Forum
Hi AndrewMark & following messengers!
Thanks for noticing the typos, and sorry for them. 4 sales are now displayed, Beyoncé streaming EAS fixed in the final table (the overall total was correct), and then a dozen of featured tracks had streams reversed as the streaming tool changed the order from one day to another and I failed to notice it. Everything should be back in order, thanks again!
Hi Jorge!
We will move the Arctic Monkeys later on, as we won't have time for them now, but we will try to publish Billie and the following ones in the upcoming days / weeks as planned (in terms of sequence at least, as with vacations and all it's tricky to secure the dates).
Hi Mar!
You are correct, this was an old record which isn't technically true anymore. I changed the phrasing so that it's ok now.
Hey MJD, did you adjust your digital songs tracking methodology? I noticed she lost some millions in that format aswell as physical songs. Nice update overall!!!
I had bet between 85-87M on this update. Exceeded my expectations. In the next few weeks it will reach 90M. The 100M barrier will take a long time.
Wow an update for the Queen.
So Dangerously In Love stands near 10.2 million. wow (I guess she can be removed from the fake 10 million sellers page)
B'Day near 6.5 million
I thought self-titled would have been well over 4 million but I guess not.
Good update. She's not much of a big seller. By the grace of the Gods maybe Renaissance could pass 4M
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't she in the the top ten best selling female artists in this chart? It's not like she's far away other people the other two female artists above her are 100 while she's at 90 lol.
Hi Music Fan!
For the last 2-3 years, there have been no major adjustment to the downloads methodology. Beyonce's numbers pre-dated some of the big 2018-2019 changes though, for example the first inclusion of Asian streams, when we accounted for SK downloads up to date rather than stopping them by the end of 2017. We removed these. There have been also formula changes that were done to account for the fact that outside of the big western markets, downloads collapsed earlier, this was applied for the first time to her.
As for physical singles, it's mostly due to Discogs which reflects better where each song has been issued, and with which proportion, rather than assuming that singles were available in all available markets.
There have been a few fixes at albums' end too, although as they go both sides it's not as visible. The two relevant changes is the addition of plenty of small releases (like these early DC compilations available on some retailers only, hence excluded from charts back then), and club sales, which happen to be significant for DIL, B'Day and Dreamgirls.
So, with Halo, Beyonce is one of those artists whose tracks don't have the same popularity over time in relation to the rest of their discography. I guess Eminem is another, with Till I Collapse. Which artists might also be eligible for this?
AHH Finally an update! Just have a question regarding her sales in Brazil. On the best sellers since 2003 list that you compiled, I believe she sold 1.5M there? But on All Album Types it only shows 900k? Is that a mistake or a matter of video/eps being separated from studio albums? Thanks for replying 🙂
Hi A&E!
It's the latter, the total sales listed by country are indeed albums only while the Brazil article include DVDs etc too.
Hi Clockingbell!
I don't think we can put Beyonce in the same spot as Eminem. The fact that Halo is now bigger than Single Ladies isn't a reflection that something changed due to streams, but that instead the release sequence during the downloads years flawed the results.
On surface, SL does look much bigger, with #1 peaks and such. It preceeded the album yet, back then it was just the norm that pre-album release singles would peak higher, just because there was no competition from the album. The way Halo sold nearly as many downloads as SL despite getting released after the album reveals it was already very strong. Basically, SL was (of course) stronger in 2008, but from the release of Halo, it has always been the most popular track of her catalog. Firstly because it was the new single, and then because it retained a higher popularity, in early 10s this was already the most downloaded track week after week, and in early Spotify years it was the most streamed too (by mid-2014, it had 67.7m streams against 40.3m for SL).
The same is true for a track like Here Comes the Sun. Many Beatles' songs were popular with heavy airplay, the absence of a physical single is more a technicality than a conclusion. In 1971, the song was already an hot 100 top 20 hit with a random cover by Richie Havens, I'll let you imagine where the original by the Beatles would have charted if it had been issued. In 1976, Steve Harley got to the UK top 10 with another cover. On mediabase numbers revealing US airplay from 1997 to 2007, Sun was on a virtual tie with Come Together and Let It Be as the most aired track, easily higher songs like Hey Jude, Yesterday or Something. Here too streaming barely highlighted something that has been true for much longer although no sales KPI were available to reveal it, that Here Comes The Sun is one of their catalog's strongest assets.
The same is true for Wish You Were Here, which was a radio single even if it had no physical release, on Mediabase 25 years ago it was Floyd's second biggest track already, only topped by Comfortably Numb.
The real outlier is 'Till I Collapse which gained ground quickly in spite of really not been promoted at first. It was heavily popular as an album cut upon release still, which led it to be used in many ads, TV shows, sports events, etc. History will remember that Call of Duty made it big, but as often it's a media shortcut. When Eminem made the news in April 2006, years before Call of Duty, 'Till I Collapse was the 6th strongest song from his catalog already, and Call of Duty ended making it a top 3 track from his catalog in 2009, something that is visible with streaming numbers too.
In the article, Halo seems to grow somewhat later, but thanks for the explanation! But if Here Comes the Sun was aired on a par with Let it be and Come Together, and Wish You Were Here topped by Comfortably Numb, tracks they now outstream by a great margin, changes in the long run do affect the method, don't they?
"The real outlier is ‘Till I Collapse which gained ground quickly in spite of really not been promoted at first."
How is this different than 2Pac's Ambitionz Az A Ridah and All Eyez On Me ?
Another obvious example is Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, their 2nd most streamed song even though it was only a minor hit at the time.
As for Halo, I think it can be compared with Till I Collapse in the sense that it's clearly not the main reason people bought the album but now it has more streams than Single Ladies and If I Were A Boy combined !
Also, do you have any information about the airplay of songs like Here Comes The Sun or Wish You Were Here back in the 70s ? I know Pink Floyd released Have A Cigar as a single, it'd be interesting to know which song from that album had the most airplay.
