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.
Hi, “Fijación Oral Vol.1” Has Certificated 11x Latin Platinum (660.000) in June 1, 2009 and 1x Platinum Standard (1.000.000) in the same date, Why in the sales say that “Fijación Oral Vol.1” have only 1.150.000 if in 2009 not have streaming?
Hi Jose!
Latin and traditional awards certify the same sales, they shouldn’t be added to each other. When FO1 went 11xP, Latin Platinum awards were still worth 100k each, so it was awarded for 1.1 million sales, which was also enough for a standard platinum disc. It hasn’t sold that much since then as shown by soundscan so the updated estimate is 1.15 million.
Thank You, I have another question, I read in a website that the Shakira´s singles pures sales is this:
Whenever, Wherever: 9.650.000 (Physical: 6.500.000. Digital: 3.150.000)
Underneath Your Clothes: 6.752.000 (Physical: 4.850.000, Digital: 1.902.000)
Objection (Tango): 1.413.000 (Physical: 913.000, Digital: 500.000)
Te Aviso, Te Anuncio (Tango): 630.000
The One: 68.000
Te Dejo Madrid: 12.000
Poem To A Horse: 150.000 (Digital: 150.000)
Que Me Quedes Tu: 250.000 (Digital: 250.000)
La Tortura: 7.020.000 (Digital: 5.250.000, Physical: 1.770.000)
I don´t know it is the true. Can you tell me please?
Hi Jose!
They seem to be random estimates, done by someone who checked chart histories, certs, etc, but without the required background to understand market size and specific charts/certs rules. These physical sales are way too inflated, same for digital at a lower scale.
DELA was 10xPlatinum in Colombia by 2017？How many sales does it equal to?with 1998 critera or critera now?
https://mobile.twitter.com/cfshakirabogota/status/915406873406443521
Hello MJD,
According to Billboard, Pies Descalzos sold 1.2 million in Brazil (https://books.google.com/books?id=GgoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68&dq=shakira+best+selling+billboard&hl=zh-TW&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=shakira%20best%20selling%20billboard&f=false) and some people claim the album sold 1M in Colombia, can you enlighten me? Thanks.
Si Tú No Vuelves is not counted in the streaming
https://open.spotify.com/track/7yfD3aPRCkFHYIcfkTdStn
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_Tú_No_Vuelves#Miguel_Bosé's_and_Shakira_version
There are lots of CDs…
Are you sure that 300k sale for DELL and 150k sale for LS in Brazil？BTW,how to find brazil shipments codes?
Hi XM!
Inside a 10% +/- ballpark, yes that’s their Brazilian sales. Codes for this country can be found at https://mercadolivre.com.br, simply search for your artist and filter “Musica” and then “CD” or “DVD” (no codes on LPs). It’s usually on back covers.
How much unpluged mtv sell in brasil? Dou you know?
Hi Marcelo!
Tricky one for sure, available data suggests about 175,000 units combined for the CD (125,000) and the DVD (50,000).
What amazing work, guys. I wonder how Thalia compares with Shakira, please!
DELL certified 23xLatin Platinum in US this year, which equals to 1.38 million sales.( Cancelled because RIAA certified it as 23x Standard Platinum)
Hi XM!
There is multiple albums with both standard and latin certs, it isn’t blocking. I saw that 23xP award only on online boards, so I haven’t consider it. I mailed the RIAA about that, I’m still pending their answer. I’ll obviously fix the figure if needed!
Hi MJD. New album certifications in Russia have been updated, hope you are going to consider them in chart analysis 🙂
Link: https://www.docdroid.net/MOL6zWN/240618izvestiamusic.pdf#page=2
Hi Kiki! While it’s always great to have a new source of information, I’ll have to take that one with a huge pinch of salt. Various elements are dubious (for example, they got the 120k level wrong for 5xP albums), certifications are inconsistent with the former official website and if true, these awards obviously include mostly streams (21 Savage, the Carters, etc.) and are supposedly given automatically since there is multiple new releases from this week already listed. Furthermore, there is an history of fake Russian charts website, and that document isn’t linked in an official location either. IIRC, at… Read more »