The truth about Britney Spears’ album sales in Europe

WESTERN EUROPE – SWITZERLAND

BOMT spent 3 weeks at #1, 24 weeks inside the Top 10, was #16 at Christmas, and 65 weeks in total on the charts in Switzerland. Oops spent 2 weeks at #1, 24 weeks inside the Top 10, was #169 at Christmas, and spent in total 49 weeks on the charts. On the surface, both album performed in almost the same way. The former sold at most 120,000 units, the latter at least 150,000.

This is where having all those awards gets very useful. It gives us the ability to identify anomalies and specific cases that require additional checks to notice. Oops started with 14 weeks inside the Top 4. It was during the summer, so that doesn’t suggest high sales. When a run goes …-4-4-4-4-4-… though, as Oops did, it means the Top 4 was selling way more than the albums below it. In fact, this album faced competition from Bon Jovi‘s Crush, Santana‘s Supernatural and Anastacia‘s Not That Kind. All those albums reached at least 3xP, with Supernatural hitting 4xP. They were also the Top 3 best selling albums of the year, with Oops coming in at #4. None of the big holidays cash ins, not even the Beatles‘ One, challenged them, which proves they were selling a lot in spite of this competition happening during a weak period of sales. As you can see, checking runs and certifications isn’t enough, at times one needs to go through certifications of various additional albums too, which obviously takes an awful lot of time!

Merging all the data together concludes on the following album sales to date:

• Baby One More Time – 120,000
• Oops!… I did It Again – 160,000
• Britney – 65,000
• In The Zone – 35,000
• Greatest Hits, My Prerogative – 25,000
• Blackout – 15,000
• Circus – 20,000
• The Singles Collection – 5,000