Bee Gees’ Album Sales Jump 339% Following Robin Gibb’s Death

Robbie Daw | May 31, 2012 11:10 am

Billboard‘s new Top 200 album chart shows the first full effects of sales of Bee Gees LPs following the death of member Robin Gibb on May 20. (Gibb passed away on a Sunday, which is the day Billboard uses as the cut-off for weekly chart data.) The publication noted yesterday that the Bee Gees sold 27,000 albums in the past week, which is a 339% leap from the 6,000 the trio moved the seven days prior.

The band’s top sellers proved to be 2009 compilation The Ultimate Bee Gees, which re-enters the Top 200 at #49 this week on the strength of 9,000 copies sold, 2004 hits set Number Ones, back in at #70 (7,000), and the 1977 soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever (#168, 3,000), which features the Gibb brothers’ classics “Stayin’ Alive”, “More Than A Woman”, “Night Fever” and “How Deep Is Your Love”.

And speaking of “Stayin’ Alive” and “How Deep Is Your Love”, those two tracks proved to be the top-selling digital tunes by the Bee Gees over the past week. In fact, the band posted a higher jump in sales for individual songs — 379% (a total of 102,000 downloads) — than albums.

Earlier this week it was reported that Robin Gibb will be laid to rest in June during a private service near his home in Thame, Oxfordshire, in England. Following that, the singer will be honored with a public memorial at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in September.