Forum
RIAA says it sold 4 M in 2001 since it was last certified just 6 weeks after release (4x Platinum by mid December). It would have definitely sold more than 2.92 M by end of 2001, since it had 2 more weeks till end of year and already hit 4 M…
Either way, according to your numbers:
I meant to say that Britney’s track album equivalents includes all songs not just singles, (rather than accidentally say not only single streams). In either case, it wouldn’t let me edit it.
So I think if 4.32 M in 2019 (it didn’t seem to include streams, otherwise it would have moved up more than just .012 M since 2011) + Streams, all song track album equivalents, and we basically have to view 4.324 M as pure sales, then BMG’.s 588 K = 5.104 M + 150K (singles sales) = 5.254 M + 441 K (streams from your live updated chart) = 5.691 M sales + all remaining non-single track album equivalents and additional pure sales since 2019.
Suddenly 6 M doesn’t seem so farfetched and since streaming didn’t really even count on sales until 2014, but here you include all years of streaming, your #s would be more accurate and show higher sales than Soundscan.
Similar to how Soundscan didn’t count track album equivalents until 2005, but you didn’t skip on adding single sales accumulated before then… so Soundscan underestimated and only begins to counts after a certain date.
Soundscan is accurate for pure sales though, it’s just not accurate on streams and TAE.
Trumru,
You need to be more careful / precise when you deal with the numbers.
- 4.342 + 588 = 4.93 million rather than 5.104 million
- 300m streams does equal to 200k album sales, but these are global figures not US
- you want to add "songs from the album on Spotify" on top of that, while these are already added among these 200k
- Soundscan is 100% accurate on streams and TEA
- all numbers I mentioned include singles + album cuts, not only singles
- RIAA doesn't say the album sold 4 million in 2001. It says it shipped 4 million in 2001, which is very different. Shipments should not be mixed with pure sales. The album sold 2.92 million in the entire year.
So rather than your calculation, the reality will be 5.1m (pure) + 150k (songs' DLs) + a part of 200k (audio streams) + remaining platforms + a few extra pure sales for post-2003 club sales = nowhere near to 6 million still.
You specifically said: “Sales of singles downloads for this album add for about 150,000 units in total.”
So you need to be more careful / precise bc your own statement tells me you only factored in singles sales, rather than all album tracks.
Overall based on your comment:
5.1 M + 150 K DL songs equivalents + *220 K albums streams = 5.47 M + your point on pure club sales in 2003 (and beyond TBH) push it up further.
To me 5.47 M isn’t that far off of 6 M, and we also have to count vinyl releases, the fact people purchase her songs and albums digitally at any moment, and the fact it hasn’t been updated by Soundscan in years. This is key bc Britney has Re surged in popularity due to her court case and the 20th anniversary of her album coming up. Her team has promoted vinyl editions of her albums to make up for her hiatus.
(I divided her total *441 K streams across all platforms by half to count for USA only, based on your live update chart at the bottom which shows its total album streams)
There are little point in separating 'singles' and 'tracks' in digital statistics, that is something from the physicals era.
Why would you take 50% from the US? Streaming statistics are way more balanced than physical sales used to be. Over the last 3 months, she has got 278 million views on YouTube, only 47 million of them are from the US, less than 20%. For Spotify it's about 30%. Then, our formula divides YouTube views by 11,750 while the RIAA uses 1,500 instead. But even taking that into account, 'Britney' numbers leaked some weeks ago and it was at 146k SEA.
You keep talking about it as some kind of modern Dark Side of the Moon, but it's not. Outside of hard core fans, this album has been irrelevant ever since the release of My Prerogative, hence why it's pure sales are virtually frozen for 17 years. Its LP releases are limited to 5k, and it's organic sales every year are down to 1,000 copies per year. In The Zone, with the same 3 2019-2020 LPs batches limited to 5k each, has sold 17,000 copies in the US over the last 4 years, total. No need to say that songs' download are absolutely dead.
How can you say that "5.47 M isn’t that far off of 6 M" when the album is doing so poorly? It has 300k from TEA+SEA, and sold less than 100k pure since 2004. That means it hasn't moved 400k over the last 17 years. If half a million is missing, even if it holds the same popularity as these years, it means your "not that far off" translates into more than 2 decades worth of sales activity to get there. Obviously, in all likelyhood way less people will streams it in 2040 than now. Depending on how it decreases over time, it's a not that far off that could last forever.
I only pointed it out bc you said singles, then clarified you meant all songs from the album. The fact you can pick any song on iTunes and buy it now means since 2003 (18 years ago), it didn’t matter if a song was a single, a song could be purchased individually and that would still count for the album, if 9 more people bought even a different song from the album. This makes a huge difference, bc it doesn’t matter that the album was released in the physics era, in 2001, as long as a song can be purchased digitally now, it can definitely count towards catalogue sales.
Also, unfortunately, original streaming services like AOL 1st Listen are not counted. Britney set a record for having the highest 1st Day streams of 1 M for her Boys-remix, and I could only image how much it accumulated the rest of the week, etc. and all of those streams for all of her songs overall.
In either case, I just wanted to see it also adds up. So basically you put it at 5.1 M + 150 K streams + 150 TAE = 5.4 M sales.
That means it should still be Re-certified to add the additional sales to make it quintuple platinum, while the original argument didn’t even consider BMG music sales since RIAA doesn’t seem to include that.
In either case, it deserves its 5 M certification, and I have a feeling it is still going to go Diamond.
***
Although from a different album:
I just read that Toxic across all streaming platforms, has 600 M streams in the USA, this would translate into 4 M single sales.
My point, originally, is that due to Not certifying, it appears much less than it actually is, and on RIAA it shows Toxic as Gold, while it should be at least 4 M more from streams, not including direct song downloads.
The source claims 6.45 M total sales including 2.5 M single sales, and the 4 M from the streams boost. That to me seems like a low ballpark for such a famous song, but at least it shows that just bc we assume an old song isn’t as popular, doesn’t mean we should rely on old certs.
Regardless if it was certified diamond in the US or not; it still sold 10 million+ worldwide, it still was the biggest debut by a female artist that year, and 2nd biggest over all. It’s still considered one of the most successful albums of the 21st century, and any artist today would kill to have a 10 million+ selling album. I feel the shade in your replies, and it’s completely inappropriate.
from 2019 to 2021 I saw consistent growth on Spotify and youtube, even though it hasn't released anything since 2016, it already has 22.6 million monthly listeners, Britney it's definitely superior to its competitors at the time, except for Beyonce, which had a peak of 10 years after her debut.
Do you believe Britney can do well on the next album?
BTW Billboard updated Britney's total sales and streams in the US for the 20th anniversary of the 'Britney' album and she has sold 200k pure albums in the country since May 2020 (we also got an update then). Probably around 400k since this article was last updated in April 2019 (she was at 33.6M in Jaruary 2019).
https://mobile.twitter.com/gthot20/status/1457008685671145484
So here is the final posting by JIVE before it folded, and made a piece on Britney’s albums up to that point (Femme Fatale). She sold, according to them, 19 M WW sales of Britney, and 10 M WW sales of In The Zone. This is from 2011, so a decade ago. It mentions Baby One More Time sold 30 M, and Oops sold 24 M. Unfortunately it doesn’t mention sales of Blackout or Circus.
Originally it was written in this site’s post as: Britney album as 10 M, and ITZ as 7 M, Baby One More Time at 24 M sales, and Oops as 19 M. So they should be fixed.
I literally have the proof in the picture. So it almost looks as if the numbers written in this article, were written for the wrong album, since the picture would put Oops at 24 M sales, while it listed Baby One More Time at 24. Then 19 M for Oops is actually the number for Britney. Same for Britney being listed as 10 M when that’s the number for In The Zone. Your numbers are right, but just associated to the wrong album.
Also it lists her debut single Baby One More Time as selling 10 M copies worldwide as one of the greatest selling of all time. Please update that too. Obviously, streams and a decade later of sales would move it even higher since this article of JIVE is from 2011.
So ultimately, you can just do a change to the pure sales side, as streaming wasn’t a factor back in 2011, and then calculate all sales after October 2011 onto that base given in the picture, so this site’s article has at minimum what was proven a decade ago. I assume this doesn’t include TAE, because all albums were pre-2005, but they may have added TAE for post-2005.
Afterall, JIVE cites Guinness Book of World Records, Billboard, etc. as worldwide sources, and doesn’t just list numbers. I cannot think of a more official source than the final calculation before JIVE ceased to exist. At least they did this for Britney before they disappeared.
So yeah, just move the numbers to the right album:
0. Baby One More Time at 30 M Sales
1. 24 M sales for Oops, not Baby One More Time.
2. 19 M sales for Britney, not Oops.
3. 10 M sales for ITZone, not Britney.
Correct numbers, just the wrong album, as the JIVE picture proved.
It says she sold 110 M WW: if you minus the first four albums, that leaves 27 M for My Perogative, Blackout, Circus, and the recently (at the time) released Femme Fatale.
27 / 4 albums is about 6.8 M each, on average… not bad. Especially when only 2 are studio albums that had been out for over a year. So Blackout, Circus, My Perogative GHits, must have sold closer to 9 M on average, since FFatale was still new:
Buddy, unrealistic numbers even posted by record label shouldn’t be considerate. Remember when Sony claimed Michael Jackson sold 750M albums. And it’s obviously a lie. These Britney’s Sales are inflated as Hell.
Can you please finally update Britney's streams EAS on the Top Artists - EAS list? Her numbers haven't been updated since the end of November (9,553,000 - 11/29/21).
this needs to be updated! Especially in celebration of her freedom & her 40th birthday!
Y'all updated and then her numbers decreased lmao. The Britney sabotage needs to stop.
(9,553,000 – 11/29/21)
(9,515,000 – 12/15/21)
Hi justiceforglory!
I hope you understand everything is automated, there are no 'sabotage' or whatever nonsense there.
As we mentioned very often, when artists totals freeze, 9 times out of 10 it is because one total was saved with duplicated songs (it happens for 1-2 hours a day when Spotify updates its data and some songs have both the previous day and the new day playcounts on distinct releases), so when this gets fixed, we won't see a significant increase but instead the number goes back to normal, with no duplicates, hence the drop.
I think that Justin Beaber‘s numbers increase very fast for this reason .
It's probably best to do it when RIAA updates certifications. Right now I don't expect her to really gain more than 1,000,000 - 2,000,000 pure album sales. She hasn't had a lot of longevity. Streams are the only thing that would get her higher numbers and that's automatically adjusted.
She did have longevity. Having multiple top 10 hits 12 years into her career is longevity.
I noticed that femme fatale doesn't have any physical sales and I have some data you can add to that.
Femme fatale had four singles and these are the sources that I found that you should add.
Australian (ARIA) has data here,
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k9o2q7p7o4awhqx/AAAJJrqHEx_H2AkwuL1RJvc4a/2011%20Accreds.pdf
Do CTRL + F and search Britney Spears.
You will find "Hold It Against Me" "I Wanna Go" Till The World Ends".
Hold It Against me has PLATINUM = 70,000 copies.
I wanna go has GOLD = 35,000 copies.
Till The World ends has 2X PLATINUM = 140,000 copies.
The Femme Fatale tour is gold in Australia = 7,500 copies.
Side note, this data is from 2011 so it's outdated but at least you have something to add to the charts.
Belgium (BEA) has also some data from single.
https://www.ultratop.be/nl/goud-platina/2011/singles
Again do CTRL + F and search Britney spears and then it will come up with Till The World Ends.
Till The World Ends has GOLD = 15,000 copies.
Danmark (IFPI Danmark) has some data to.
http://ifpi.dk/node/7291
Till The World Ends has GOLD = 15,000 copies and no just copies no streams or digital copies just pure physical streams.
France data:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160128192330/http://www.infodisc.fr/Ventes_Single11.php
I Wanna go has 81,500 sales
Till The World Ends has 98,500 sales
South Korea data
http://gaonchart.co.kr/main/section/chart/online.gaon?serviceGbn=S1020&termGbn=year&hitYear=2011&targetTime=11&nationGbn=E
You can do again CTRL + F and search Britney Spears
Hold It Against Me sold 672,356 copies
I Wanna Go sold 536,491 copies
S&M (Remix) Feat. Britney Spears sold 486,616 copies
Till The World Ends sold 288,307 copies
Scary sold 220,356 copies. Scary is not a single but it did sell in Japan so hope that counts as well.
Switzerland Data from (IFPI Switzerland)
http://www.swisscharts.com/search_certifications.asp?search=Britney+Spears+Till+The+World+Ends
Till the world ends has GOLD = 15,000 copies sold.
Mexican Data
https://amprofon.com.mx/es/pages/certificaciones.php
It is in another language but translate it and search for Britney Spears.
Work B**ch has ORO = Gold = 30,000 copies.
Till The World ends = ORO = Gold = 30,000 copies.
Hold It Against Me = ORO = Gold = 30,000 copies.
I hope this helps and please add those to the graphs thank you because I did my research really hard and went deep.
Hi Artomphaser!
The numbers you list refer to digital sales, not physicals.
That being said the main 3 singles did come out in France, Germany, and South Korea as physical singles. Obviously, we can't expect large numbers for this format, about 5,000 to 10,000 units per single.
Literally,
Baby One More Time
Sometimes
You Drive Me Crazy
Oops I Did It Again
Stronger
I'm A Slave 4 U
Overprotected
Toxic
Gimme More
Womanizer
Circus
If U Seek Amy
Hold It Against Me
Till The World Ends
Criminal
Scream & Shout
Work *****
Hey why dosen't Femme Fatale has physical singles? I know for a fact that in 2011 JIVE RECORDS did sell singles from Femme Fatale album and even I have some of those singles? It dosen't make sense how it could have sold "0" since I remember really well at the time they were in stores.
