CSPC: Mariah Carey Popularity Analysis

Physical Singles Sales – Part 3

Charmbracelet (2002) – 99,000 equivalent albums

Through the Rain – 300,000
Boy (I Need You) – 30,000

The Emancipation of Mimi (2005) – 219,000 equivalent albums

It’s Like That – 190,000
We Belong Together – 340,000
Shake It Off – 90,000
Say Somethin’ – 30,000
Get Your Number – 30,000
Don’t Forget About Us – 50,000

E=MC² (2008) – 18,000 equivalent albums

Touch My Body – 50,000
Bye Bye – 10,000

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (2009) – 9,000 equivalent albums

Obsessed – 20,000
I Want to Know What Love Is – 10,000

Orphan – 1,499,000 equivalent albums

I’ll Be There – 1,010,000
Sweetheart – 150,000
When You Believe – 1,320,000
I Still Believe – 1,120,000
Endless Love –  1,000,000
I Know What You Want – 310,000
U Make Me Wanna – 80,000
Things That U Do – 5,000

With the string of hits broken, and then the market disappearing when she made her successful 2005 comeback, Mariah didn’t sell many physical singles in the latter years of her career. It doesn’t mean this section doesn’t contain worthy hits though, as the Orphan section has as many as four 1 million sellers.

Those songs are covers / duets / singles from compilations, the common denominator being their success.

In total, the vocalist sold nearly 37 million physical singles. Considering her number of #1 hits, this may seem rather low. It was to be expected, though. In fact, while the US is the biggest market in the World, singles sales weren’t that much bigger than in leading European markets. While the US:UK ratio was more than 5 to 1 in the Album segment, during the 90s an average of 104 million singles per year were sold in the US against 68 million in the UK and 41 million in Germany. In other words, a big European hit maker was selling more than a big US smash artist. In Europe, while Mariah Carey did sell decent numbers, she was nowhere near the absolute beast she was in her homeland.