Once again, a cappella news has me nonplussed. Pentatonix, the subject of my waking nightmares (daymares?) and target of my ineffective spells, has once again topped the Billboard 200 chart with their joyless Christmas album, A Pentatonix Christmas. This, of course, means I am going to have to stock up on sage, candles, crystals, and lightly singed raven feathers (gathered after falling to the ground, not plucked from the birds themselves).
In a press release that arrived in my inbox because a friend who is currently on my shit list forwards me every Pentatonix-related email he receives, their excited publicist writes:
A Pentatonix Christmas, the third holiday album from the Grammy Award winning group Pentatonix, remains at #1 on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart for the second consecutive week. The certified platinum album is the 5th best-selling album of 2016 and marks the group’s second #1 album on the Billboard Top 200 chart...According to Nielsen, the group is the top selling group in strictly album sales since 2014 and is the third best-selling artist behind Adele and Taylor Swift selling over 4.3 million albums.
Though each of those facts is more alarming than the last, I’m willing to take today’s news of the album’s continued success with the grain of salt. While they were reported Tuesday, January 3, the numbers reflect sales from December 23-29—meaning that may have been the last week they’re able to top the charts with holiday tunes. Let me have that silver lining, won’t you?