France best selling albums ever: Life In Cartoon Motion by Mika (2007)
Even though Mika is an English singer born in Lebanon, the fact he raised in France, Paris, made him adopted by French public right from the start. Thus, it is no surprise Life In Cartoon Motion is one of the very few foreign albums that topped an Year End album chart.
While the pianist had a widespread appeal, his success among 15-25 years old consumers segment was outstanding, breaking various kind of digital sales records. Relax, Take It Easy topped the download chart an incredible 15 weeks and sat among the Top 3 for 25 weeks.
Later, he suffered a strong backlash in most countries but remained ever popular in France, inclusively becoming a judge on highly popular The Voice TV show. Ironically, he selected and coached an alumni named Kendji Girac that went on to sell over a million of its debut album too.
Yearly French retail sales stand as below:
- 2007: 924,000 CD + 30,000 DL
- 2008: 230,000 CD + 8,000 DL
- 2009: 48,000 CD + 4,000 DL
- 2010: 40,000
- 2011-2015: 90,000
- 2CD boxes: 30,000
A grand total of 1,404,000 copies sold.
Net shipment as of the end of 2015 is estimated at 1,425,000 copies.
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