In 2016, Mozart outsold Beyoncé and Drake to become the most popular CD artist

27 August 2024, 14:16 | Updated: 28 August 2024, 15:24

In 2016 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart pulled off a seismic achievement against the biggest pop stars of the day, according to the official Billboard chart. Here’s how...

5 December 2016 marked the 225th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death. To honour the occasion, legendary record labels Decca and Deutsche Grammophon teamed up with the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation to present a single release which contained every single one of the Austrian composer’s works.

The lavish box set contained an epic 200 CDs and featured many of history’s greatest recordings.

Mozart in his short life was famously prolific, writing over 600 catalogued works. The 200 CDs containing them, with accompanying scholarly material, weighed in excess of 10kg. That’s a lot of Wolfgang.

Read more: The 10 most life-changing pieces of music by Mozart

Mozart lovers lapped up the historic release and the set rose to the top of Classical charts – and then beyond...

In December 2016, the music industry statistics oracle Billboard announced that the massive set of Mozart was the biggest selling CD release of the year, outselling Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Adele’s 25 and Drake’s Views in terms of digital physical copies sold.

There’s an ever-so-slight nuance to it all. The industry was counting CDs, and each was an individual unit, meaning Mozart had a 200-1 advantage with every sale. Nevertheless, given the £500 cost of the set, sales in the thousands was a remarkable achievement which made headlines around the world.

“Yes, Mozart had the best-selling CD of 2016,” declared CNN.

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At the time, Paul Moseley, senior vice president of Universal Music Group hailed the reaction to the box set as a “wonderful” result.

“It is wonderful to see the reaction to this box set, which is the fruit of years of scholarship, planning and curation,” he said.

“Mozart’s immortal melodies, no less than The Beatles or Abba, are in some way part of all our lives.”

Mozart is used to being a chart-topper – in 2024, he saw 13 pieces voted into the Classic FM Hall of Fame, making him once again the composer with the most entries in the Top 300.

And now in the era of streaming, Mozart regularly pulls in millions upon millions of listeners and devoted fans on Spotify, YouTube, and indeed Classic FM’s own app, Global Player.

The Beatles and Beyoncé, Drake and Don Giovanni – it’s proof that even after more than two centuries, Mozart continues to sit alongside any artist of the day in sheer popularity.