Red Hot Chili Peppers albums and songs sales
In terms of cultural impact, no region in the world comes close to California. From Hollywood to the Lakers to the Kardashian family to Compton rappers to Marilyn Monroe to Neverland to the Beach Boys, the state has been feeding the Pop Culture since more than a century. A band perfectly summarizes this established fact, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The band’s first four albums were received with poor to moderate success. It took them a song about their love to Los Angeles to reach superstardom, Under The Bridge. Then, they recovered their A-League success with one more L.A.-tainted record, the classic LP Californication.
Obviously, their career and their success went much further than this area. Indeed, they got big in Latin America, Europe, Australasia and Asia, pretty much everywhere. While it is very easy to link them geographically, it is harder to identify clearly their spot inside the time segment. The band debuted years before the likes Guns N’ Roses and New Kids on the Block but their late peak make them look more recent than Oasis and the Cranberries. As they are still dropping new albums with the last example being 2016’s The Gateway the feeling is even stronger. In spite of both longevity and global success, the Red Hot Chili Peppers never appear among the top selling bands of all-time. Is it a faulty omission or a misconception of their real popularity?
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!
Original Albums Sales
The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984)
- America
- US – 300,000
- Canada – N/A
- Argentina – N/A
- Brazil – N/A
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – N/A
- Japan – N/A
- Oceania
- Australia – N/A
- New Zealand – N/A
- Europe – 240,000
- UK – 60,000
- France – 25,000
- Germany – N/A
- Italy – 35,000
- Spain – N/A
- Sweden – N/A
- Netherland – N/A
- Switzerland – N/A
- Austria – N/A
- Finland – N/A
- World – 630,000
Freaky Styley (1985)
- America
- US – 450,000
- Canada – N/A
- Argentina – N/A
- Brazil – N/A
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – N/A
- Japan – N/A
- Oceania
- Australia – N/A
- New Zealand – N/A
- Europe – 330,000
- UK – 100,000
- France – 30,000
- Germany – N/A
- Italy – 35,000
- Spain – N/A
- Sweden – N/A
- Netherland – N/A
- Switzerland – N/A
- Austria – N/A
- Finland – N/A
- World – 890,000
The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987)
- America
- US – 650,000
- Canada – N/A
- Argentina – N/A
- Brazil – N/A
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – N/A
- Japan – N/A
- Oceania
- Australia – N/A
- New Zealand – N/A
- Europe – 310,000
- UK – 90,000
- France – 25,000
- Germany – N/A
- Italy – 40,000
- Spain – N/A
- Sweden – N/A
- Netherland – N/A
- Switzerland – N/A
- Austria – N/A
- Finland – N/A
- World – 1,080,000
Mother’s Milk (1989)
- America
- US – 1,600,000
- Canada – 125,000
- Argentina – N/A
- Brazil – N/A
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – N/A
- Japan – N/A
- Oceania
- Australia – 100,000
- New Zealand – 15,000
- Europe – 560,000
- UK – 160,000
- France – 45,000
- Germany – N/A
- Italy – 75,000
- Spain – N/A
- Sweden – N/A
- Netherland – 40,000
- Switzerland – N/A
- Austria – N/A
- Finland – N/A
- World – 2,630,000
Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
- America
- US – 7,700,000
- Canada – 720,000
- Argentina – 130,000
- Brazil – N/A
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – 850,000
- Japan – 400,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 450,000
- New Zealand – 100,000
- Europe – 3,880,000
- UK – 950,000
- France – 500,000
- Germany – 560,000
- Italy – 260,000
- Spain – 325,000
- Sweden – 150,000
- Netherland – 240,000
- Switzerland – 100,000
- Austria – 45,000
- Finland – 35,000
- World – 14,430,000
One Hot Minute (1995)
- America
- US – 2,350,000
- Canada – 250,000
- Argentina – 70,000
- Brazil – N/A
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – 600,000
- Japan – 350,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 260,000
- New Zealand – 45,000
- Europe – 1,990,000
- UK – 325,000
- France – 475,000
- Germany – 275,000
- Italy – 200,000
- Spain – 90,000
- Sweden – 60,000
- Netherland – 55,000
- Switzerland – 50,000
- Austria – 30,000
- Finland – 30,000
- World – 5,850,000
Californication (1999)
- America
- US – 5,900,000
- Canada – 780,000
- Argentina – 205,000
- Brazil – 720,000
- Mexico – 275,000
- Asia – 1,265,000
- Japan – 625,000
- Indonesia – 275,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 620,000
- New Zealand – 150,000
- Europe – 6,000,000
- UK – 1,250,000
- France – 575,000
- Germany – 1,000,000
- Italy – 890,000
- Spain – 260,000
- Sweden – 250,000
- Netherland – 300,000
- Switzerland – 180,000
- Austria – 80,000
- Finland – 70,000
- World – 16,270,000
By the Way (2002)
- America
- US – 2,250,000
- Canada – 300,000
- Argentina – 80,000
- Brazil – 280,000
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – 1,070,000
- Japan – 675,000
- Indonesia – 150,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 390,000
- New Zealand – 50,000
- Europe – 4,630,000
- UK – 2,040,000
- France – 420,000
- Germany – 525,000
- Italy – 410,000
- Spain – 175,000
- Sweden – 80,000
- Netherland – 120,000
- Switzerland – 100,000
- Austria – 50,000
- Finland – 35,000
- World – 9,390,000
Stadium Arcadium (2006)
- America
- US – 2,500,000
- Canada – 340,000
- Argentina – 50,000
- Brazil – 65,000
- Mexico – 55,000
- Asia – 775,000
- Japan – 545,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 280,000
- New Zealand – 65,000
- Europe – 2,860,000
- UK – 835,000
- France – 245,000
- Germany – 550,000
- Italy – 255,000
- Spain – 65,000
- Sweden – 70,000
- Netherland – 165,000
- Switzerland – 90,000
- Austria – 60,000
- Finland – 22,000
- World – 7,130,000
I’m with You (2011)
- America
- US – 650,000
- Canada – 80,000
- Argentina – 25,000
- Brazil – 60,000
- Mexico – 20,000
- Asia – 285,000
- Japan – 220,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 85,000
- New Zealand – 15,000
- Europe – 960,000
- UK – 210,000
- France – 140,000
- Germany – 220,000
- Italy – 75,000
- Spain – 17,500
- Sweden – 15,000
- Netherland – 35,000
- Switzerland – 32,500
- Austria – 20,000
- Finland – 15,000
- World – 2,230,000
The Getaway (2016)
- America
- US – 500,000
- Canada – 65,000
- Argentina – 15,000
- Brazil – 20,000
- Mexico – 10,000
- Asia – 145,000
- Japan – 110,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 35,000
- New Zealand – 5,000
- Europe – 510,000
- UK – 120,000
- France – 65,000
- Germany – 125,000
- Italy – 40,000
- Spain – 6,000
- Sweden – 5,000
- Netherland – 25,000
- Switzerland – 15,000
- Austria – 10,000
- Finland – 5,000
- World – 1,340,000
Original Album Sales – Comments
The Red Hot Chili Peppers album sales follow the typical wave-like trajectory, although a la Green Day they managed two peaks instead of one. Over the course of 11 studio albums, they sold 61,87 million units. Their big 5 issued from 1991 to 2006 account for 53,07 million of this total. A very solid tally, on par with the top selling bands of the 90s/00s.
Once we get deeper into figures, we notice some anomalies. Blood Sugar Sex Magik is their top seller in the US, By The Way leads their results in the UK, it does so in Japan too where Stadium Arcadium came close. In other words, they have distinct albums leading their personal tallies in the 3 biggest markets of the world… but the leader is never their top global seller, Californication.
It is rather rare to see an act with 3, 4 different studio albums performing the best here and there. It gets even weirder when we know that they haven’t really changed their music style in the meantime. They first peaked in the US, then in Europe, then in Asia. By the look of it, their first successes weren’t supported enough by their label overseas.
This theory seems dubious when we consider that Blood Sugar Sex Magik sold nearly 6 million copies out of North America. While this is true, that is mostly thanks to catalog sales. The album sold next to nothing in Japan and Brazil upon release and it remained uncharted in several key markets for the band like Italy. More surprising, it peaked at only #25 in the UK with only 1 week inside the Top 40. Considering how massive the band got in later years and how popular Under The Bridge still is, we can safely believe that the album had potential for even higher sales.
1984 The Red Hot Chili Peppers – 630,000
1985 Freaky Styley – 890,000
1987 The Uplift Mofo Party Plan – 1,080,000
1989 Mother’s Milk – 2,630,000
1991 Blood Sugar Sex Magik – 14,430,000
1995 One Hot Minute – 5,850,000
1999 Californication – 16,270,000
2002 By the Way – 9,390,000
2006 Stadium Arcadium – 7,130,000
2011 I’m with You – 2,230,000
2016 The Getaway – 1,340,000
Physical Singles Sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
1984-89
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were nobodies during the 80s. They got various releases but they all sold poorly. The first song which gained some kind of attention was Higher Ground from their fourth album Mother’s Milk.
After these albums, the band left EMI to sign with Warner Bros. The former label released plenty of cheap compilations of those recordings once the band became popular.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984) – 15,000 equivalent albums
Get Up and Jump – 50,000
Freaky Styley (1985) – 18,000 equivalent albums
Hollywood (Africa) – 60,000
The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987) – 27,000 equivalent albums
Fight Like a Brave – 70,000
Behind the Sun – 20,000
Mother’s Milk (1989) – 78,000 equivalent albums
Higher Ground – 200,000
Knock Me Down – 20,000
Taste the Pain – 40,000
1991-2002
Give It Away was a minor hit upon release. It peaked at #76 in the US and failed to chart in the UK, but it went on to become a Top 10 hit in 1994 when Warner Bros started to understand the potential of the band there. It sold a third of a million copies globally and paved the way for their true breakthrough hit, Under The Bridge. The iconic track went to #2 in the US, ranking among the Top 10 songs of 1992 in Billboard sales ranking. While it went to #1 in Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium, the song was unreleased in France, failed the Top 10 in Germany and peaked at #26 in the UK. This one too was reissued in 1994, outpeaking its original performance at #13. At 1,54 million copies, this remains easily their highest selling physical single to date.
In fact, later hits haven’t sold that much in this format. Their big hits Californication, Scar Tissue, Otherside, By the Way and The Zephyr Song are all in the 100,000-350,000 sales range while Can’t Stop hasn’t even got there. Most of them had limited releases with expensive formats (Maxi Singles, 7″, 12″) for collectors which explains their low sales.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) – 603,000 equivalent albums
Give It Away – 340,000
Under the Bridge – 1,540,000
Breaking the Girl – 70,000
Suck My Kiss – 50,000
If You Have to Ask – 10,000
One Hot Minute (1995) – 111,000 equivalent albums
Warped – 90,000
Aeroplane – 120,000
My Friends – 110,000
Coffee Shop – 10,000
Shallow Be Thy Game – 40,000
Californication (1999) – 174,000 equivalent albums
Around the World – 60,000
Scar Tissue – 250,000
Otherside – 120,000
Californication – 100,000
Road Trippin’ – 50,000
By the Way (2002) – 159,000 equivalent albums
By the Way – 340,000
Universally Speaking – 30,000
The Zephyr Song – 100,000
Can’t Stop – 60,000
2006 onwards and orphan songs
The era Stadium Arcadium was the last one that lived the days of physical singles. Dani California is easily the best performer among its extracts. Since 2011, only limited releases have been issued.
A few orphan songs came out over the years too as part of soundtracks or to promote compilations. The biggest of them is the #22 US hit from 1993, Soul to Squeeze.
Stadium Arcadium (2006) – 96,000 equivalent albums
Dani California – 150,000
Snow ((Hey Oh)) – 100,000
Hump de Bump – 10,000
Desecration Smile – 20,000
Tell Me Baby – 40,000
I’m with You (2011) – 3,000 equivalent albums
All Singles – 10,000
The Getaway (2016) – 2,000 equivalent albums
All Singles – 7,000
Orphan – 153,000 equivalent albums
Fortune Faded – 90,000
Soul to Squeeze – 320,000
Love Rollercoaster – 80,000
Digital Singles Sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.
1984-89
As we can easily notice through their YouTube or Spotify streams, all songs from the band from the 80s are forgotten minus Higher Ground. Well, rather than forgotten, they have never been known in first place, which explains their atrocious digital sales.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984) – 9,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 60,000
Freaky Styley (1985) – 11,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 70,000
The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987) – 12,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 80,000
Mother’s Milk (1989) – 63,000 equivalent albums
Higher Ground – 250,000
Remaining tracks – 170,000
19991-2002
One Hot Minute sold well upon release thanks to the fanbase aquired by its predecessors, but its singles haven’t faced well the test of time. It is the opposite for all remaining eras of this list.
Albums Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication and By The Way were all already catalog items when iTunes was launched in late 2004. Still, they all produced multiple million selling digital hits and they all contain one song over 3 million downloads and ringtones to date. They are respectively Under the Bridge, Californication and Can’t Stop. Combined, songs from this period sold a whopping 24 million units in digital formats.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) – 1,032,000 equivalent albums
Give It Away – 1,260,000
Under the Bridge – 4,720,000
Remaining tracks – 900,000
One Hot Minute (1995) – 93,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 620,000
Californication (1999) – 1,400,000 equivalent albums
Around the World – 510,000
Parallel Universe – 620,000
Scar Tissue – 1,820,000
Otherside – 1,260,000
Californication – 3,910,000
Remaining tracks – 1,210,000
By the Way (2002) – 1,077,000 equivalent albums
By the Way – 1,540,000
The Zephyr Song – 1,150,000
Can’t Stop – 3,010,000
Remaining tracks – 1,480,000
2006 onwards and orphan songs
The Red Hot Chili Peppers jumped into the digital era with the 2006 effort Stadium Arcadium. They did it in great fashion as Dani California quickly became a million seller in the US in a time of low digital sales. It is also one of the few million selling digital single in Japan from an international artist. It has go on to sell more than 7 million units. Snow (Hey Oh)‘s success wasn’t so immediate but the song became a real favorite among the band’s fans, it sold nearly 5 million copies to date.
I’m with You came out close to the peak of downloads, but its singles bombed hard. The lead single The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie failed to break 1 million which was a fairly easy target back then and subsequent singles did even worse. Taking into account its context, Dark Necessities did someway better for The Gateway but still bad overall. Songs from both albums combined account for a mere 5% of the band’s 44 million digital sales, a disastrous result considering the market size during their promotional days.
Stadium Arcadium (2006) – 2,444,000 equivalent albums
Dani California – 7,410,000
Snow ((Hey Oh)) – 4,890,000
Tell Me Baby – 1,690,000
Remaining tracks – 2,300,000
I’m with You (2011) – 251,000 equivalent albums
The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie – 950,000
Remaining tracks – 720,000
The Getaway (2016) – 84,000 equivalent albums
Dark Necessities – 440,000
Remaining tracks – 120,000
Orphan – 191,000 equivalent albums
Soul to Squeeze – 720,000
Remaining tracks – 550,000
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
Since none of these songs was a hit in first place and none got promoted in later years, it comes as no surprise to see no song with even 5,000 equivalent album sales from streams. They do have some consistent streams at their level though, undoubtedly coming mostly from the fanbase of the band.
Streaming Part 2
Mother’s Milk is a real improvement from its predecessors. At 72,000 EAS, it has more streams than all 3 of them combined. Higher Ground is the main force of the record with over half of its streams including a sizable 34 million plays on Spotify.
What can we say about Blood Sugar Sex Magik then? Most album cuts are around 4-7 million streams on Spotify, a very strong showing, typical of rock classics. Former singles Breaking the Girl and Suck My Kiss do well at nearly 20 million or more streams and Give It Away raises the bar to a healthy 71 million. All good numbers, they are completely overshadowed by the monster track Under The Bridge. The iconic song stands at 302 million streams on Spotify. In fact, this week it became only the 11th pre-2000 song to crack 300 million streams on the platform. In good part thanks to this song, the album as a whole registers 578,000 EAS.
Streaming Part 3
For many artists, having 2 songs around 20 million streams on Spotify from a 90s album would be excellent. It isn’t for the Red Hot Chili Peppers though as their numbers there are stunning. One Hot Minute is nowhere near their standards. All its tracks around 2 million, a pretty respectable showing still.
Then comes the juggernaut Californication. Previously, we mentioned Under The Bridge was the 11th pre-2000 track to break the 300 million plateau on Spotify. The 10th was no other than Californication, making the band the only act so far with 2 songs on this list of all-time golden hits. On top of that, the album owns much more than one big hit. With Otherside at 207 million and Scar Tissue at 167 million, it is one of the 3 catalog albums ever to contain a trio of songs at this level. The LP also includes 3 more songs around 30 million a piece and 12 album cuts which average more than 8 million plays. These mind-blowing numbers add for over 1 million EAS.
Streaming Part 4
If it was possible to guess the stunning results of Californication, it is some kind of a surprise to see both By The Way and Stadium Arcadium at this magnitude of success.
Both albums contain one song with over 200 million streams on Spotify, Can’t Stop and Snow ((Hey Oh)), respectively. They haven’t been that big upon release but more it goes and more popular they get. Then both albums also got one more 100-million plus track with By The Way and Dani California.
It’s album cuts which impress the most still. These two records include a total of 46 (!) songs, yet they are all on 5 million or more. This consistency is remarkable for albums which aren’t rated as absolute rock classics and with such an extensive track list. Stadium Arcadium amasses as many as 16 tracks over 10 million. By The Way stands on 647,000 EAS and Stadium Arcadium on 855,000 EAS, both incredible showings.
Streaming Part 5
It is obvious that I’m With You and The Gateway do not include monster hits like their predecessors. Their streams are still fairly consistent. Logically, the latter is higher with 460,000 EAS as it came out after the explosion of audio streaming, but the former also does well at 215,000 EAS.
Streaming Part 6
Nearly all relevant songs of the band came out as part of their studio albums. As a result, the Orphan section includes almost only outtakes or early recordings. The only exception is Soul to Squeeze at 37 million streams on Spotify.
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 this example of Greatest Hits, those figures mean it sold 8,700,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 1,664,200 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.
The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album plus the share it represents on the overall package streams. Thus, streaming figures tell us Californication songs are responsible for 54% of the Greatest Hits tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 4,669,000 of its 8,700,000 album sales. We will now apply this concept to all compilations, live albums, music videos and EPs.
Part 1 – 80s recordings
This first list of compilations, music videos, boxes and EPs includes almost exclusively their EMI recordings from the 80s. Mostly unpopular tunes, they all sold quite poorly. The highest seller is Out In L.A. which sold a bit after the explosion of Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
Part 2 – BSSM-centric Records
The success of the 1991 album inevitably led the band’s pair of labels to release several kind of products. We pointed out earlier that the group could have possibly sold more albums considering how popular their catalog is. Streaming numbers confirmed this feeling as their discography is as strong or bigger than bands like Queen and Metallica there, yet their sales are quite lower.
This table of compilations confirms one more time the poor management of Warner Bros in this case. The single Under The Bridge smashed during the summer of 1992. After that, instead of using this new popularity to consolidate the band and build a fanbase with one or several proper subsequent singles, depending on the market they re-released a former single, Give It Away, they rush-released Suck My Kiss with a video using old footages and they sent Breaking the Girl for airplay without doing a thing.
While the album was still very hot thanks to Under The Bridge and without letting time to following singles to climb up the airplay rankings, Warner accepted to let EMI use Under The Bridge on their cash-in compilation, What Hits?! released in September 1992. Comfortably Top 20 for 28 weeks, the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik felt out the Top 50 in 4 weeks only after the release of this package and never climbed back in spite of additional singles. This terrible misstep caused Warner’s studio album to lose several million sales, millions of potential fans to be disappointed by this irregular compilation and it sent the signal to all Medias that the band was regarded as a one-hit wonder by their own label. At the end of the day, 4,5 million sales worth of compilations were enjoyed by EMI… with some 82% of them fueled by a Warner song.
Part 3 – Career-spanning packages
The irony of the aforementioned EMI-Warner deal is that both agreed to let the other label use one of their recordings for a compilation. EMI included Under The Bridge on What Hits?!, a song responsible for 82% of its strength. On its side, Warner had the blessing of including Higher Ground on Greatest Hits, a song which added 2% of value to it… well.
At least, the band went on to prove their popularity through the years and to build a massive catalog. Massive enough to register 8,7 million sales with their 2003 Greatest Hits, one of the biggest compilations of its era. The band sold kind of average numbers on music videos since once again their label issued only sub-par quality packages. Live at Slane Castle still sold a healthy 725,000 thanks to the tremendous fame of the group by 2003.
We can notice that Californication is the main factor of success for all these releases, followed by Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The low impact of By The Way on their Greatest Hits can be surprising. It denotes one more error from the label as both The Zephyr Song and Can’t Stop were left out of the track list to let room for the much less popular Universally Speaking.
One more very strange decision is the release of Live in Hyde Park. The package came out a mere 8 months after Greatest Hits while both records contain mostly the same songs. Worst, their first live album ever, it wasn’t issued in the US at all, nor in markets like in Brazil where the band was gigantic and which is well-known for being the most receptive market in the World for live sets.
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.
Both Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication provided the biggest boost of their catalog, most notably fueling What Hits?! and Greatest Hits, respectively. The tiny impact of Stadium Arcadium is explained by the absence of video / live releases after it.
BONUS: Compilation Albums Sales
Greatest Hits (2003)
- America
- US – 2,550,000
- Canada – 275,000
- Argentina – 90,000
- Brazil – 220,000
- Mexico – N/A
- Asia – 1,025,000
- Japan – 575,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 530,000
- New Zealand – 75,000
- Europe – 3,610,000
- UK – 1,490,000
- France – 375,000
- Germany – 450,000
- Italy – 270,000
- Spain – 120,000
- Sweden – 60,000
- Netherland – 140,000
- Switzerland – 90,000
- Austria – 50,000
- Finland – 20,000
- World – 8,700,000
BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country
- America
- US – 29,550,000
- Canada – 3,205,000
- Argentina – 690,000
- Brazil – 1,825,000
- Mexico – 725,000
- Asia – 6,930,000
- Japan – 4,020,000
- Oceania
- Australia – 3,065,000
- New Zealand – 585,000
- Europe – 28,000,000
- UK – 8,440,000
- France – 3,100,000
- Germany – 3,980,000
- Italy – 2,770,000
- Spain – 1,160,000
- Sweden – 735,000
- Netherland – 1,195,000
- Switzerland – 710,000
- Austria – 375,000
- Finland – 265,000
- World – 76,435,000
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.
Red Hot Chili Peppers Career CSPC Results
So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Red Hot Chili Peppers 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
It took a very long way to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to find the success. Once they got it, they definitely made sure to retain it for as long as possible.
A string of 6 consecutive albums over 4 million equivalent album sales isn’t something that can be claimed by many artists. Two of them, Mother’s Milk and One Hot Minute, made it mostly thanks to the fans gained from the remaining 1991-2006 albums.
In fact, these remaining albums are the big deal. Both Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication close counts on similarly impressive numbers. The former is close to 24 million equivalent album sales while the latter is over that mark. As they are increasing truly well on streaming and still selling well too, it is only a matter of time before they both top 25 million.
By The Way and Stadium Arcadium shouldn’t be ashamed of their numbers either. They both reach the 8 digits comprehensive total of sales generated at 12,6 million and 10,5 million, respectively. They also remain insanely strong on streaming platforms so their future is bright.
Considering how strong the band has been during 15 years, the initial albums are disappointing. They never managed to be noticed.
I’m With You was a huge failure. Coming from back to back to back 10-million sellers, it stopped its way on 2,7 million equivalent album sales which can’t be regarded as good no matter how we look at it. The record continues to grow but not as fast as its predecessors so the gap will only increase. The Gateway hasn’t been a recovery for the band but at least it secured their fanbase with a very respectable 1,9 million total sales. With its members now aging 55 and more, a rebound in the future seems unlikely.
In total, the Red Hot Chili Peppers sold 91 million equivalent albums sales. With streaming equivalent album sales of 4,1 million, this figure will keep on going up at fast pace.
The following sections list their most successful songs as well as their records and achievements.
As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!
Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs, Chartmasters.org.
BIGGEST TRACKS – Red Hot Chili Peppers
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. 1991 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge [Blood Sugar Sex Magik] – 16,160,000
2. 1999 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication [Californication] – 9,160,000
3. 1999 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Otherside [Californication] – 5,940,000
4. 2002 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can’t Stop [By The Way] – 4,900,000
5. 1999 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Scar Tissue [Californication] – 4,850,000
6. 2006 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Snow ((Hey Oh)) [Stadium Arcadium] – 3,600,000
7. 1991 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Give It Away [Blood Sugar Sex Magik] – 3,450,000
8. 2002 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – By the Way [By The Way] – 3,140,000
9. 2006 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dani California [Stadium Arcadium] – 2,940,000
10. 1989 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Higher Ground [Mother’s Milk] – 2,550,000
11. 1995 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Aeroplane [One Hot Minute] – 1,810,000
11. 1995 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – My Friends [One Hot Minute] – 1,810,000
13. 2002 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – The Zephyr Song [By The Way] – 1,210,000
14. 1991 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss [Blood Sugar Sex Magik] – 1,060,000
15. 1999 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Around the World [Californication] – 930,000
Records & Achievements
- At 23,928,000 equivalent album sales, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is among the 10 most successful albums from 1991.
- At 24,710,000 equivalent album sales, Californication is the 4th most successful albums from 1999.
- At 12,622,000 equivalent album sales, By The Way is the 8th most successful albums from 2002.
- At 10,536,000 equivalent album sales, Stadium Arcadium is the 6th most successful albums from 2006.
- At 16,170,000 equivalent album sales, Under the Bridge is the 3rd most successful song from 1991.
- At 9,150,000 equivalent album sales, Californication is the 3rd most successful song from 1999.
- At 305,656,000 streams on Spotify, Californication is the 10th most streamed pre-2000 track of the platform.
- At 302,665,000 streams on Spotify, Under the Bridge is the 11th most streamed pre-2000 track of the platform.
- Californication is one of the 4 pre-2000 albums with 3 songs over 150 million streams on Spotify.
- At 890,000 units, Californication is the highest selling international studio album of the last 20 years in Italy.
We have more for you…
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Artists
360° analytics – Best-Selling Artists | by Decade
Tools: Artist Dashboard | Artists Comparator
Streaming deep dive – Most-Streamed Artists
Tools: Playcounts | Royalties | Global Reach | Stats History
Other KPIs – Monthly listeners | Followers | Top money makers
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