Amy Winehouse's 'Back to Black' Returns to Billboard Charts After 20th-Anniversary Reissue
Amy Winehouse's Back to Black is back on the Billboard charts, and its 20th-anniversary reissue has pushed it into several sales rankings. The chart dated Nov. 7 has the album re-entering the Billboard 200 at No. 42, according to Billboard.
The reissue arrived on Oct. 23. It came as a 3LP, a 3CD and in digital form, and the expanded edition includes previously unreleased B-sides, demos and a 2007 live concert, as Official Charts and Billboard reported.
The album's strongest showings were in the sales-only lists. It re-entered Indie Store Album Sales at No. 3, which ranks records sold through independent record shops. It placed No. 4 on Vinyl Albums and No. 7 on Top Album Sales, a list that counts purchases in every format but leaves out streaming. It also reached No. 7 on Top R&B Albums.
The weekly numbers show how the jump happened. Luminate, the company that tracks sales and streams for Billboard, counted 16,000 equivalent album units for the album in the United States in the week ending Oct. 29. That was up 185%. Equivalent album units convert songs streamed and tracks bought into the album-sized measure that charts use. Of those 16,000 units, 11,000 were pure album sales, meaning full albums bought outright, and that part rose 885%.
The album has a long chart history. It peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2008. It was Winehouse's second and final studio album before her death in 2011. Billboard's oral history of the album, published Oct. 21, notes that it won five Grammy Awards.
In the UK, the album was in contention for the No. 1 spot on the Official Albums Chart after the expanded reissue, according to Official Charts. Official Charts also reported in September that a one-night concert marking the 20th anniversary of the album is planned at London's Roundhouse.
For record shops and vinyl fans, the figures point to a familiar pattern: a deluxe edition, a new run of physical copies and a burst of buying that lifts an older album back up the lists. The chart positions tell that story in numbers, and the shoppers behind them are the reason those numbers move.
