Vinyl discs by The Grateful Dead, Dylan, Stones among Record Store Day 2019's biggest sellers

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Courtesy of Record Store DayThis year’s Record Store Day, which took place on Saturday, April 13, helped drive vinyl sales to historic numbers, thanks to the many exclusive limited-edition discs released. Billboard reports that 827,000 vinyl albums were sold during the week ending April 20, the highest figure ever for a Record Store Day week and the third highest weekly number since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991.

The campaign’s previous highest vinyl sales figure was 733,000, set last year.

The best-selling album released in conjunction with the 2019 campaign was the two-disc Grateful Dead live collection Warfield: San Francisco, California, October 9th, 1980/October 10th, 1980, which was available on vinyl and CD.

At #2 was Bob Dylan‘s Blood on the Tracks: Test Pressing, which features early versions of songs from the folk-rock legend’s classic 1974 album. The third-best-selling Record Store Day exclusive was Green Day‘s Green Day Live! Woodstock 1994.

Other artists with vinyl albums among the top 10 RSD best sellers included Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Prince and The Doors.

The best-selling single released for this year’s initiative was a Rolling Stones disc featuring a live rendition of “She’s a Rainbow” from an October 2017 concert in Paris. Madonna, meanwhile, had the third and fifth best-selling singles, which featured remixes, respectively, of “La Isla Bonita” and True Blue. At #10 was a disc featuring the Queen classic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Thanks to Record Store Day, vinyl album sales spiked a whopping 193 percent between the week preceding the initiative and the week ending April 18 — from 282,000 to 827,000.

The only weeks that saw higher vinyl-album sales since 1991 were those just before and just after Christmas 2018 — 905,000 and 883,000.

Here are the 20 best-selling 2019 RSD vinyl albums:

1. The Grateful Dead — Warfield: San Francisco, California, October 9th, 1980/October 10th, 1980
2. Bob Dylan — Blood on the Tracks: Test Pressing
3. Green Day — Green Day Live! Woodstock 1994
4. Greta Van Fleet — From the Fires
5. Pink Floyd — A Saucerful of Secrets
6. Fleetwood Mac — The Alternate Fleetwood Mac
7. Prince — His Majesty’s Pop Life/The Purple Mix Club
8 (tie). Pearl Jam —  Live at Easy Street
8 (tie). Weezer — Weezer (Teal Album)
10. The Doors — London Fog: May 1966
11. John Lennon — Imagine: The Raw Studio Mixes
12. Gorillaz — The Fall
13. The Rolling Stones — Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) (U.K.)
14. U2 — The Europa EP
15. David Bowie — PinUps
16. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — 4 Way Street
17. Sublime — Nugs: The Best of the Box
18. The Rolling Stones — Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits, Vol. 2) (U.K.)
19. Sunn O))) — Life Metal
20 (tie). Elton John with Ray Cooper — Live from Moscow 1979
20 (tie). Prince — The Versace Experience: Prelude 2 Gold
20 (tie). Weezer — Dusty Gems & Raw Nuggets

And here are the 20 best-selling 2019 RSD vinyl singles:

1. The Rolling Stones — “She’s a Rainbow”
2. Death Grips — “Steroids” (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix)
3. Madonna — “La Isla Bonita” (Super Mix)
4. Cheech & Chong — “Up in Smoke”
5. Madonna — “True Blue” (Super Club Mix)
6. Julien Baker — “Red Door”/”Conversation Piece”
7. High On Fire — “Bat Salad”
8. Anderson .Paak — “Bubblin'”
9. Bad Religion — “My Sanity”
10. Queen — “Bohemian Rhapsody”/”I’m In Love with My Car”
11. Joe Strummer — “The Rockfield Studio Tracks”
12. David Bowie/Marlene Dietrich — “Revolutionary Song”/”Just a Gigolo”
13. Lord Huron featuring Phoebe Bridgers — “The Night We Met”
14. Menzingers — “No Penance”
15. Courtney Barnett — “Everybody Here Hates You”
16. Czarface — “Double Dose of Danger”
17. Fela Kuti and Roy Ayers — “Music of Many Colours”
18. Iggy Pop — “The Villagers”
19. Benjamin Gibbard — “Me and Magdalena”
20. Dr. Dre — “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang”

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