Physical Singles Sales – Part 4
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
Just Push Play (2001) – 71,000 equivalent albums
Jaded – 230,000
Fly Away from Here – 5,000
Honkin’ on Hobo (2004) – 0 equivalent album
No physical single released.
Music from Another Dimension! (2012) – 0 equivalent album
No physical single released.
Orphan – 1,269,000 equivalent albums
Come Together – 480,000
Chip Away the Stone – 120,000
Walk This Way (Run DMC) – 830,000
Blind Man – 230,000
Walk on Water – 10,000
I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing – 2,550,000
Girls of Summer – 10,000
From 2001, the second golden age of Aerosmith started to slow down. The physical singles market did so too. Consequently, subsequent eras produced very few sales in that format.
Then, we reach orphan singles. A pair of them are interesting. The first is the career-changing Walk This Way sample by former superstar rapper Run DMC. The song peaked at #4 in the US, #8 in the UK and #9 in Australia, all career highs for the band. The single moved 830,000 units. It fails to impress against the juggernaut I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing though.
That song, included into the various artists soundtrack Armageddon, became their biggest hit in 1998. It topped the US Hot 100 for 4 weeks, also hitting the top in Australia, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and Austria among others. It sold a healthy 2,55 million units, far and away their highest seller in this format.
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.