Full Length related records Sales – Summary
Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.
Got to be There and Ben have been steadily generating a few sales for Motown compilations here and there for many years. Forever, Michael is responsible for more than 1 million sales of compilations too mostly due to the 1981 success of One Day In Your Life.
Both Off The Wall and HIStory have solid hits and have been contributing greatly too with about 8 million equivalent album sales generated each, although always under the shadow of the remaining monsters. The share of Dangerous is higher at more than 11 million.
Things get wild with Bad. The 1987 juggernaut motivated more than 22 million sales of compilations. Thriller has no limits, with a record-breaking 40,5 million sales created including nearly 16 million music videos.
“Beat It” is the 2nd track from “Thriller” to pass 500M streams on Spotify! It’s the 6th pre-2000 album to achieve this. Here are the top 5 albums based on their 2nd biggest track, all 5 are Hard Rock albums btw. Biggest 2nd track race: 1. Nirvana “Come As You Are” (“Nevermind” – 1991) – 617.2M 2. Metallica “Nothing Else Matters” (“Metallica” – 1991) – 595.2M 3. Guns ‘N Roses “Welcome to the Jungle” (“Appetite for Destruction” – 1987) – 578.6M 4. Bon Jovi “You Give Love A Bad Name” (“Slippery When Wet” – 1986) – 509.9M 5. AC/DC “You… Read more »
Maybe you’re wondering why Queen are missing from these lists, after all they are arguably the true streaming masters among 20th century artists. But the reason is that their top SEVEN tracks on Spotify are from seven different albums! Amazing actually. Their #8 track “We are the Champions” is the 2nd biggest track on “News of the World” with 480.7M, and rank #9 in the “Biggest 2nd track race”. And what about other 20th century artists with huge Spotify tracks, like Oasis, Mariah Carey, Journey, Toto, A-ha, the Eagles, Earth Wind & Fire and the Police? Well, while hardly one-hit-wonders,… Read more »
Thanks! I love these lists!
thanks!!!
Will you do an update soon? This article was over 3 years ago.
His sales in Japan seem relatively weak for his overall Asai sales ..any reason?
It’s not that they’re weak there, he’s among the very top international sellers in Japan. It’s just that his sales in places like China, India, Taiwan and South Korea were utter massive and unmatched by any other western act at his time. You could argue he was the first western artist to ever break into the mainstream in some of these countries.
How did Madonna issue albums in a much more favourable era?
She had her peak with him and they both released albums in late 90s and early 2000s, Madonna released more.
Hi Jake!
The Stones too released albums in the 90s / early 00s, it isn’t that much relevant when we look at the sales environment they had. Invincible is far and away Jackson’s weakest album. What makes a difference is the period when an artist enjoys his hey-days. He peaked (obviously) in 1983 and the barycenter of his success through the years isn’t that much later. Madonna’s one is 6-8 years later, and the market in early 90s was already way bigger than in mid-80s.
Didn’t most of Madonna albums flop in the 90s? She just had one successful album with Ray of Light!
I don’t think an average of 10.3 million in the 90’s (without Ray of Light) is a flop 😗. Don’t confuse a flop with not being as ridiculously huge she was in the 80’s.