One of the biggest rock bands from 1991 to 2006, the Red Hot Chili Peppers suffered a strong dip in popularity with their last 2011 album I’m With You. In June 17 this year, The Gateway will be released. The group is hoping to return to their past glory with the help of genius producer Danger Mouse (Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley, the Black Keys, U2 among others).
How big was their past glory yet? France has often been reluctant with foreign acts, especially US Rock bands. Various UK bands got massive like U2, Dire Straits, the Beatles or Pink Floyd. US groups yet like Metallica, Van Halen, Aerosmith or Pearl Jam never got that big yet, with only Nirvana and The Doors breaking this rule.
During the next pages we will be reviewing the complete Red Hot Chili Peppers discography to see how they performed in France. Please be aware all Spotify figures refer to worldwide streaming as they only aim to display which albums still have strong catalog hits as of now. Let’s go!
Hi there. Very interesting info I used to like them but hold no interest now.
Could you do Take That next please?
Hello Nirvanamusic!
Giving your name, I would have expected a Nirvana query instead 🙂
Take That sold close to nothing in France. Nobody Else debuted and peaked at #13 in 1995, selling some 70,000 units in total. Their Greatest Hits failed to reach 50,000 while after this period only Progress charted with a #42 peak and some 20,000 total sales. A far cry from their UK results!
Thanks for that! Yeah Nirvana and My Chemical Romance are my absolute favourites but I can’t resist Take That’s pop music/songs either..! Must be a British thing by looks of those sales!
Thanks
Great mix of different artists so far! Keep on adding more and more artists!
Can you do Mariah Carey next?
Thanks for the positive comment Luminator. No doubt Mariah Carey will be coming soon!
Hi MJD; recently I read the book American Popular Music. in the book I read the some sentence, France has the 7% market share of worldwide pop markets. I believe Musicians who hit the chart in the France could have the big seller. if some musician sells a lot of records in the U.S, they didn’t sell the records much worldwide. what do you think? still France is big market place in the world? and more 7% now? thanks.
Hello! Sorry for the delay. In fact France is still a large market, #4 in the world for physical sales and #6 in digital area with an overall share of 6% of worldwide market. If you remove Japan that is very difficult to break for foreign artists, there is only 80% remaining which means France represents 7,5% of markets where artists usually sell. The US represents 30% of the overall total and 37,5% taking off Japan, so definitely a huge part of sales for most acts. The important point with France is that while most international sellers will achieve album… Read more »
thanks MJD, actually I just watched your statics before and I was so interested in those datum. South Korea is unusual country like France for album sales. maybe Oasis, Coldplay and Radiohead are big 3 in this country. Metallica and RHCP are also popular here. you know those bands have a gigs here. some of them already made more than 3 times. Foo Fighters did it in 2015. Nirvana is the only popular american band without gigs here. so I’m curious Nirvana and RHCP. around 2011, I read your article of both 2 bands. RHCP was 69.6 million and Nirvana… Read more »