The Starman may be gone but his legend lives on. David Bowie songs are dominating both U.S. and global streaming charts in the week following the death of the rock legend at the age of 69.
The U.S. Billboard Charts show the impact of Bowie's death on music fans, which gobbled up enough Bowie tracks to result in a literal domination of both the Rock and Alternative Digital Song Charts. Bowie claimed 18 songs in the 50-position rock chart while owning over half the songs on the Alternative chart with a record breaking 13 of the 25 position listings. The previous record holder was Coldplay in 2011 with 10 simultaneous placing's in that chart.
The top Bowie song on both charts was "Space Oddity" from Bowie's self-titled 1969 LP. The track placed at No. 2 on both lists. Two of Bowie's early '80s hits, "Under Pressure," a collaboration with Queen and the rhythmic "Let's Dance" were the second and third most downloaded Bowie songs in the wake of his death, while listeners reflected back on his '70s output with "Changes" and "Heroes" rounding out the top 5.
On the digital streaming side of the charts, Bowie's dominance continued as he once again racked up 13 of the top 25 and eight of the top 10 songs listed, again breaking records for the chart. This time it was his newest track "Lazarus" that proved most popular, with the song from his just released Blackstar album taking the No. 2 position overall. The title track from that album also proved popular at No. 5, with most of the same classic songs that showed up on the aforementioned download charts also popular with streamers.
The relative popularity of the two new songs in the streaming chart may be an interesting reflection of the way music fans choose which songs to download as opposed to those they stream. It's likely that many Bowie fans downloaded his classic hits but chose to stream his new tracks to simply listen. Bowie's posthumous feat is more remarkable considering that the charts only reflect the numbers through the week-ending Jan.14, while he died on the 10th.
The singer's Blackstar album also managed to reach the No. 1 position on the album charts in the U.S. as well as his native UK, where he also placed a whopping nine other albums in the Top 40 album charts. Bowie songs also completely swept the leading licensed lyrics provider Lyricfind's Global chart, with every single song in the 25-position listing attributable to the singer.
