CSPC: Mariah Carey Popularity Analysis
Its arrived. The one many of you wanted to be studied. For various months many of you have been requesting to add Mariah Carey among the studied acts. After completing career-listings of Madonna, Celine Dion and Whitney Houston this demand increased even more. From the mid-80s to early 00s these four singers sold so many records that talks about those iconic divas started to gain ground and haven’t stopped since.
So who sold the most? In reality, wondering which one did the best out of those four females is kind of a rich person’s problem. In fact, the first thing that needs to be said is that they all did insanely well. They all broke various records here and there and they all have no competition at all in their respective leagues – well, sorry Barbra Streisand, I haven’t forgotten about you but your career is too different to fairly include you inside this Madonna – generation legends battle.
Among Mariah Carey’s achievements feature her 18 US #1 hits, a tally putting her on par with Elvis Presley and runner up to the Beatles. She did so in a relatively smooth period for singles sales and the Hot 100 heavily factored Airplay during this era. So has she really sold that well? Let’s not forget she owns several of the very top selling foreign albums of all-time in Japan so surely she moved some units. How many though? Her 90s decade was undoubtedly intense, but that is still only 10 years. Can she really challenge the all-time top sellers within such a short period of high sales?
As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge her results. The concept will not only bring you sales information for all Mariah Carey albums, physical singles, download singles, music videos and streaming, it will also accurately weight all this information to conclude the truth on meaningful popularity indicators. If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC idea, the next page explains it with a short video. I fully recommend you to check it out before getting into sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to get straight into the sales figures. Let’s go!
Why “We Belong Together” is at 3,4M in digital sales? I think it’s more than that. That was a HUGE hit.
I think We Belong Together was a big hit in the US, but outside of the US it really wasn’t that big of a deal and it can be clearly seen from her Mimi album sales. Mariah has always been a global album seller but for this particular album it has been somewhat pretty local. She always struggled to sell outside of the US with her R&B albums.
Hi MJD, based on how AIWFCIY is performing every xmas, how many years before it could beat whitney’s i will always love you eas?
Hi RLAAMJR! Allow me to tell you a definite answer: it won’t. The gap between the 2 songs is immense, with a 19,4m lead in IWALY’s favour. Even when comparing catalog sales and streams, Mariah doesn’t lead by “much” as Whitney’s death and the fact that it’s Whitney’s signature song allows to have stable streams and OK DL’s. You can probably say that AIWFCIY has more catalog appeal as it can be seen from its lead over IWALY in downloads and Spotify streams. In a few more years, it might also surpass IWALY in YT streams. However, in terms of… Read more »
Emotions still remains my favorite Mariah album. Interesting to see how it has sold with all of his factored in over the years. Also it’s interesting how it was seen as a bit of a commercial disappointment at the time and for a while, while it remains one of her best sellers.
Also, when might we be seeing an analysis for Kelly Clarkson? I know she got quite a few votes on one of the polls for different artists to do, and I would love to see how the formula translates with her material.
Will you update Mariah’s article by using the new formulas for digital song sales and streaming?
Hi Luminator!
The new formula of digital songs has been implemented last week for all artists, thus including Mariah!
For streams the old formula remains for the old articles – It was too much of a work for virtually 0 impact as the increase of ongoing streams of catalog songs since 1 year is almost on par with decrease implied by the new ratio. I only switched of formula for the huge ‘streamers’ of 2016 (Bieber, Drake, Weeknd, Ed) because it was inflating their numbers a bit as they enjoyed the current streaming market with the former ratio.
Oh thanks for your effort so far.
But i was also hoping for the page “BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country” and an overview over the “Chart & Sales Achievements” to be added, both of which are incorporated in the newer articles, but are missing in Mariah’s article since it is one of the older ones.
Hi MJD. I was just wondering why you didnt include Mariah Carey No 1’s. If Im not mistaken it sells somewhere around 15 million copies worldwide. It will greatly increased her total cspc results and probably increased her rankings too.
Her #1’s album, along with her other compilation albums, were included in the total CSPC results in the Remaining Long Formats on page 32-34. MJD doesn’t include those albums in the album sales breakdown because those records were mainly exploited on the back of hits from studio albums, and his main goal is to reflect the popularity of each album. #1’s sold close to 16m copies, in which 6,2m copies is generated from Daydream as that album has 39% share of #1’s on Spotify. The same method is used for other compilations in calculating how many album sales were generated… Read more »
Oh yeah. Didnt noticed that. Thanks btw.
Brazil it’s wrong. Before 2003, Music Box sold at least 1,000,000 copies. After 2003, ABPD started to put shipment data in each CD/DVD sold, like “AA10000”, for example. The first shipment had 10000 copies, and then AB10000, AC10000, AD05000, etc
Hi Timber,
The usage of printing shipment codes within’ the albums is done by the labels, it has nothing to do with ABPD. Those information are obviously already part of the sources used within’ all articles.
No need to say Music Box sold nowhere near 1 million copies in Brazil.
Hi Luminator! I honestly think it is pretty hazardous to guess specific numbers per album and per market without additional information. I easily prefer analyzing available data and evolution statistics in one side, an working with known sales from unknown places in the other side. The first way of looking at it tells us her debut album had sold half a million units in Southeast Asia before reaching it in Japan. It also tells us that out of the 1,6m sales of Music Box there, near 40% came from South Korea and 20% from Taiwan, letting only 40% for all… Read more »
Thank you very much for the response!
Is there still a way to get a rough picture of what these albums sold in the bigger markets, meaning South Korea and Taiwan?
Hey MJD, since you are currently on the verge of talking about Asia and indicated that Mariah hasn’t done *that well* there outside of Japan and SK, i stumbled upon this Billboard report from the 15/01/2000 issue, in which Mariah was presented with an award for 1,6 million copies of #1’s sold throughout Asia (outside of Japan). That would indicate that she actually did really good there. https://books.google.de/books?id=oQ0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&rview=1&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=mariah&f=false How you split those copies over the remaining countries considering their market share? If you take the time (which i did) and compile all chart information that was presented by Billboard in… Read more »
Plus: The 1,6 estimate would actually fall perfectly in line with what you estimated for the album in the whole of Asia (3,7 million in Japan + 1,6 million in Asia as of 2000) 😉
Hi Luminator! I was careful telling she hasn’t done *that well* by the standards she has set herself in Japan, by average international pop stars she did obviously wonders! Ones is a good example, at 1,8m in Asia to date it did roughly half of its Japanese sales there, Baby One More Time did almost 7 times less in Japan but 80% of its sales in the rest of Asia! Asian markets excluding India / China / Pakistan were as below in 1998: Hong Kong 10,5 (million albums sold) Indonesia 40,2 Malaysia 10,9 Philippines 11,44 Singapore 5 S Korea 28,8… Read more »
Thanks again for your insights and time spent! The figure for Malaysia had been floating around on mariahdaily.com (the site has been down now) for at least 10 years: http://web.archive.org/web/20081210112132/http://www.mariahdaily.com:80/infozone/charts/albums/malaysia/index.shtml I was always skeptical about it until i found out that the album did have that spectacular chart run on the overall chart which was very rare the the time (you can only find the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and interestingly Westlife as other western artists to appear on the overall chart for more than just a few weeks). Could you give me your personal estimate for Music Box, Merry… Read more »
MJD, I wonder when Billboard said “xxx sold in Asia”,Did that mean 8 markets in Southeast Asia or the whole Asia excluded Japan(including China and India)?
Depends, they have been doing both kind of claims one time and another. Really depends which article you refer to!
I WANT QUEEN!!!
Hey MJD, would you mind sharing the numbers you have on your spreadsheet/ your personal estimations for the remainig Asian markets? So far, you provided us with the following numbers, but there’s still so many “question marks” left. I would be highly interested in the numbers/your estimations for countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, which did have some respectable market size in the 90s. I would be very thankful for that. Year – Total Asia – Album 1990 – 2,000,000 – Mariah Carey Japan: 925,000 South Korea: ? Taiwan: ? Hong Kong: ? Singapore: ? Malaysia: ? Indonesia: ? Thailand: ?… Read more »
Hi MJD! Me again! This time, can you help verify whether these “claims” of Mariah’s success in Asia is true or not? 1. #1’s was reported to be a 10XP album in Malaysia with 250K shipped! Do you find this true? I suppose it is, as according to Billboard’s Hits of the World, it had a highly impressive chart run and even re-entered the Top 10 in 2001! How much do estimate for this album, and do you have any information on her other albums in Malaysia? 2. The Glitter album was reported as the biggest selling album in China… Read more »
Hi Raffi! 1) I would need to see where the “report” comes from! I have evidences of the “Sony Music Japan” claims being made up, so if this is from similar sources I wouldn’t take it seriously. In any case, Malaysia is one of the countries that dropped a lot in 1998 – from 17m to 11m in that year alone – so 250k would be equal to 5 million in the UK, as you can see it seems pushing the expectations to the limits! 2) While China has been a weak market for international releases, it was still a… Read more »
Hi there, i want to add one more note: If you actually search for the Malaysian album chart displayed in the Billboard magazine, you will find that #1’s actually had a really impressive run there, spending months and months in the Top 10, only challenged by the Backstreet Boys and Westlife, and to a lessor extent Britney at the time – meaning that she must have sold good amounts in Malaysia (whatever that means in concrete numbers!). I would once again like to ask you for your estimation of her Asian sales in the core markets for her big albums… Read more »
Rafifi, I was just looking at the billboard news weekly archive. They would published the top 10 weekly Malaysian top album sales based on figures given by Recording Industry Association of Malaysia. Based on hours and hours of doing my own analysis, #1’s spent a total of 27 weeks inside the top 10 and 9 weeks at no. 1. MJD has previously said that Backstreet’s Back sold 150,000 in Malaysia. So I started doing research on Backstreet’s Back weekly chart performance. Based on what I could detect, Backstreet’s Back spent a total of 7 weeks at no 1 and also… Read more »
Hi Michael! While Mariah’s #1s was undoubtedly a massive success, I feel the need to point out that Malaysia music market suffered a massive drop back then: 1997 – 16,9 million albums sold 1998 – 10,9 million 1999 – 9,4 million 2002 – 5,0 million 2008 – 1,9 million Basically, the same run in 1998 than in 1997 would equal to 90k instead of 150k. That’s why an album like BSB’s Millennium sold “””only””” 100k there is spite of the massive fanbase + 8 weeks at 1 + it was still outselling albums like Mariah’s Rainbow at Christmas. Obviously, it… Read more »
Hi MJD. While I do agree that the pretty much same chart runs would give Mariah around the same amount of sales that Backstreet’s Back would have had. Wouldn’t you consider the fact that #1’s has way more longevity that BSB. Because it reentered the top 10 in 1999 as well as in 2001. Seems like everytime she was to release a new album up to Glitter, the albums seems to be rebounding. Also, I believe that Teen Pop ships huge amount of records in the first year or two. But the popularity of their album seems to fade away… Read more »
Yes, we are in the same line on all fronts! My comment was a general remark to point out that runs should be analysed with relative markets, it wasn’t about Mariah’s Ones. As you say, teen pop albums are poor catalog sellers. Ones was also at the top during the Christmas period and it most likely sold more upon release than Backstreet’s Back, so even if the market was lower by then it could have sold as much or even more!
Nice to know we are on the same page. I actually bought the album in late 2005. I became a Mariah fan late in her career, :). It was really worth my money and I feel like that it is the favorite album that I have ever purchased. She does have a collection of very2 great love songs.
Good work! I’m a lit bit impressioned how Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel shipped only 65k in Brazil since “I want to know what love is” was a big hit in brazilian stations.
Would be amazing a CSPC analisys from Ayumi Hamasaki’s carrer or an analysis of japanese divas.