Compilations – Geffen Years
Both Big Ones and 20th Century Masters sold large amounts while containing almost exclusively hits from 1987 to 1993. Sales of the former help to understand how massive Permanent Vacation, Pump and Get a Grip really were.
The live release A Little South of Sanity was the first to merge together Aerosmith’s careers under both Columbia and Geffen. It had 3 main flaws though which limited its sales. First, it is a live album, which aren’t really popular in some of the key markets for the band like the US and Japan. Second, it was a 2-CD set, way too expensive for a live record. Third, it missed I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, the song that everyone would have expected to buy in an Aerosmith record in 1998.
Then came Young Lust in 2001 which had pretty much the same flaws. Promoted as a compilation, it was a Geffen package. They only owned rights to include the live versions of Dream On, Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion. Plus, they didn’t got the rights of I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing still.
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.