Every record is worth buying if it puts a smile on the face of your children. Teen pop music and the Disney industry are two prime examples of this reality. When the power of both are merged together, it may result into Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus or… the High School Musical cast. Exactly 10 years ago this week, the second volume of this trilogy debuted at #1 in the US with an impressive 615,000 copies sold. Let’s bring back some memories studying this highly popular franchise!
There is no doubt that Zac Efron & friends were huge. The TV series was watched by millions, the DVDs sold past 25 million units Worldwide and the third movie, Senior Year, was issued in theaters all over the globe banking in more than $274 million.
What about their music though? The single Breaking Free spent one week inside the Top 10 in both the US and the UK, at #4 and #9 respectively. What Time Is It? had a brief peak at #6 in the US also, but that’s it. No other single from the High School Musical franchise charted higher than #20 in both countries. They had no continuity whatsoever and no song from those movies managed relevant airplay. So, while the series was popular inside the entertainment industry, was it really big inside the music industry? How have their three albums performed, as well as their singles? Are their songs still streamed to this day or was it all about a temporary hype?
As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge their results. This concept will not only bring you sales information for all High School Musical albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming, but it will also determine their true popularity. If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, the next page explains it with a short video. I fully recommend watching the video before getting into the sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to skip the video and get into the figures.
Let’s go!
Will this post also be updated with the current streaming numbers?
Hey! I’ve been browsing your popularity analysis for a while, and I have a question to make. It seems that you’re using the formula of 1500 streams = 1 album sale, but isn’t that a method used only in the USA? For example, if a song has 500,000,000 total streams, it is unrealistic to assume 100% of them are based on the USA to apply this formula to reflect on total album sales, especially that the streaming data seemingly are private and are sent exclusively to Billboard (in the USA). If that’s not the case, I hope you can elaborate… Read more »
Hi Alfonso!
I’m not sure to really understand your question. The streaming method is not supposed at all to concern the US only, in fact all streaming numbers are global. Both Spotify and YouTube provide streams of their audio/video tracks.
What I’m saying is, isn’t the formula of a 1500 streams accounting into one album sale exclusive to US streams only? I’ve seen you use this formula to gather album sales from streams throughout the world, which makes me wonder if it’s a global formula for WW streams rather than the USA only.
Hi Alfonso,
Every country is free to use the ratio they want but most of them have a ratio equal /close to 1500/1. This is the way the IFPI does. In any case, we aren’t aiming to replicate specific rules of each country – to compare accurately, we have set the same ratio for streams no matter where they come from. It sounds like the best reflection of what is really happening!
Hi MJD! I have to say, this is a very interesting read. The 3 soundtracks show similarities to both Frozen soundtrack (Disney movies) and teen acts (eg. Miley, Justin) Firstly, the HSM soundtracks sold impressively well in South America, just like 1D did. I remember you saying that that particular region has a large influence from visuals and imagery, hence artists with TV shows or movies sell bucketloads there (Whitney with Bodyguard, Miley Cyrus) Another thing similar is what you mentioned, download sales linear for the entire tracklist. Finally, a comment about the HSM trilogy sucess: while 25m+ for 3… Read more »
Thank you for doing this! I was just wondering, was the fourth movie (spin-off) “Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure” that much of a flop in terms of sales?