CSPC: Aerosmith Popularity Analysis
Physical Singles Sales – Part 3
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
Permanent Vacation (1987) – 528,000 equivalent albums
Dude (Looks Like a Lady) – 530,000
Angel – 850,000
Rag Doll – 380,000
Pump (1989) – 507,000 equivalent albums
Going Down/Love in an Elevator – 670,000
Water Song/Janie’s Got a Gun – 490,000
Dulcimer Stomp/The Other Side – 130,000
What It Takes – 400,000
Get a Grip (1993) – 732,000 equivalent albums
Eat the Rich – 50,000
Livin’ on the Edge – 410,000
Shut Up and Dance – 30,000
Cryin’ – 1,050,000
Crazy – 470,000
Amazing – 430,000
Nine Lives (1997) – 345,000 equivalent albums
Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees) – 680,000
Hole in My Soul – 150,000
Pink – 320,000
At half a million units, Dude wasn’t a ground-breaking smash. It was the song that put them back into the map though. One year earlier, the Run DMC altered Walk This Way made the band cool again. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a given at all that new material was going to do well until Dude. Angel followed that way, hitting #3 in the US, their highest charting single up to that point. These songs were also their first to make the UK charts.
For the next 10 years the band was going to do well. All their singles did well. None got truly massive, but they all sold decently and supported greatly their parent albums. The era Get a Grip remains their most productive singles-wise with more than 2,4 million sales.
Hi MJD, in Asia Aerosmith outside Japan sell this way less than Metallica?
Hi Jsak!
I haven’t all numbers at hand but from my memories of the Aerosmith study they got big in Asia only with I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing. Even in countries where they have strong views, this song represents a gigantic share of it. Metallica sold very well in Asia from the very beginning so it would be natural to see them ahead.
Aerosmith:
Asia – 9,780,000
Japan – 7,065,000
Metallica:
Asia – 8.380.000
Japan – 3.785.000
Aerosmith in Japan have sold far more, but there is no history outside.
Except this is inaccurate. Aerosmith has more than 150 million world wide in album sales. And if you rank them by platinum album sales Aerosmith is ranked 14th above metallica, Bon jovi, van halen, the who, Michael Jackson. And Aerosmith has still sold more units in America than bon jovi or metallica.
Hi Wayne! What’s inaccurate is all these good old claims coming out of nowhere and repeated online by lazy journalists who just pick the first thing they read on Wikipedia to fill their article. No, Elvis hasn’t sold 1 billion records, nor has the Beatles, Michael Jackson hasn’t sold 750 million, ABBA hasn’t sold 350 million, Madonna hasn’t sold 300 million albums, etc, etc, and Aerosmith haven’t sold more than 150 million albums globally. As for “ranking them by platinum”, that means considering the US is the World as well as considering that albums is the only format that ever… Read more »
Join the discussion…I heard on a 60 minutes episode of Steve Tyler on an interview and they said Aerosmith had sold 160 million albums world wide back in 2013. Obviously 7 years later their even higher now.
You get about 160m if you add all album and single sales together unweighted.
I guess that’s the way it works for all artists. Record sales are way less these days because everything is digital streaming what you have to have 1500 streams gisty just the equal one album sale.