https://flic.kr/p/9fnbjc
Digital Singles Sales – Part 1
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.
Aerosmith (1973) – 545,000 equivalent albums
Dream On – 3,490,000
Remaining tracks – 140,000
Get Your Wings (1974) – 33,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 220,000
Toys in the Attic (1975) – 626,000 equivalent albums
Walk This Way – 2,440,000
Sweet Emotion – 1,470,000
Remaining tracks – 260,000
Rocks (1976) – 54,000 equivalent albums
Back in the Saddle – 260,000
Remaining tracks – 100,000
Draw the Line (1977) – 12,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 80,000
Night in the Ruts (1979) – 5,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 35,000
Rock in a Hard Place (1982) – 3,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 20,000
Done with Mirrors (1985) – 6,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 40,000
The popularity of Dream On, especially in the US, remains massive. The song is one of the most downloaded from the 70s at nearly 3,5 million units. Walk This Way is a solid runner up at 2,44 million units. All versions have been combined. Then Sweet Emotion is big too. It sold 1,47 million so far. The last two songs are nearly as big in the US, but the former has a wider appeal globally.
Apart from these 3 songs, there isn’t much that remains relevant nowadays among these tunes.
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.