Original Album Sales – Comments
1991 Alanis – 175,000
1992 Now Is the Time – 60,000
1995 Jagged Little Pill – 33,570,000
1998 Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie – 7,430,000
2002 Under Rug Swept – 3,230,000
2004 So-Called Chaos – 1,540,000
2008 Flavors of Entanglement – 650,000
2012 Havoc and Bright Lights – 420,000
Over 47 million across 8 albums, more than 33,5 million of which come from Jagged Little Pill. The domination of this album over Morissette‘s discography is insane. It’s difficult to identify a positive indicator about the remaining albums. They all registered taught drops in comparison to their predecessors. Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is a good seller in absolute terms, but relatively speaking it completely killed the momentum of the diva.
Still, we can’t overlook a 33 million seller. Jagged Little Pill is absolutely gigantic. It is on a virtual tie with Michael Jackson‘s Bad and Shania Twain‘s Come On Over among the best selling studio albums ever. Among female albums, it is topped only by Whitney Houston‘s Bodyguard.
Great article! It’s a shame Alanis hasn’t seen much success after Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, it’s also very curious and impressive how much Jagged Little Pill still stands up the test of time. I’m curious to see if her new album will, at least, generate higher numbers than Havoc and Bright Lights. I’d love to, it’s a very good album!
On a sidenote: can you analyze Nelly Furtado’s career? Considering she went indie a few years ago I think it’d be an interesting study case.
2020 is the year Alanis will release her first studio album in 8 years. It also marks the 25th anniversary of her breakthrough smash album “Jagged Little Pill”. Looking at Spotify the album still holds up well: All I Really Want – 16.8M You Oughta Know – 99.2M Perfect – 9.0M Hand In My Pocket – 78.8M Right Through You – 9.4M Forgiven – 7.1M You Learn – 61.3M Head Over Feet – 51.5M Mary Jane – 7.0M Ironic – 205.9M Not the Doctor – 7.3M Wake Up – 5.1M Your House – 7.2M Total – 565.7M The big one… Read more »
Alanis Morissette announces new album. ‘Such Pretty Forks in the Road’ will be released on May 1, 2020′. I would really like to see a major turnaround happening for Alanis.
Hi MJD
According to Korea’s local magazine, JLP shipped 150k in 1996 (article in 11/12/1996). Although catalog sales may be tiny, it would also end up a bit higher than 150k, right? Also, Falling Into you (Korean name: Because You Loved Me) shipped 300k in 1996 according the the same article, and Let’s Talk About Love shipped 310k in 1998 (article in 11/12/1998). Maybe you already have some of these figures, what is your eventual estimates for these albums there?
Music Box by Mariah Carey actually reached 1 million in South Korea by 11/12/1996.The same article that onfirmed Daydream sold 600k, Because You Love Me sold 300k, JLP sold 150k, etc. Other articles also can be found on chosun.com.
http://m.chosun.com/svc/article.html?sname=news&contid=1996121170222
No doubt higher than 150k then! On their communication listing all her sales awards, it was shown as Platinum in SK, so anything from 100k to 200k, while Supposed missed Gold the status, so 150k was the safest estimate to avoid large errors, but it seems that it sold a bit more.
[…] femininas mais bem sucedidas da História, tendo o seu álbum de estreia internacional movido mais de 40 milhões de unidades equivalentes a álbuns. Tais números tornaram Jagged Little Pill num dos maiores e mais bem sucedidos títulos de sempre. […]
It would be great to seeTina Turner “chartmasters” analys.
The sales of Now is the Time are different on page 5 and 12, which one is the correct?
Hi Jorge!
It’s the one on page 12, the typo is now fixed, thanks!