"Never Enough," indeed. The Greatest Showman soundtrack easily sold more than any other album -- soundtrack or not -- in 2018. Second place went to A Star Is Born, another soundtrack, but with only half the numbers. It's pretty clear that, while fewer people are buying albums these days, soundtracks are the alums that can still sell.
According to BuzzAngle Music's data for 2018, via Variety, here are the top-grossing albums of 2018:
1. The Greatest Showman soundtrack -- 1.3 million
2. A Star Is Born soundtrack -- 525,000
3. Justin Timberlake's "Man of the Woods" -- 377,000
The Greatest Showman came out in theaters on December 20, 2017, so good for Hugh Jackman and company that we're still talking about it and the music in 2019. It even got itself a star-studded cover album. Plus, Jackman is taking his wonderful self on tour in 2019, including songs from The Greatest Showman and beyond.
Of course, this doesn't mean that The Greatest Showman had the best overall year for music, it's just the album people were most likely to buy in an era dominated by streaming.
But even when the list is changed from album sales to total consumption -- including streaming -- The Greatest Showman still takes #4 for 2018, behind Drake, Drake, Post Malone and XXXTentacion. As Variety noted, A Star Is Born doesn't even make the top 25 of that list. However, when the list changes again to just pure streaming, The Greatest Showman doesn't make the cut either.
In terms of pure soundtracks, the 2018 list was led by The Greatest Showman and A Star Is Born, obviously, followed by Hamilton with 239,000 copies, Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix No. 1 with 168,000 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again with 150,000.
Interestingly enough, 2018's bestselling vinyl album was also a soundtrack, but not The Greatest Showman -- it was Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1. James Gunn's MCU movie soundtrack took #1 on that retro list with 47,000 LPs sold.
A Star Is Born is currently in headlines, and will most likely pick up some Golden Globe Awards tonight, after its release in October 2018. Since its soundtrack was only on the market for the final two months of 2018, we'll have to keep an eye on how it does in 2019.
This past year was a great one for music-based films, and so far we know 2019 will at least have several new Disney movie soundtracks. Who will be #1 this time next year? Time will tell. Check out all the movies coming to theaters in 2019, and don't forget to watch the Golden Globes with us tonight (Sunday, January 6) on NBC.
