Digital Singles Sales – Part 5
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.
Double Trouble (1967) – 1,500 equivalent albums
All tracks – 10,000
Clambake (1967) – 21,000 equivalent albums
Big Boss Man – 110,000
Remaining tracks – 30,000
Speedway (1968) – 1,500 equivalent albums
All tracks – 10,000
From Elvis in Memphis (1969) – 122,000 equivalent albums
In the Ghetto – 770,000
Remaining tracks – 40,000
Back In Memphis (1969) – 9,000 equivalent albums
All tracks – 60,000
That’s the Way It Is (1970) – 90,000 equivalent albums
I Just Can’t Help Believin’ – 90,000
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ – 100,000
Bridge Over Troubled Water – 160,000
Remaining tracks – 250,000
Presley recovered his fame thanks to the success of In the Ghetto. The song remains hot with 770,000 downloads and ringtones. Home of multiple covers of well known songs, That’s the Way it Is performs well in digital platforms and approaches 100,000 equivalent album sales from downloads
when i went to usa last december i realized that the artist who had the most vinyls on stock (OBVIOUSLY excluding adele) was elvis, and i started think abt elvis’ biopic. if it does well what can we expect from it? how much can elvis sales increase if it does well?
The film is going to be huge. After less than a week, the trailer has around 20m views (combined from Warner official accounts) on Youtube. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve read some (alleged) comments from tests screenings that say it’s a home run and the studio is very happy with it. If true, they’re going to spend a lot in marketing. Also, Luhrmann has good reputation as a director and his films tend to do well at the box office. It could be a perfect storm. At the end of the day, Elvis is still the 3rd best… Read more »
You are indeed too optimistic, Queen were already hugely popular before the movie while Elvis is more in the league of a David Bowie for example.
And he’s already past MJ as far as I’m concerned, after all he sold more albums and more singles (not to mention his countless hit movies).
Elvis & Michael are pretty much tied, according to this site. They’re both around 425 – 430 million records (Albums, Singles, Boxsets & Videos) sold globally. I think MJ edges him out tho, considering his digital single sales haven’t been factored in since 2018. Also, MJ sold the same amount as Elvis, according to this site, despite releasing FAR less material. That’s probably why MJ is considered the most successful, even over The Beatles. I think the movie will help boost Elvis’s vinyl & streaming sales.
“Records” doesn’t mean anything, combining albums and digital singles is ridiculous, don’t you think ?
And I’m pretty sure most people consider The Beatles to be more successful than MJ.
I don’t really have a ‘dog’ in this one so to speak. I appreciate Elvis and MJ but wouldn’t call myself a superfan of either. Just a thought. According to the ASR scale Elvis is around 70% as successful as MJ (696 VS 1000 as the baseline). Does this mean that because Thriller, Bad and Dangerous account for 69.3% of MJ’s total EAS (ie 693 on the ASR scale) then just these three albums gave MJ the same level of success as Elvis? Would another way of reading this be to say that these three releases made MJ ‘as big/popular’… Read more »
MJ sold more total equavilent units than Elvis, which is what matters in the end.
Elvis sold more albums and more singles than MJ, which is what matters in the end (to me).
MJ’s total includes about 30m of “music videos” (such as documentaries like This Is It or The Making Of Thriller) which I personally wouldn’t include.
Just for the record, Elvis’ remaining sales (outside of the physical singles and studio albums categories) also include nearly 10 million music videos, as well as 16 million EPs valued as 8 million albums, plus nearly a million of interviews/tapes and loopholes, so I’m not sure that according to your way of seeing it Elvis did sell more albums than Jackson.
I’m just quoting the “Raw sales – All albums” list from this very website :
1. The Beatles – 333,145,000 (as of Mar 2017)
2. Elvis Presley – 244,475,000 (as of Sep 2018)
3. Michael Jackson – 235,440,000 (as of Sep 2017)
+ 16 million EPs for Elvis, indeed.
I just realized that HIStory is counted twice in MJ’s total (18.6m in “Studio Album Sales” + 18.6m in “Other LPs Sales”) which is like saying it’s the 5th best selling album of all-time, above Zeppelin IV and Back In Black… That doesn’t make any sense to me.
It’s a double disc. One is a Grestest Hits and the other one with new songs. What does not make sense?
Actually MJ didn’t invent double albums, there were others before like Pink Floyd’s The Wall for example. Do you think all of these albums should be counted twice ?
I really think this double counting of HIStory deserves an explanation, and by the way Clockingbell asked the same question in the MJ thread two months ago, with no answer…
Hi Analord! No need to use that suspicious and kinda childish tone, it’s not like I manage to be up to date in answering comments, just now I only see these ones because I heard about another starting fan clash. The Wall and HIStory are completely different subjects. One is a studio album, which happens to be double due to lenght, the other is a pack of two records, a compilation of already released songs, and a studio album with unreleased material. As you know, the difference between a studio set and a compilation is key inside the CSPC process.… Read more »
I didn’t mean to sound “suspicious”, but surely you understand that not answering to a two months old post and then a two weeks old similar post might be a little frustrating… As for your explanation, sorry but it still doesn’t make sense to me. HIStory sold 19m copies, not 38m. Yes, it consists of old and new songs, so what ? Just because an album contains old and new songs we should multiply its sales by two ? I hope I’m not the only person thinking this is illogical. And I’m surprised you agree with the RIAA inflating Garth… Read more »
Please, don’t repeat the same thing….yes we are understood.
Hi Analord! I would say that out of the 4 possible solutions, yours is definitely the most illogical of all. The whole thing is how you define “an album”, it’s not like every purchase is on par, if that was the case we would mix singles and EPs and albums, we certainly don’t do that. Let get into the cases. 1) we consider that 19m persons bought a compilation with tracks from Thriller, Bad, etc., so we put HIStory among compilations, acting as if no new songs were into it. Illogical falls short. 2) we consider that 19m persons bought… Read more »
“4) we consider that 19m persons bought a compilation and also a studio album, which actually happen to be nothing but the truth.” Of course, people bought HIStory because they wanted the new songs and the old songs. You seem to think that 19m persons would’ve bought it even if it didn’t include the old songs ? This is pure speculation, we should assume that people bought an album because of, you know, the content of the album, instead of pretending that MJ released two albums in 1995 that both sold 19m copies… I mentioned Garth Brooks because I just… Read more »
Buddy, CSPC is just about how popular each album is. The compilations are split between studio albums, each gaining sales equivalent to its popularity. It’s totally understandable that the 19M of History is split among the studio albums due to the CD with GH, as people bought the songs from the old albums. Not to mention the very high price that HIStory was sold at the time for being double CD. It sold 19M but could have been a lot more had it been marketed at a standard price. Anyway, I think you are arguing a point that goes completely… Read more »
Technically, it’s not, it’s how popular it’s tracks are, not the actual album.
No it’s not “understandable” that HIStory would be the only double album counted twice, and you don’t know how much it would’ve sold without the GH.
Price is irrelevant, as I’ve said albums were much more expensive before the 80s, do you think that should be considered ? What about the price decrease during the 2000s ? Or MJ waiting five years between albums, his fans must’ve had more money to spend than others…
Hi again Analord! There are several wrong claims in your message. Firstly, albums weren’t much more expensive before the 80s, they were in the 50s/60s, but prices went down a lot relatively speaking during the 70s already. Secondly, the large majority of Elvis’ album sales came after his passing, not before. Thirdly, of course Elvis sold bucketloads of budget albums (his Pickwick/Camden releases are famous, but outside of the US there have been even much more in proportion) and continues to sell a monster amount of budget albums, charting like 3x more budget albums than anyone else in the UK… Read more »
Hi Analord! It seems you want to apply rules depending on how results fit what you would expect, that’s not how we set the rules. They must be consistent for all. You say that Elvis’ 2-in-1 release sold 1m, we won’t do different rules depending on if the album sold 1m or 19m. That the Beatles are “#1 anyway” is irrelevant when we decide how we set up the rules. In the same way, you say “it’s not that big a deal” for Garth Brooks, again, what matters is not how results satisfy you, but to set up consistent rules… Read more »
@MJD:
What is your opinion of MidweEk bestselling UK Album Artists?
Music Week
Biggest-selling albums artist of the 21st century in the UK.
1 Robbie Williams (16,674,978),
2 Coldplay (14,734,824),
3 Elvis Presley (13,502,834),
4 Eminem (13,276,742),
5 Westlife (12,907,183),
6 Take That (12,613,279),
7 The Beatles (12,585,043),
8 Adele (12,402,363).
9 Michael Bublé (12,150,504 units), including 10,452,370 physical sales and 1,049,456 digital downloads.
10 Ed Sheeran(11,989,075) with digital downloads (2,208,972) and sales-equivalent streams (3,577,046).
They had Elvis @7.2m in 2012. But #3???? How???
Your thoughts,G?
You have no manners, and you are nervous, but why. Grow up dude!
In The league of David Bowie? You’re insane! 🤣 🤣 🤣 Elvis is much higher than him! He sold several folds what Bowie has and he is certainly a lot more popular than Bowie, even more popular than Elton john, led zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, pink floyd, the eagles amd some current artists like Kanye West! I keep saying this generation of people know shit about Elvis and how huge he was and still is!
So he’s “still huge” but “this generation of people know shit about him” ? OK.
Only rock fans know about David Bowie but Elvis no matter what music type you’re into he is known! Even hip hop rap fans know about Elvis.
It would be nice if it were a massive hit but I’d be suprised if it did as well as Bohemian Rhapsody.
I don’t think people really appreciate how extraordinary the numbers for Bohemian Rhapsody were. The movie made $911 million dollars world wide. To put that into perspective, they hope Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will make a billion dollars, but it will probably make a little over 900 million. It is much more likely (and expected by the experts) that the new Elvis movie will have Rocket Man (~$250 million world wide) level success or below. I see Bohemian Rhapsody on my cable TV listings at least once a month. I have yet to see Rocket Man listed… Read more »
Totally agree. Bohemian Rhapsody is the exception, not the standard to be expected. Elvis is a much older act with totally different music than Queen. That being said, he has a super interesting life story, and the 50s and 60s are a fascinating time in America. I think a modest boost in streaming numbers is a given, but only time will tell how just how well the movie does! I’m personally pretty pumped to see it
On Tour (Amiga) is a bootleg recording. where would the total sold numbers come from?
Special Collectors Edition 2002 – what is this? Elvis doesn’t have an album using this title only.
Elvis at Stax is not a LIVE album. it is a 3 disc box set of Elvis’s Stax recordings in 1973, there is also a single disc of highlights released. these are compilations.
Hi Anthony! This is the SCE 2002 album listed. About AMIGA’s album you are correct. It appears ‘real’ AMIGA albums and counterfeit ones have now been mainly distinguished on discogs, we will exclude some of these once we update. Of course technically all AMIGA releases can be seen as unofficial, but for the real label at least we do add them. On Elvis due to the magnitude of releases we have also been kind lag on accounting for some loopholes, adding them to totals while they are usually excluded for most artists. It is of course debatable. Thanks for all… Read more »
There are several other albums listed as LIVE that are not live albums: The US Male and Double Dynamite al contain studio masters recorded throughout the 1960’s, these are Camden/Pickwick compilation releases. A Legendary Performer Vol 3 contains studio masters, outtakes, interviews and 1 live track. It is a compilation. The Great Performances contains Studio Masters, live TV performances and a couple of Live concert tracks but it is not a LIVE Concert recording it is a compilation. Viva Elvis contains remixed and re-recorded studo masters for use in a Vegas cirque de soliel show, kt is not a LIVE… Read more »
You list Welcome to My World (1977) as a LIVE album. ths was not a LIVE album but a compilation of country songs recorded between 1958-1973, five of which were LIVE recordings, the rest were studio masters.
You have Elvis: A Legendary Performer Vol 1 and Vol 2 listed as LIVE albums. These were not LIVE albums. They contained studio masters, outtakes, interviews and an odd live track or two. Elvis in Hollywood is also categorized as a LIVE album, this is not correct. This album contained 20 studio masters recorded for his film soundtracks. Could you fix these please. Also, is the 1.4 million copes sold for Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas Nevada for the single LP release in 1970 or as part of the double LP From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas… Read more »
To add to my other comment in support of For LP Fans Only (1959) being considered an Original Album. You list Elvis For Everyone (1965) as an original album. This contained songs recorded between 1957-1963 that had been held back from release for various reasons or were from films that didn’t make that film’s LP or EP release. None of the songs had appeared on an album prior to 1965. I think you have For LP fans Only (1959) in the wrong category
I couldn’t find a Bonus compilation page for Elvis’ Gold records Vol 4 (1968) with a worldwide breakdown of album sales, where is it please? You list A Date With Elvis (1959) as an original album but not For LP Fans Only (1959). Both these albums were the same concept. They both contained four or five Sun Singles that hadn’t been released on LP as of 1959 along with songs from the Extended Play soundtracks of Love Me Tender and Jailhouse Rock along with some single B-sides all of which hadn’t been on LP as of 1959. I think these… Read more »