Exactly 20 years ago, the music industry was going through one of the most hyped eras that it had ever had. The Girl Power phenomenon was everywhere thanks to their unstoppable flagship, the iconic Spice Girls. Wannabe was concluding its run at #1 in the US, and the album Spice was on its way to climbing the top of the album chart as well. In the UK, both the album and the single Mama / Who Do You Think You Are? were dominating, the latter being their fourth #1 hit in their native country. Less than a year prior they were unknown. This was the Spice Girls – an utterly massive, dominant, group from the very first day.
As usual – we already met the case with the Beatles or ABBA – when a music act destroys the charts like no one else myths quickly start surrounding it them. Some are true, others aren’t. Their countless #1s were all over the place, as were their record breaking sales in each field – album, singles and videos. The legend tells that the Spice album sold over 30 million units while Spiceworld moved 22 million, while the group as a whole set a mark of 85 million physical records sold. As you can guess, this includes a fair share of exaggeration. With the Spice Girls, the case is quite easy in reality – all their official album sales are known and you will be finding them right here. As they did well in various formats, we need to check the complete picture to accurately rate their success.
As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge their results. The concept will not only bring you sales information for all the Spice Girls’ albums, physical singles, download singles, and music videos and streaming, but it will also accurately weight all this information to conclude their true popularity. If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC idea, the next page explains it with a short video. I fully recommend you check it out before getting into the sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to get straight into the figures. Let’s go!
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=7QkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA104&dq=spice+girls&hl=zh-CN&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQivaEyJrfAhXHs48KHUNdC0QQ6AEIKzAE#v=onepage&q=spice%20girls&f=false
According to the in-house receipts by November 1997, Spice was 7xP in New Zealand. How do you estimate it at 75.000?Besides, the in-house award don’t include VHS sales since it showed 10xP in UK while the alum certified 10xP by August 1997 and the VHS shipped 500k by June 1997 in UK.If it included VHS sales, the awards for UK should be at 12xP by then.
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=CQoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=spice+girls+fan+club+magazine+catalogue+products&source=bl&ots=utcwm1Av_5&sig=ykxT1a3JKwVYmY8mqbai0Rgb8oE&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=spice%20girls%20fan%20club%20magazine%20catalogue%20products&f=false the VHS shipped 500k by June 1997 in UK
You are pointing out limits of in-house awards dhhd. The marketing ad clearly states it involves the VHS too. Then, since that’s an in-house claim rather than an audited information based on clearly defined rules, we can only guess as if all national sub companies of the label sent the information related to the same thing, the most realistic answer being no. NZ figure fits with the official certification of the album.
Wasn’t Spice only certified 1xP in NZ officially?
So the 1xP official certification don’t tell anything for it was only 15k.
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=6g4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA97&dq=Spice+Girls&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Spice%20Girls&f=false
By March 1997, Spice sold 718.432 copies in Japan. Oricon sales for Spice was 490k. In Japan imports already have exact numbers in 1997? Wasn’t it unavailable until 2002?
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=es&q=spice%20girls%20argentina%20copias&tbm=bks&q=spice%20girls%20copias%20vendidas
Spice certified 2xP in Argentina and sold 140k copies.
Since you said that 1xP=50k in Thailand back in 90s, then Spice was 4xP=200k while you estimated it at 185k. I think Thailand is a weak VHS markets that VHS sold close to nothing lol.
You would be surprised! Markets fans of teen pop are markets with a few casual buyers / a lot of hard fans. In them, artists sell a lot with various random releases, including videos. That’s true in both Brazil in Southeast Asia. In the latter, they bought a lot of VCDs during the 90s and Spice Girls’ movie has 4% of its owners on Discogs for the version of Thailand!
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=fA8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68&dq=spice+girls+spice+platinum+philippines&hl=zh-CN&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhxtKYgJzfAhUDw7wKHTtUAHMQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=spice%20girls%20spice%20platinum%20philippines&f=false
Spice sold 2.000.000 by May 1997 in Japan and Southeast Asia.I think it is impossible that it only add 100.000 catolug sales.
Hi Djddj! Again it’s very important to be very precise with these articles. It does not tell that Spice sold 2 million by May 1997, instead that it is “approaching” 2 million sales, which is a completely different story. Billboard includes tons of articles of managers / labels commenting on how much an album is going to sell, many times way before it is reached. “Approaching” 2 million sales can be anything over 1 million with an ongoing pace of shipments high enough to expect the album to reach 2 million by the end of the promotional campaign. Also, these… Read more »
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=7QkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA104&dq=spice+girls&hl=zh-CN&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQivaEyJrfAhXHs48KHUNdC0QQ6AEIKzAE#v=onepage&q=spice%20girls&f=false
Spice is 4xP in Japan by November 1997,which equals to 800.000 sales.
Hi Djddj! While these links are often useful, it’s key to truly understand what they stand for. Here, it is an ad of EMI music listing sales of Spice Girls’ Spice and the video One Hour of Girl Power. That’s why they speak about “over 19 million sales”, while the album on its side was at 9.5 million shipped by end March 1997 and 19.5 million shipped by end March 1998, making it impossible to be at over 19 million by November 1997. In fact, all ‘awards’ listed aren’t official ones but instead combined sales of both products expressed on… Read more »
But I know it is in-house awards, not official awards, but it didn’t make it false.It still can tell that In Japan Spice sold 800.000
In-house awards are often very useful, the point is to make sure they refer to what you would expect. Here, it isn’t related to sales of Spice, but instead to sales of Spice and the VHS, combined, that’s quite a different story!
So you mean Spice(Album) sold nothing since Nov.1997 while you estimated it at 750.000?Did the VHS topped 100.000 mark in Japan?
The question djddj isn’t how much it sold but how much it shipped from November 1997. When an album reaches the end of its promotional campaign (remember Spice came out in Japan even before than in the UK, in 09/96), there is way more copies on shelves than necessary. For pop albums there is often more returns than new shipments in the 18 months following the end of the promotion. That’s (in part) why the OCC reported recently 2.98 million units sold for this album while it had shipped 3 million by August 1997. Then, Spice is a very low… Read more »
Isn’t 2.98m OCC sales exclude clunb sales?
To be honest, I’m not sure Spice was available at Britannia Music Club. Then there is issues between OCC’s DUS figures (restricted to some panel) for records from 1994-1996 (the problem was mostly sorted by 1996, but still not completely), that’s in part why the current total remains below 3 million. In any case, had it been a good catalog seller, this issue of sales outside panel during the first months would have been compensated for long!
PS: you should create an account / user, that way your messages won’t need to go to moderation first anymore!
I’ve never seen “creat an account” on this site…
It was available through Britannia, here are the shipments I have for Spice between release and 2006. YEAR — RETAIL — CLUB — TOTAL 1996 — 1,530,655 — 2,749 — 1,533,404 1997 — 1,518,676 — 154,094 — 1,672,770 1998 — 66,282 — 41,636 — 107,918 1999 — 7,921 — 8,844 — 16,765 2000 — 14,263 — 1,431 — 15,694 2001 — 962 — 679 — 1,641 2002 — 802 — 203 — 1,005 2003 — 0 — 81 — 81 2004 — 2,292 — 128 — 2,420 2005 — 3,584 — 39 — 3,623 2006 — 889 — 5 —… Read more »
Great data Martin as always! The figure for the UK is then about 75k short! Would you happen to have Spiceworld too?
Unfortunately not, those are the only figures I have the Spice Girls.
Hi!the VHS shipped 500k by June 1997, and the album shipped 3m by August 1997. It is impossible to equal to 10xP in UK by November 1997.
Do you mean by November 2018? There I agree with you!
I mean the in-house certifications…I don’t understand you
Wasn’t the album offcially certified 10xP by August 1997 by BPI?By June 1997, the VHS already shipped 500k in UK acc to Billboard.
Spice is 1xP in Israel, which equals to 40.000, right?
acc to this
Right!
EMI confirmed Spice sold 18m by Nov. 1997, so 1m sold/shipped for the VHS. 4xP=800.000/19*18≈750.000.
You are complete wrong. First of all you put all the number combinated as a continental number but don’t include all countries. There are a lot more countries in America or Asia, even in Europe. Also there is no numbers from Africa, they were huge in South Africa, for example.
I am from Brazil and Forever sold 100.000 copies here and got Gold certification, Forever was so big here that Spice and Spice World got back to the charts, Holler was incredible insane here.
I really don’t agree with you.
Hi Roberto! Well, if I’m wrong, then SG’s label is too since all figures fit with official data 😉 You mention that “there are a lot more countries”, if you care to add values displayed you will notice that totals aren’t barely the sum of listed countries but takes into account all markets instead. As for Forever in Brazil, it got shipped upon release at 100k, which is very different from selling them. It is fully documented that the album was strongly overshipped which necessarily concluded on returns even if certs were requested in-between. Statistics from Brazil show that Holler… Read more »
When it comes to physical and digital sales, you have Destiny’s Child and Spice Girls at the same amount. Which group sold more?
I think you are wrong. CDs/LPs never were returned or destroyed here in Brazil, after the 80s. But I don’t want to go on with this fact. You made a very good work here, and I appreciate that. Thank You! 😉
There is unsold copies everywhere all the time, why would it never happen in Brazil? Each time an album like Beyoncé’s self-titled album ships 100k and never get a shipment again, do you really think it sold very exactly 100k to not get returns / destroyed copies but not one copy more in years to never require a new shipment? I can list you over 200 international albums with big first shipments that never got a second one, if we go your way, it would mean they all sold very exactly the amount of that shipment – that’s just completely… Read more »
Hi again Marcus, You can’t sell an album that the public doesn’t want. The same happened with Robbie Williams (Rudebox), Guns N Roses or Forever itself in all other countries. Severely discounting an album will add a few extra sales but that will never be enough to sell a massive over-shipment. It is very precisely the stores which destroyed all those albums to clear their stock when they knew that even with discounts they weren’t going to sell them, this isn’t rare at all. Even less in Brazil. There is tons of examples in recent years of famous international artists… Read more »