Physical Singles Sales – Part 4
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) – 75,000 equivalent albums
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 250,000
Magical Mystery Tour (1967) – 3,345,000 equivalent albums
Hello, Goodbye – 4,300,000
Penny Lane – 3,200,000
All You Need Is Love – 3,650,000
The Beatles (White Album) (1968) – 450,000 equivalent albums
Back in the U.S.S.R. – 100,000
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da – 1,400,000
More albums, same pattern of singles getting rarer and rarer. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band single came out in 1978 only, Back in the U.S.S.R. in 1976 while Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is the new Michelle selling exclusively in continental Europe.
As a Soundtrack and a record that wasn’t released everywhere upon release in LP format – it was a successful EP that we will met later, Magical Mystery Tour got three proper singles with once again massive results as each topped the 3 million mark.
Is Beatles the best selling musical act in UK?
Yes.
I hope you would update and make a record and achievement section for the Beatles
Will BTS surpass the Beatles eventually? And is it possible that a current artist at present will surpass them?
Hi Jeric!
Nobody can predict the future, but considering how strong they keep going and how far ahead they are, it’s very unlikely they will be topped anytime soon, and even less likely by an artist already identified.
Thank you for your response!
Someone shared on Twitter that the Beatles is the second best selling artist of the century. Eminem took the first place. Can you pls confirm this fact? Thanks ahead and more power!
You show the US sales for the White Album at around 12 million. It is a double album. The RIAA has its sales at 24 million plus, making allowance for the fact that it is 2 records that were purchased. Ditto for the red and blue albums. The Anthologies were triple albums, as were the BBC albums.
Do your numbers make allowance for this?
Nope. The White Album, Physical Graffiti, The Wall etc are counted as one album, one sale, no multiplication of discs included, times sales.
One of the albums you mention, is probably the best example against multi counting. The double disc, Red Album, which has less tracks and a shorter total running time, than single disc 1.
I’m not sure I follow. If one buys and pays for an album that contains 2 records, have 2 records not been sold?
Do you allow for this by using the total number of tracks on the album?
Hi Richard! Our goal is not to be mere accountants, but to draw an accurate picture of the artists’ popularity, hence the “Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept” tag. Would White Album be a much bigger seller if it was a single disc than Abbey Road? The Wall way ahead of Dark Side of the Moon? Physical Graffiti hands down bigger than II? To all these questions, the answer is no. In fact, for 2 of these 3 cases, despite the much longer tracklists, the albums have less streams than single albums they are compared to. This shows that the number… Read more »
MJD:Thank you for expaining that!
I really enjoy and appreciate the work that went into, and still goes into, your website. I look forward to updates as they appear.
Update would be nice 🙂
Hi MJD,
the RIAA certifications on red album and blue album also include download and streaming, seen how much higher are they ?
I’ve just realized that the physical single sales of Beatles For Sale and A Hard Day’s Night are swapped.
I think this should get an update. It’s been 3 years and a lot of things have happened like the anniversary editions of Abbey Road and the White Album. (Also pls do George and Ringo’s CSPC 🙂 )
I’m positive they’ll be well above 420 mill after the update.
Beatles featuring Tony Sheridan is included in the compilation section on page 46
Amazing work, congratulations! However you’ve missed one important EP release. The Beatles fifth Ep release, Long Tall Sally, which was released in Britain in June 1964 and is another reported global million seller.
Has this already been included in the analysis? If not, I hope Chartmasters would consider verifying this one and include its sales in computing the Beatles CSPC points