CSPC: Shakira Popularity Analysis
The football World Cup is currently flooding media from everywhere. No artist is more linked to this competition than Shakira. During each of the last 4 World Cups, she got a huge hit. Whenever, Wherever in 2002, Hips Don’t Lie in 2006, Waka Waka in 2010 and Dare (La La La) in 2014, we are left wondering if her new song Clandestino will take over the same one as these previous summer anthems.
It wasn’t always easy for the Colombia superstar. She started with two anonymous albums, Magia and Peligro, when she was only a teenager. These two records will be ignored in this study as they hardly sold a thing and got removed from the market for decades on the demand of the artist herself. With her 1995’s third album Pies Descalzos Shakira hasn’t only got successful, she became massive, huge enough to cross over boundaries of Latin America. The fourth effort was so strong too that breaking the global audience was inevitable. This unstoppable rise to the top reached its peak with 2001’s set Laundry Service and it’s monster single Whenever, Wherever. Her first worldwide smash, not her last.
Her special nature makes harder to compare her success with the one of remaining pop stars. Shakira continues to release most of her material in Spanish along with English versions. Of course, as popular as she may be in Latin countries, those are still fairly weaker markets than English-speaking ones. So, when taking into account everything, how does she perform against the US / UK icons?
As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge her results. This concept will not only bring you sales information for all Shakira‘s albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. In fact, it will also determine their true popularity. If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, the next page explains it with a short video. I fully recommend watching the video before getting into the sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to skip the video and get into the figures.
I don’t really get how it is possible that her label has been spreading the “80 million records” sold number for more than a decade, referring of course to pure sales, when according to this research, she hadn’t even crossed that mark in 2018 with streaming numbers included. Do you think you might have missed something? For example she is known to be very big in the MENA region and some Asian countries like India, and I guess it is not easy to find accurate info about sales there. And perhaps that might be true for Latin America as well.… Read more »
Hi Fra!
She sold 104m records if you’re counting albums + physical and digital singles as of this article. So that claim can be accurate, it’s just misleading,
Oh I get it, thank you! Do you plan to update her report soon? She has grown incredibly streaming wise since 2018, and I think she’s a very peculiar case study as she is the only female 90s diva that managed to adapt so well to the streaming era, both on Spotify and Youtube. I would love to know how much her album units have increased with the CSPC method. In that regard, I would like to point out some songs to make sure they are taken in consideration on the next report (in case they weren’t): Pure Intuition (it’s… Read more »
What’s articles you’re planned to update in the near future ?
I would like to ask you a question, I rely on a music expert like you, it is more important to sing at the Super Bowl, at the opening ceremony of the world cup, at the Glastonbury festival or at the half time of the Eurovision Song contest like Madonna did and Timberlake? preferably give me a ranking, thanks
Shakira sold 80 million records worldwide
Streams are automatically updated.
Hi
Can you please update Shakira? It’s been a while and I think she probably crossed 80M
it’s soo biased. She after the superbowl 2020 sold 80 in total.
You should study every artist being a favorite or not .
“Those two Spanish records have as many 10+ million songs than Madonna‘s first 9 albums combined” you can’t even comparte with madonna , no! just a big no! even when the spanish sales are no accurate.
This is a big joke.
Hey MJD! I have a question regarding Laundry Service: Washed and dried (expanded edition). It’s just a collection of old songs with some new/live versions…Why is it included as a new album in her tally? Thx
Hi Wolfie!
This was an ID mapping error, it’s fixed! 🙂
hello, excellent job, could you study Gloria Estefan, between Gloria and Shakira, who is the best-selling Latin artist of all time.
None, Julio Iglesias outsold both
Between them though it’s likely a close call, but I think I’m betting on Gloria as of now
Her spanish catalogue is waaaaay bigger.
Her first album has an unique certified on her country. And billboard itself said she sold 1,2 milion copies in brazil on her debut album.
I believe in you and in your data, but try a little to look better at south american market. Shakira is a power of nature here
Hi D’or!
Latin American figures are accurate. The points you mention have been addressed multiple times, they are misconceptions from fans. The Colombian cert was explained like one or two comment before yours!