I hope you'll look back on statements like these, in the future, hopefully with a bit more wisdom and laugh at how naive, trusting and easily led you were.

As for knowing Back in Black is not at 48m, just do some simple arithmetic of its already certified units, even allowing for under certification in every territory it is certified, there is still no way you are finding another 20m or so, from the rest of the more minor music markets in the world.

Do the maths, don't just believe what you read or more to the point, what you're fed!

Hi Jason!

There isn't half the countries unavailable. The same ones are listed on all pages because they are the most representative. If you check Asian and European totals, they aren't barely the cumulative totals of listed countries, instead they are comprehensive. Same for Global figures that account from remaining countries of Latin America and Africa.

You refer to websites, they are not official providers of music industry statistics. The RIAA, the BPI, the IFPI, the CRIA, etc., instead are. The purpose of artists' sites is to promote them, not to report accurate data. For example, Sony website claims 1 billion sales and the highest selling artist ever spot for both Elvis and Jackson on their respective pages. Managers / Labels / Promoters use a lot of tricks to misled uneducated readers. One of the most used ones is to use a track titled as an album to account for sales under all formats. It has been used for Thriller (to get over 100m) as well as for Back In Black. It isn't the album that had sold 48m back then, but instead all supports that included the songs, meaning combining the original album with Live, Iron Man 2, etc. records. I'll advice you to read in detail main articles (for example, the fake 5 million plus figure for Sgt Pepper's in the UK is detailed) to understand more about charts and sales and avoid this kind of traps.

Hi U all.
First of all I have to apologize for my abscense from this site. I'm so sorry, I can't seem to find the time needed, still can't actually. But I wanted to check how AC/DC has done on spotify since I last checked (feb2018).

And well, the big ones just get bigger. Here's their top 20 tracks on Spotify as of 16/12019:

1 Back in Black - 343,0 million plays
2 Highway to Hell - 329,2
3 Thunderstruck - 327,5
4 You Shook Me All Night Long - 231,2
5 T.N.T. - 158,2
6 Hells Bells - 92,0
7 Shoot To Thrill - 90,4
8 Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - 83,3
9 It's a Long Way to the Top - 58,3
10 Rock n Roll Train - 41,2

11 For Those About to Rock - 33,7
12 Rock or Bust - 32,5
13 Whole Lotta Rosie - 30,0
14 Let There Be Rock - 25,5
15 If You Want Blood - 24,4
16 Moneytalks - 24,0
17 War Machine - 19,8
18 Have a Drink on Me - 19,4
19 R'n'R Ain't Noise Pollution - 18,5
20 Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be - 18,3

Compared to 11 months ago HTH has overtaken Thunderstruck for 2nd spot and Rock or Bust has dropped out of the top 10.
HTH is actually the most played AC/DC track of the past 11 months, surpassing even BIB with a small margin in that time frame.
Rock or Bust is just the 21nd most played track in that period, likely because it is no longer a "new" track.

The entire AC/DC catalog is now at 2.59 billion plays, an increase of almost 60% compared to 11 months ago. I don't know how that increase is compared to their peers, but considering there's been no new album or tour, I think it looks solid.

Most tracks follow that pattern. The top 5 songs for example each increased between 60-69%.
No tracks doubled their plays these 11 months. Except one that is. "Are You Ready", the third single of the 1990 "The Razors Edge" album has actually more than tripled (201% increase) since feb 2018! Why? Well it's not because I've had it on repeat ever since.
The reason is the Coca-Cola company and the FIFA World Cup. Coca-Cola used the song for the 2018 FIFA World Cup commercial, generating extra interest in the song. At feb 2018 is was ranked well outside the top 50 streamed AC/DC tracks, but during this 11 month period it was the 17th most played AC/DC song (and now ranks 34th overall).

Another track, "Back in Business" an album track from "Fly on the Wall" has almost doubled, it increased by an impressive 93% - dunno why. It's the top streamed track from that 1985 album, well ahead of the three singles "Danger", "Shake Your Foundations" and "Sink the Pink" - dunno why.

Cheers,
Thomas

This is how many streams each album total in millions (with increase in %).

BIB 823,4 (60.6%)
HTH 419,5 (65.0%)
TRE 393,4 (61.4%)
High Voltage 262,5 (60.8%)
DDDDC 125,1 (61.5%)
Rock or Bust 114,9 (34.6%)
Black Ice 114,5 (49.0%)
LTBR 89,6 (53.9%)
FTATR 46,6 (50.6%)
SUL 39,8 (45.4%)
Powerage 33,0 (48.5%)
Ballbreaker 31,3 (50.1%)
FOTW 20,1 (63.0%)
BUYV 17,7 (44.8%)
'74JB 12,4 (60.4%)
FOTS 10,3 (45.8%)

It's almost like the bigger the album, the bigger the gain.
The big increase for FOTW though, is mainly due to the 93% increase for the song Back in Business I mentioned previously.
'74Jailbreak is a 5 track EP , so basicly if the title track performs well (64.5%), the EP performs well.
Unsurprisingly their latest album Rock or Bust , has the smallest % gain as the news effect has come to an end.

Let's take a look at AC/DC's least streamed tracks. Here's the bottom 20 - not including B-sides and rarities:

1 Brainshake 390K (FOTS)
2 Send for the Man 420K (FOTW)
3 Deep in the Hole 467K (FOTS)
4 Some Sin for Nuthin' 504K (BUYV)
5 Stand Up 504K (FOTW)
6 Hell or High Water 505K (FOTW)
7 Bedlam in Belgium 519K (FOTS)
8 Landslide 533K (FOTS)
9 Badlands 545K (FOTS)
10 Playing With Girls 549K (FOTW)
11 Ruff Stuff 579K (BUYV)
12 Nick of Time 592K (BUYV)
13 Go Zone 617K (BUYV)
14 Meanstreak 630K (BUYV)
15 Two's Up 662K (BUVY)
16 Kissing Dynamite 690 (BUYV)
17 Danger 696K (FOTW)
18 Breaking the Rules 740K (FTATR)
19 This Means War 797K (BUYV)
20 Spellbound 865K (FTATR)

The mid-80's really wasn't good to AC/DC - all 20 tracks are from 1981-1988!
2 tracks from the 1981 classic For Those About to Rock (at #18 & 20)
5 tracks from the 1983 album Flick of the Switch (5 in the bottom 9 actually!)
5 tracks from the 1985 album Fly on the Wall (incl. 1st single Danger!)
8 tracks from the 1988 album Blow Up Your Video (that's just 2 songs NOT in the bottom 20!)

Hi Thomas,

Yeah that downturn in sales/popularity post Back In Black is weird. I know FTATR went to #1 in the US and #3 in UK but it's not a very well loved or remembered album these days, with 9 of it's 10 tracks under 3.5m streams. Then it kind of goes into total free fall, with that run of three albums all performing terribly, especially FOTS managing just over 10m streams in total, before a big lift with Razors Edge and Thunderstruck in particular, in 1990.

True. And I know I'm biased, but I love those albums. Not just semi classic songs like Let's Get it Up, Guns For Hire, Sink the Pink and Heatseeker, but also deeper cuts like Breaking the Rules, This House is on Fire, Fly on the Wall, Send for the Man, Two's Up and many more. I fully rate these albums as high as the likes of Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip.

And even the title track of FTATR seem underappreciated these days. 34M streams is healthy, but I mean this is a bonafide AC/DC classic, they've finished almost every show with this one ever since release. The Grand Finale! Canons and all! It really should be right up there, well maybe not with the top 3 giants, but say with T.N.T., Hells Bells, DDDDC and Shoot to Thrill.

I'm a far bigger fan of the Bon Scott era, Powerage being possibly my favourite, an album which I also think is under listened to. Cold Hearted Man, is easily one of my top 5 DC songs ever, why it was left off the original US release and still is, I'll never know.

I feel the same way about IALWTTT (IYWRR), as you do with FTATR, it should be higher than just over 61m. It's just pure AC/DC for me and the video, on that float, with the bagpipes, will always be my favourite video/footage of them.

I do like a lot of tracks from those albums between FTATR to RE but even though I own them, they really don't get listened to very often, probably over 25 years since I've fully listened to any of them. The albums after that, I just don't really do, heard them when they came out but apart from Black Ice I've never listened to them again.

I'll pick the Bon Scott era too, if I have to choose. Let There Be Rock is my fave album of all time. Amazing from start to finish.
But yeah, Powerage is very underrated, grew up with vinyl, and was also disppointed that CHM isn't on the CD (=US vinyl). Streaming wise it has benefitted from the inclusion on Iron Man 2. Once a rarity, but now in the top half of Powerage with over 2.5M.
Your IALWTTT and my FTATR could probably have benefitted too 🙂

I take it you mean Backtracks, not Iron Man 2. Yeah I wore out my old UK vinyl LP copy a long time ago.

No actually. I did mean that CHM streams are high compared to other rarities like Crabsody in Blue and Carry Me Home - because it is also included on IM2, the closest thing to a AC/DC best of (even without IALWTTT, DDDDC, HB, FTATR & YSMANL)
The song IS their best rarity as well, but I'm sure IM2 helped, I believe it helped other tracks too, like Evil Walks for example.

I completely missed it on Iron Man 2, as I always go to Backtracks, when I listen to it on Spotify.

Being British, I've never really thought of it as a rarity. Luckily for me it's always been Side 2 Track 4 on Powerage. It's such a good track for me, that I have never understood why, come the CD release and re-release that they always give us the 9 track, US version. It's not as if time or space is an issue.

Since you've compiled their Spotify streams, do you also want to do their Youtube streams and publish a Streaming Masters for them. I was going to do them next but seeing as you've already completed one half of the analysis?

Not sure I remember how to publish it, lol.
But I still got the old excel sheet, so I can update the streaming figures in there and mail you if you like.

Martin, I'll wait a couple of weeks and then update the excel sheet to coincide with the one year anniversary of the AC/DC CSPC. Where would you like me to send it?