A month ago today on Christmas Day, 2016, the world was shocked to discover that music icon George Michael had passed away at his London home. As one of the biggest popstars of the 1980s, first as one half of music duo Wham! and then as a solo artist, he remained one of the most prominent figures in music right up until his death at 53-years-old.
George Michael
In the month since his passing, OfficialCharts.com have confirmed that over half a million records have been sold and streamed across both his Wham! and solo work as fans reflect on the impressive back catalogue of work he left behind.
Across all of that work, just over 421,000 singles were sold across all platforms, made up of 153,000 actual sales and 26.8 million track streams combined. ‘Last Christmas’ was unsurprisingly the most popular track with 46,000 combined sales, followed by ‘Careless Whisper’ with 33,500.
When it comes to albums, it was the icon’s 1998 retrospective record ‘Ladies & Gentlemen’ that proved the most popular, returning to the Official Albums Chart Top 10, slotting in at Number 4.
A combined total of 147,500 George Michael and Wham! albums have been sold and streamed in the month following Michael’s passing, with fans seeking out physical records in huge numbers. CD and vinyl sales for example account for 54% of all purchases in the past month from Michael’s album catalogue.
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