Avril Lavigne albums and songs sales
In 2002, Avril Lavigne took the music scene by storm with her debut album Let Go. Unlike the remaining teen pop stars, her sound involved rock elements which didn’t stop her from becoming one of the main idols of her generation.
Recent years have been harder for the Canadian diva though. Off the radar since 2013, she announced on her Instagram account a couple of days ago that her upcoming album is in its final stages of production. Will she be able to reverse the downward spiral she is currently in and record a new hit? We will found out soon enough. In the meantime, let’s review her past achievements!
ChartMasters’ method: the CSPC
As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept (CSPC) in order to relevantly gauge the act’s results. It will not only bring you sales information for all albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. In fact, it will really determine the act’s popularity.
If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, below is a nice and short video of explaining the concept. I recommend watching it before reading on and to the sales figures. You’ll get the idea in just two minutes.
And if you want to know the full method as well as formulas, you can read the full introduction article.
Now let’s get into the artist’s detailed sales figures!
Avril Lavigne original albums sales
Let Go (2002)
- America
- US – 7,100,000
- Canada – 1,100,000
- Argentina – 90,000
- Brazil – 350,000
- Mexico – 150,000
- Asia – 2,585,000
- Japan – 1,750,000
- South Korea – 260,000
- Taiwan – 150,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 550,000
- New Zealand – 80,000
- Europe – 3,990,000
- UK – 1,820,000
- France – 430,000
- Germany – 500,000
- Italy – 240,000
- Spain – 110,000
- Sweden – 65,000
- Netherland – 95,000
- Switzerland – 85,000
- Austria – 60,000
- Finland – 18,000
- World – 16,220,000
Under My Skin (2004)
- America
- US – 3,300,000
- Canada – 540,000
- Argentina – 70,000
- Brazil – 260,000
- Mexico – 120,000
- Asia – 1,575,000
- Japan – 1,125,000
- South Korea – 100,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 100,000
- New Zealand – 10,000
- Europe – 1,920,000
- UK – 660,000
- France – 220,000
- Germany – 320,000
- Italy – 190,000
- Spain – 55,000
- Sweden – 20,000
- Netherland – 25,000
- Switzerland – 60,000
- Austria – 40,000
- Finland – 13,000
- World – 8,020,000
The Best Damn Thing (2007)
- America
- US – 1,800,000
- Canada – 380,000
- Argentina – 35,000
- Brazil – 120,000
- Mexico – 110,000
- Asia – 1,490,000
- Japan – 1,080,000
- South Korea – 30,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 160,000
- New Zealand – 15,000
- Europe – 1,480,000
- UK – 480,000
- France – 200,000
- Germany – 240,000
- Italy – 170,000
- Spain – 25,000
- Sweden – 20,000
- Netherland – 10,000
- Switzerland – 45,000
- Austria – 30,000
- Finland – 13,000
- World – 5,660,000
Goodbye Lullaby (2011)
- America
- US – 410,000
- Canada – 65,000
- Argentina – N/A
- Brazil – 55,000
- Mexico – 30,000
- Asia – 720,000
- Japan – 480,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 40,000
- New Zealand – 5,000
- Europe – 300,000
- UK – 85,000
- France – 30,000
- Germany – 50,000
- Italy – 45,000
- Spain – 10,000
- Sweden – 3,000
- Netherland – 5,000
- Switzerland – 10,000
- Austria – 5,000
- Finland – 3,000
- World – 1,650,000
Avril Lavigne (2013)
- America
- US – 165,000
- Canada – 40,000
- Argentina – N/A
- Brazil – 40,000
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – 340,000
- Japan – 225,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 10,000
- New Zealand – 1,000
- Europe – 120,000
- UK – 40,000
- France – 10,000
- Germany – 20,000
- Italy – 15,000
- Spain – 5,000
- Sweden – 1,000
- Netherland – 2,000
- Switzerland – 4,000
- Austria – 2,000
- Finland – 1,000
- World – 740,000
Original Album Sales – Comments
Lavigne was off to a superb start with her debut album Let Go selling 16,22 million units. Logically her following albums haven’t equalled this magnitude of success, but they were big in their own right with Under My Skin shifting past 8 million copies while The Best Damn Thing, issued when downloads were already negatively impacting album sales, moved 5,66 million units. All 3 albums had insane sales in Japan, shifting close to 4 million sales combined there.
Goodbye Lullaby and Avril Lavigne have been flagged as flop albums and their album sales certainly do not prove otherwise. However, have they done well enough in singles downloads and streams to save them from this conclusion?
2002 Let Go – 16,220,000
2004 Under My Skin – 8,020,000
2007 The Best Damn Thing – 5,660,000
2011 Goodbye Lullaby – 1,650,000
2013 Avril Lavigne – 740,000
Avril Lavigne physical singles sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
By 2002 majors weren’t releasing proper singles anymore in the US. Hits from Let Go were only available as video singles, a format with limited impact. The success in Europe and Oceania was big enough to grant Complicated nearly 1 million sales, while Sk8er Boi and I’m with You sold around 400,000 units a piece.
Hits from Under My Skin had a lower impact and also during a less favorable context with physical sales starting to collapse in Europe too. The situation only worsened by 2007, but Girlfriend was so big that it still registered 420,000 sales in that dying format.
Let Go (2002) – 606,000 equivalent albums
Losing Grip – 170,000
Complicated – 990,000
Sk8er Boi – 470,000
I’m with You – 390,000
Under My Skin (2004) – 228,000 equivalent albums
Don’t Tell Me – 270,000
He Wasn’t – 80,000
My Happy Ending – 270,000
Nobody’s Home – 140,000
The Best Damn Thing (2007) – 192,000 equivalent albums
Girlfriend – 420,000
The Best Damn Thing – 10,000
When You’re Gone – 160,000
Hot – 40,000
Goodbye Lullaby (2011) – 18,000 equivalent albums
What the Hell – 40,000
Wish You Were Here – 10,000
Smile – 10,000
Avril Lavigne (2013) – 6,000 equivalent albums
All singles – 20,000
Orphan – 2,000 equivalent albums
All singles – 7,500
Avril Lavigne digital singles sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.
Complicated, Sk8er Boi and I’m with You were all released before the digital age but their appeal continued in later years. They are all well over a million downloads and ringtones, in fact they sold nearly 7 million combined!
Don’t Tell Me, My Happy Ending and Nobody’s Home are arguably weaker, but with 4 million sales in total they aren’t forgotten either.
Then comes The Best Damn Thing, the first era which enjoyed an already existing digital market. Girlfriend was one of the first monster hits in that format recording stunning results both in downloads and in ringtones sales. Combined, it sold well over 5 million in the US, far more than 2 million in Japan and a total of 11,63 million globally. When You’re Gone and Keep Holding On are both multi-million sellers, contributing to the era total of more than 19 million singles sales.
What the Hell is rarely regarded as a big hit, but its 2,25 million US sales, added to its more than 1 million units in both Japan and South Korea, push the total to over 6 million. Later songs weren’t quite as big with most of them struggling to reach a million sales worldwide in spite of the strong popularity Avril Lavigne has in Asia.
Let Go (2002) – 1,106,000 equivalent albums
Complicated – 2,760,000
Sk8er Boi – 2,560,000
I’m with You – 1,550,000
Remaining tracks – 500,000
Under My Skin (2004) – 657,000 equivalent albums
Don’t Tell Me – 710,000
My Happy Ending – 2,120,000
Nobody’s Home – 1,150,000
Remaining tracks – 400,000
The Best Damn Thing (2007) – 2,873,000 equivalent albums
Girlfriend – 11,630,000
When You’re Gone – 3,130,000
Hot – 1,110,000
Keep Holding On – 2,480,000
Remaining tracks – 800,000
Goodbye Lullaby (2011) – 1,590,000 equivalent albums
What the Hell – 6,040,000
Wish You Were Here – 1,150,000
Smile – 950,000
Alice – 1,260,000
Remaining tracks – 1,200,000
Avril Lavigne (2013) – 593,000 equivalent albums
Rock n Roll – 760,000
Here’s to Never Growing Up – 2,080,000
Let Me Go – 410,000
Remaining tracks – 700,000
Orphan – 105,000 equivalent albums
Remaining tracks – 700,000
Avril Lavigne streaming sales
Streaming is made up of two families – audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 132 million of the 212 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:
Audio Stream – 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream – 11,750 views equal 1 album unit
Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750
Streaming Part 1
As Lavigne hasn’t had a successful single since the start of the streaming boom we may expect low numbers from her on those platforms. It is even more valid since the Asian popularity of the singer will hardly be reflected on Spotify where the brand is irrelevant. Despite these two aspects her results are far from bad. Complicated is up to 130 million streams there while it is closing in on 300 million YouTube views. Both Sk8ter Boy and I’m with You post great totals too with a combined 125 million on Spotify and 317 million on YouTube.
The most surprising results are the consistency of the album tracks. Debut albums from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera have their album cuts around 1 million streams on Spotify. Let Go‘s songs are far stronger with every song in the 3-7 million range. This shoots it to 400,000 equivalent album sales from streams.
Under My Skin is just as consistent but lacks big hits with no song reaching 50 million on Spotify. It has 180,000 equivalent album sales overall.
Streaming Part 2
Girlfriend has 68 million streams on Spotify. While this isn’t low for a 2007 song, it isn’t as big as we may of thought. The monster YouTube figure of nearly 500 million confirms she suffers from the weakness of a lack of Spotify in the Asian continent. When You’re Gone is close behind with 59 million audio streams, while 3 more tracks are over 10 million. The album has sold 354,000 units via streaming.
Goodbye Lullaby may have been weaker upon release, but it is nearly as high at 341,000 equivalent album sales. It is powered by heavy YouTube views at more than 1,2 billion but it also has a complete list of songs over 5 million on Spotify. What the Hell and Wish You Were Here break 100 million cumulatively.
Streaming Part 3
Huge streams of the eponymous album from 2013 are quite good if we consider how much of a flop it was claimed to be. Once again the entire set of songs is over 4 million with as many as 6 songs topping 10 million. The same songs all crack 50 million on YouTube including 4 over 100 million. This brings the album total to 280,000 equivalent album sales, 38% as much as its pure album sales, a strong ratio for a 2013 release of an artist with a well-established fan base.
There aren’t many interesting statistics inside the Orphan category with only some outtakes plus a few covers.
Avril Lavigne full length related record sales
It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era – studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams – to get the full picture of an album’s popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.
All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.
How to understand this table? If you check for example the My World line, those figures mean it sold 850,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 407,000 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.
The second part on the right of the table shows how many equivalent streams are coming from each original album, plus the share it represents on the overall package. Thus, streaming figures tell us songs from the Let Go album are responsible for 98 % of the My World track list attractiveness. This means it generated 835,000 its 850,000 album sales and so forth for the other records.
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.
Since the main long format release outside of her studio albums is the Live / DVD record My World which was full of Let Go songs, this album is naturally the strongest provider of compilation sales at more than 1 million units.
BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country
- America
- US – 13,145,000
- Canada – 2,195,000
- Argentina – 220,000
- Brazil – 950,000
- Mexico – 445,000
- Asia – 6,870,000
- Japan – 4,770,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 890,000
- New Zealand – 115,000
- Europe – 7,920,000
- UK – 3,125,000
- France – 915,000
- Germany – 1,155,000
- Italy – 665,000
- Spain – 205,000
- Sweden – 110,000
- Netherland – 135,000
- Switzerland – 205,000
- Austria – 135,000
- Finland – 45,000
- World – 33,140,000
Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.
Avril Lavigne Career CSPC Results
So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Avril Lavigne achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!
In the following results table, all categories display figures in equivalent album sales. If different, pure sales are listed between parentheses.
As a reminder:
- Studio Album: sales of the original album
- Other Releases: sales of compilations generated thanks to the album
- Physical Singles: sales of physical singles from the album (ratio 3/10)
- Download Singles: sales of digital singles from the album (ratio 1,5/10)
- Streaming: equivalent album sales of all the album tracks (ratio 1/1500 for Audio stream and 1/6750 for Video stream)
Artist career totals
See where the artist ranks among remaining singers
At 19,34 million equivalent album sales, Let Go is clearly one of the most successful albums from the 00s. There may be some frustration in seeing both Under My Skin and The Best Damn Thing under 10 million, but over 9 million three times in a row is no easy feat. Often regarded as a one-album wonder nowadays, the figures prove that Lavigne was a terrific seller for 3 successive campaigns.
Goodbye Lullaby and Avril Lavigne show a decline that can’t be contested, but their figures aren’t as chaotic as they were upon release. They close in on 3,6 million and 1,6 million respectively, not big nor consistent, but not irrelevant either. The positive indicator for the singer is that all her albums are solid on streaming platforms which means her fans can hope her upcoming records will not automatically bomb, plus her catalog is going to increase steadily in the future.
Her five albums together, along with the few orphan tracks released sparingly, add for 43,06 million equivalent album sales. This puts her in the same league as the likes of Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga and Norah Jones. All the aforementioned artists are on 50 million equivalent album sales in total, but also all with slightly larger discographies.
The following sections list her most successful songs as well as her records and achievements.
As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!
Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Chartmasters.org.
BIGGEST TRACKS – Avril Lavigne
The list of most successful songs is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each of them. It includes the song’s own physical singles sales with a 0,3 weighting, its download and streaming sales, and with appropriate weighting too, plus its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.
1. 2002 – Complicated [Let Go] – 7,620,000
2. 2002 – Sk8er Boi [Let Go] – 4,620,000
3. 2007 – Girlfriend [The Best Damn Thing] – 3,880,000
4. 2004 – My Happy Ending [Under My Skin] – 3,270,000
5. 2002 – I’m with You [Let Go] – 3,010,000
6. 2007 – When You’re Gone [The Best Damn Thing] – 2,280,000
7. 2004 – Nobody’s Home [Under My Skin] – 1,550,000
8. 2011 – What the Hell [Goodbye Lullaby] – 1,520,000
9. 2006 – Keep Holding On [The Best Damn Thing] – 990,000
10. 2004 – Don’t Tell Me [Under My Skin] – 980,000
Records & Achievements
- At 1,750,000, Let Go is the highest selling international studio album in Japan this millennium.
- At 3, Avril Lavigne has the most million selling albums in Japan this millennium among international artists.
- At 7,620,000 equivalent album sales, Complicated is the third most successful song from 2002.
- At 19,338,000 equivalent album sales, Let Go is the third most successful album from 2002.
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