Quick: Which artist would you guess sold the most CDs this year? Beyoncé? Drake? Chance the Rapper? Adele? The answer: none of the above.
It was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and he’s been dead for 225 years. A box set titled “Mozart 225: The New Complete Edition” was released Oct. 28. In just five weeks, “Mozart 225” sold 1.25 million CDs.
But, there’s a bit of a catch. Each box contains a total of 200 discs, so it would only have taken a little over 6,000 sales to hit the 1.25 million CDs mark. Which is still impressive, since the box set has sold for up to $500.
Universal Music Group spent 18 months working on the project, which it calls the “most authoritative, complete and scholarly box set ever devoted to the work of a single composer.”
