Eddie Van Halen passed away on October 6 after a lengthy battle with cancer. As we've seen with many other artists in the wake of their passing, Van Halen's numbers immediately went through the roof, to the tune of 6,000%.
Billboard reports VH albums and songs sold 40,000 copies the day of Eddie's death, which is up roughly 6,198% from the less than 1,000 sales on October 5.
As for songs, Van Halen sold 31,000 tracks on Oct. 6 — up 6,317% compared to less than 1,000 sold on Oct. 5. The biggest song on October 6 was "Jump", which sold over 3,000 copies, followed by tracks like “Panama” (2,000), “Eruption” (2,000), “Runnin’ With the Devil” (2,000), “You Really Got Me” (2,000), “Dance the Night Away” (1,000), “Why Can’t This Be Love” (1,000), “Hot for Teacher” (1,000), “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” (1,000) and “Jamie’s Cryin’” (1,000). All figures were rounded to the nearest thousand.
So why report on this? Well, I personally think it's great that people immediately wanted to memorialize Eddie by listening to his legacy. Van Halen is a band that stands alone in terms of style, and Eddie's guitar work simply will never be matched.
Rest in peace, Eddie. Thanks for changing rock music as we know it.
