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While nothing is definite, I can't see 21 outselling The Bodyguard by 11m in the next 3-4 years.
Yes, I imagine it will catch it on EAS at some point, if they keep streaming as they do but it might never actually catch it in sales, given how poor sales are currently and the fact they will only get worse as time goes on. .
Correct. I thought it was easy getting with The Bodyguard's album sales but I looked at the actual sales amount. 21 can't just keep on getting 1m sales every year. It has to reach below that at some point
I've never been 100% convinced of 21 being the best selling studio album in the UK. I know on here Adele has the lead, but I've always felt Whats The Story Morning Glory might never have lost the lead.
Currently WTSMG is performing better than 21 and has done for many years now. Since January 2017 WTSMG has never left the UK albums chart accumulating 241 wks, with 86 wks in the Top 40. 21 by comparison has only managed 54 wks, with only one week Top 40 and 25 wks between positions 90-100.
These are the UK Physical Shipment figures I have for WTSMG until the end of 2009;
YEAR --- RETAIL --- CLUB --- TOTAL
1995 --- 820,039 --- N/A --- 820,039
1996 --- 2,732,092 --- 242,130 --- 2,974,222
1997 --- 289,867 --- 79,896 --- 369,763
1998 --- 48,568 --- 34,225 --- 82,793
1999 --- 78,515 --- 22,772 --- 101,287
2000 --- 50,316 --- 8,317 --- 58,633
2001 --- 59,610 --- 4,563 --- 64,173
2002 --- 93,193 --- 1,673 --- 94,866
2003 --- 47,192 --- 565 --- 47,757
2004 --- 45,284 --- 349 --- 45,633
2005 --- 154,832 --- 382 --- 155,214
2006 --- 24,260 --- 45 --- 24,260
2007 --- 28,084 --- N/A --- 28,084
2008 --- 39,090 --- N/A --- 39,090
2009 --- -164 --- N/A --- -164
Total --- 4,510,778 --- 394,917 --- 4,905,695
I never trust OCC numbers, given that they change them so often and have used DUS/Multipliers etc to calculate totals but having these physical shipments figures (which I do trust) at 4.9m in 2009, I think it has probably shipped physically and digitally more than it's CM 2017 total of 5,115,000.
Yes but even doing 1m a year, every year, it would still take around 15 years, not just 3-4.
It would need to be doing 3m-4m MORE than the Bodyguard every year, to pass it in 3-4 years
Hi Martin!
Actually, the 5,115,000 figure did assume 4.9m shipped by 2009.
Some infos:
By 18/10/2014, OCC communicated 4,611,682 units sold. The DUS total on that same date was 4,137,998 units. The gap is due to multipliers due to 94-96 incomplete market.
What's interesting there is that it implies 473,864 'inflated' copies.
The OCC communicated 4,414,372 sales by 25/04/2009. By that point, they had stopped adding extra units, so removing them, it leaves 3,940,508 DUS units up to that date. The album was selling about a thousand units per week. Let assume then 3,977,000 DUS units by the end of 2009.
The last pre-streams DUS figures is 4,165,381 units by 06/06/2015. That's an increase of 188,381 copies since the end of 2009.
On that week, the album sold 402 pure copies 396 units the week before, and 394 a fortnight before. As every album, it was facing a downward spiral, moving from 1,000 weekly sales in 2009 to 400 by mid-2015.
With streams added on 13/06/2015, the DUS total (which backtracked streams from the start of the year) increased by 6,940 sales. The next 26 weeks, the album sold 15,382 total units, 905 per week, with the streaming impact being very visible. In fact, from mid-2015 to 08/2016 spent 14 months without making the top 100 sales chart.
Back to the increase of 188,381 since the end of 2009, assuming 300 weekly sales for the next 2 years and a half until the article, that's 227,000 units sold at retail from the end of 2009 to the end of 2017. I haven't check weekly sales in detail as I previously did, but it's a good gauge. That gives slightly more than 5,115,000 sales, instead 5,132,000, but then we aren't done as we still need to remove extra copies shipped by the start of 2010.
As sales are now much lower and often done or by downloads or through internet, available stocks are massively down. I always used to assume evergreen catalog items had enough stock available to satisfy 4 to 6 months of demand at any point, while now this disappeared. Factoring this into the results, we get to 5,115,000!
Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon has sold 50 million copies so that is the best selling U.K album of all time but gets pushed aside for some reason. It is the 2nd best selling album of all time and sells 500,000 copies every year in the U.S alone.
If you are trying to convince me that Sgt Pepper has sold only that many then I am going to laugh long and hard.
Cannot take modern album sales seriously with all this business about streaming and 'Youtube' watched songs. A sale should be actual copies of an album or downloaded copies.
Hi Paul!
You can "laugh long and hard", that will only show that you are disrespectful on top of ignorant over this subject. It's good to repeat what you have been reading on old press again and again like these 4-5m UK sales claims for Sgt Pepper or 500,000 copies every year in the US alone for DSOTM, it's better to actually inform yourself. Just to let you know, the latter album sold 155,000 copies in its best selling year over the last 5 years, although its total units moved are fairly higher thanks to the "modern album sales" that you "cannot take seriously".
Mariah is not safe from Taylor Swift.
Taylor sells about 5 to 8 million every year with no new album.
Taylor will eventually outsell Mariah.
With new album apparently coming and her streaming stats r great too , considering how she released them there. I think she gonna set atleast female record in streaming and gonna do 10 to 12 million in pure sales. And overall 20 million sps. By this year end, she can be over 100 million and by next year over 110 million
it's getting much much harder to hit 10m pure sales with one album, but I'm really curious how is she gonna perform if the album is released on streaming instantly
