million
Number of copies that Bob Marley's Legend, released three years after his death in 1981, has sold, according to The Huffington Post
Sources: Billboard (2, 3), Bloomberg Businessweek, Huff. Post, Intl. Bus. Times
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