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Thanks for responding. Of course "People Need Love" was an obvious mistake - hard to remember an article 30 years later. The physical sales figures listed - where are they derived from? Much of the (physical) sales data is not much different (some a little too low) to what was estimated 70's/ 80's - hence my comment this seems to be vinyl sales only. Singles data however is quite different in a few examples. For example - Chiquitita was a UNICEF single, and sales was estimated as 4m back then (by UNICEF). Same as you record here. Fernando you have as 4.1m, whereas it was a massive hit in comparison to Chiquitita - there is no way this is possible; whether your data states differently, it does not match the reality of the time. Estimates back then were 6m-10m for Fernando. DQ was their biggest, and reported as 6m in 1976, 1m+ in 1977 (thus if this is their biggest hit, then of course 10m for Fernando is also not possible). Your comments on Readers Digest and Japan sales are extremely logical, and fit what would be more realistic. What I find the most difficult to comprehend, but data is data, is that ABBA sales were at the peak period of sales (IFPI) and topped charts globally vs AC/DC lesser known albums in 80's (low peak sales) that never charted and yet reportedly sold more than them. Not disputing it - just makes my head spin.
Hi Wayne!
Sales claims aren't considered when we build our articles, only valid charts & sales related data. We go through every relevant market and check what really happened instead of just copying a global sales myth.
If we take the example of DQ, in the US, the UK, Japan, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Ireland and Portugal it did an estimated 4,35 million. The rest is extrapoated with relative market sizes.
The Chiquita / Fernando isn't a valid comparison if you check charts on main markets. Fernando basically doubles sales of Chiquita in already mentioned markets (3,6m vs 1,8m) but Chiquita was an all-time top seller in Latin America, where international singles (including most of ABBA hits) don't sell at all / aren't even released. It moved an estimated 1,6 million there, which pushes it close to Fernando globally, but through completely different markets.
As for ABBA / AC/DC, if we stop data at 1982 or so, there is no match, ABBA were way, way bigger than AC/DC. It has to do with catalog sales, AC/DC are Beatles-esque there. In 2008 alone they shipped 6 million back catalog albums, that's as many as the biggest ABBA's albums during their promotional campaigns.
The English + Spanish versions of Chuquitita are different. Different vocals, different lyrics, different language. Count them separately.
Chiquitita - 2.4m English, 1.6m Spnanish
I agree about CHIQUITITA. I can tell in my country, Argentina, it was a mega hit, known by everybody from all generations (similar to Adele's 21 this decade). It sold extremely well in the Latin markets. When I grew up and started to investigate more, I was surprised learning it wasn't that big in other markets... for us "Chiquitita" is in the same level of popularity as "Staying alive", "You're the one that I want" or "Bohemian Rapsody".
Looking forward in seeing the "ABBAtars" tour and hearing theirtwo new studio songs recorded in Stockholm summer 2018.
Nik -- ABBA's Spokesperson & Friend - Gorel Hanser - has now, (August 21st 2019), said that the New ABBA Songs are not being released this Year. She says that we may get them at some time in 2020. We may get The ABBAtars Tour in 2021, but Benny has recently indicated that it may not happen at all. ABBA are having problems in getting them to work right. Benny also says that the New Songs are still not even 'Mixed' properly. ABBA did not initially record them in 2018. ABBA recorded them in June 2017 - over 2 Years ago. Bjorn now says that we should get at least 1 New Song in 2020, and The ABBAtars will be in its Promo Video...
'ABBA Gold' has sold nearly 6 Million USA copies, via SoundScan. However, it also sold 884,000 via the BMG Record Club, between 1993 and early 2003. SoundScan did not include those Sales. Some believe that 'Gold' has really sold over 8 Million in the USA, by now...
ABBA Gold actually sold 8.8 million pure copies in US by November 2016.
https://chartmasters.org/2016/11/cspc-abba-popularity-analysis/20/
Hi MJD! You obviously did an awesome job with ABBA, as usual, you never disappoint!
Just one thing though! For Arrival's total in Japan, you mention "N/A". While I realize that means you don't have enough information to set a precise figure, wasn't it a (late) huge seller in 1979, after some sort of Abbamania kicked out there following their promotional trip there in November 1978? I think I remember reading rather precise figures many times - including some posted by yourself - on other websites (Charts In France, UKmix or the defunct ABBA World Wide Chart Lists), in the range of 900,000 or something... Maybe these are wrong after all?
I also have one other question, which has more to do with their chart runs rather than their sales.
When the World Wide Chart Lists still existed, we could have access to ABBA's singles chart-runs on the US Billboard Hot 100. I obviously can't post a precise example anymore, but I remember being quite confused about these : in the US their singles always took weeks to climb up the charts, but they always dropped out of the Hot100 like heavy stones after reaching their peak. Let's say, for example, that the Waterloo single took 14 weeks to reach its #6 peak... After that, a typical end of chart run would look like something like this : [...climbs the chart slowly for 12 weeks...]-10-*6*-25-45-OUT. Why was that? I've never been able to explain it to myself... Was it some sort of manipulation by the record company, withdrawing the singles from sale once they were high enough on the singles chart in order to push people to buy the parent albums instead? That's the only explanation I can think of for now... Do you know what actually happened? I would be so grateful if you could give me an answer!
Sorry to be annoying but don't you think that figures for ABBA's first four albums + The Best of Abba reported by Rca Australia in Billboard in 1977 also include New Zealand sales? Wondering what you think of it?
Can you guys add their compilation sales? And maybe their sales by country too?
I have a question: What is with the album sales in Eastern Europe? They are completly missing in your list. On Wiki it says: "Due to the Cold war, Western music was actively discouraged throughout Eastern Europe at the time. Despite this, ABBA: The Album sold an unprecedented one million copies in Poland in 1977, exhausting the country's entire allocation of foreign currency. In Russia, only 200,000 copies were permitted to be pressed" and due to wikipedia "Arrival" has been sold 800.000 times in Poland - Abba even had a TV-Show on Polish Television to promote the album. Shouldn't you add these sales in your list?
Hi Bajazet!
You'll also find Billboard articles from ABBA mania years quoting very different numbers for Poland, more in the 10,000-20,000 range, so we should be careful with Wikipedia claims.
It's possible to check our receipts database to see their information, including from Poland / Russia, that we have been able to confirm.
When we published this article, to avoid blindly believing the numbers available on Wikipedia-like sources, but knowing they were indeed highly popular in Eastern Europe as well as in Norway and Denmark, we used larger than usual ratio for them when estimating European countries.
As for the countries listed, they are always the same ones as they are part of our templates, it doesn't mean that they are the markets where the album sold the most nor that we ignroed sales elsewhere. If you add the numbers from the 10 countries listed as part of Europe, you'll see the total is much lower than the listed European figure.
Thank you for your answer, you might be right (or maybe wrong) - it is not really important, I love ABBA's music, so "Don't shut me down" 😉
But those who claim that ABBA have sold over 380 million records what sources do they have ?????
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2558702/Abba-admit-wore-ridiculous-outfits-avoid-tax-40-years-Waterloo-band-reveals-story-success-words-unseen-pictures.html
These articles just quote other articles usually. I'd imagine this figure was originally inflated for marketing or taken out of context decades ago.
I would be interested to see the sales for Abba this time next year (10/22).
With a new album coming this friday, maybe then it's time
for a Abba update ?.
Outstanding website. Have been looking for accurate, detailed data like this since the beginning of the internet age. I first became interested in music sales consumption from when I was a teenager back in the 1970s. Information that explains how the research is conducted and analyzed.
The Administrators of Chartmasters have repeatedly explained how conditioned we all can become when we read the same information over and over again, which explains how often claims are made that this artist or that artist sold 100 million albums or even 1 billion albums. Where did said artist sell these albums? How much in North America or how much in Asia or Europe?
The details matter. When we are provided details, such as how market conditions from year to year impact various regions of the world differently, we then understand how album sales are distributed. Thorough research mitigates assumptions from becoming facts.
One example about how assumptions could become facts is by looking at the sales data for Mariah Carey's two biggest selling albums. Daydream (1993) has US sales of 10.6 million and Fantasy (1995) has US sales of 10.2 million. Without research you might assume that with US sales of the two albums so close, then wouldn't global sales be similar? The research says otherwise. Daydream sold 15.5 million outside the US, while Fantasy sold 9.7 million outside the US.
Both albums were huge successes, but there was a substantial difference of almost 6 million between their global sales.
Research + analyses = accuracy.
Thank you everyone at Chartmasters for the immense level of work applied toward the artist profiled so far and for providing the outstanding amount of data, that I have not found anywhere else.
Great words Gerome. Yes, research and anaylsis, is the key to it all and not just taking things at face value.
Thank you Jerome for your nice words! We do put a lot of work into it, for many years, so it's always rewarding to see that this work does serve the point.
Many jornalists / mass media contributors do not realize how powerful their position is, and by lazyness they led many people into believing false things. The thing is, rare are the people who study something deeply outside of their work duties. That means most studies come from people with a business interest on it, so most studies, and thus most conclusions, will always come from people with a bias. Jornalists then barely repeat what they see first, so depending on which biased study they saw, they will drop an article telling that either sugar or aspartame is so much better than the other. Then thousands of people take it as a fact, while at the origin the only difference is that one of the studies had a better SEO and ranked better on Google.
My love for music led me to treat this subject over others, and I was lucky enough to find on my way many other enthusiasts as well who are willing to help, but ChartMasters could be done about any subject really. Movies, food, sports, politics, economy, even history or science, which are also full of myths. Hopefully as time goes, for each of them there will be at least one person digging facts enough to debunk it, and that this accurate view will prevail, because at the end of the day, telling the truth is a fundamental first step towards a society that can care about making things better rather than fighting between them!
Queen are the best selling artist of all time in continental Europe (inc. UK), followed by MJ and The Beatles.
