Forum
Thanks for backing up with data! Interesting that Madonna's streams are way worse than her digital sales. She outsold The Beatles, (due to them releasing their catalogue very late on itunes), Elvis, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Elton (by a lot) and U2. But now she lags behind all of them.
But that's largely because she was still very successful in the 2000s, a song like 4 Minutes sold 5m copies for example, but Material Girl or Like A Virgin only sold 1m... Compared with Elton :
Tiny Dancer 4.2m
Your Song 2.7m
Rocket Man 2.6m
Bennie & The Jets 2.1m
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 1.1m
So her back catalog was already much less popular despite her being much more relevant during the 2000s... She also sold more than AC/DC :
Back In Black 5.9m
Thunderstruck 4.3m
You Shook Me All Night Long 3.7m
Highway To Hell 3.1m
Hells Bells 2.1m
Two years after release PWR/UP’s tracks have over 222 mio plays on Spotify, ranked like this:
1 Shot in the Dark – 69,436,602
2 Realize – 31,436,350
3 Demon Fire – 26,861,620
4 Witch’s Spell – 19,046,868
5 Rejection – 15,971,800
6 Kick You When You’re Down – 12,075,453
7 Through the Mists of Time – 10,770,456
8 Code Red – 7,918,980
9 Wild Reputation – 7,768,612
10 Money Shot – 7,159,811
11 No Man’s Land – 7,018,630
12 Systems Down – 6,905,052
Total – 222,370,234
"PWR/UP" still haven't caught "Rock or Bust" (2014) at 228,188,864. And "Shot in the Dark" hasn't caught "Rock or Bust" (the song) at 71,742,233 either.
But "Shot in the Dark" is gonna be AC/DC's 17th track to pass 70M streams. The previous 16 tracks are spread over 5 decades, so AC/DC will soon have tracks released in 6 decades in a row with 70M+ plays!
70's:
It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna RnR)
T.N.T.
Dirty Deeds Done DIrt Cheap
Let There Be Rock
Whole Lotta Rosie
Highway to Hell
If You Want Blood
80's:
Hells Bells
Shoot to Thrill
Back in Black
You Shook Me All Night Long
For Those About To Rock
90's:
Thunderstruck
Moneytalks
00's:
Rock n Roll Train
10's:
Rock or Bust
20's:
Shot in the Dark
Has anyone else done that?!
70M+ doesn't seem like that much of a landmark, but a couple of years from now this might be 100M+...
Elton John and MJ (with the J5) also have 6 decades, Elton having the longest span (1970-2022).
6 decades in a row? Does Elton have any from the 10's?
I guess he has one from the 00's if you count the 2Pac hit.
High (2018) has 76m streams. From the 00s he also has Are You Ready For Love, a 2003 remix of a 1979 song, and a close one with the Blue version of Sorry Seems To Be (66.5m).
If we look at total streams by decade MJ would probably win that contest, 5 decades with 800m+ streams including 4 in a row 😎
Ah, features, samples, remixes and re-makes. Hard to keep up with!
I just heard "High". Not really a new Elton John song. A rapper sampling Rocket Man, but ok, it's a feature, so I suppose technically you're right.
It's about 4 years ago I looked at AC/DC’s least streamed tracks. Has anything changed? Here’s the bottom 20 – not including B-sides and rarities:
1 (1) Brainshake 1066K (FOTS)
2 (4) Some Sin for Nuthin’ 1095K (BUYV)
3 (2) Send for the Man 1139K (FOTW)
4 (3) Deep in the Hole 1266K (FOTS)
5 (11) Ruff Stuff 1328K (BUYV)
6 (13) Go Zone 1339K (BUYV)
7 (12) Nick of Time 1353K (BUYV)
8 (6) Hell or High Water 1376K (FOTW)
9 (14) Meanstreak 1431K (BUYV)
10 (5) Stand Up 1459K (FOTW)
11 (8) Landslide 1529K (FOTS)
12 (7) Bedlam in Belgium 1535K (FOTS)
13 (10) Playing With Girls 1573K (FOTW)
14 (16) Kissing Dynamite 1575K (BUYV)
15 (15) Two’s Up 1600K (BUVY)
16 (9) Badlands 1603K (FOTS)
17 (19) This Means War 1641K (BUYV)
18 (18) Breaking the Rules 1944K (FTATR)
19 (28) Love Bomb 2164K (Ballbreaker)
20 (17) Danger 2171K (FOTW)
-------------------------------------------------
21 (30) Caught With Your Pants Down 2272K (Ballbreaker)
22 (22) You Ain't Got a Hold on Me 2307K (74JB)
23 (21) Snowballed 2327K (FTATR)
24 (20) Spellbound 2366K (FTATR)
So, the three mid 80s albums (Flick of the Switch '83, Fly On The Wall '85 and Blow Up Your Video '88) are still dominating the bottom 20 with a total of 18 tracks.
Spellbound has escaped the bottom 20, leaving just one track from For Those About To Rock '81. "New" entry is Love Bomb from Ballbreaker '95. Love Bomb has gone from #28-19! And Caught With Your Pants Down also from Ballbreaker has gone from #30-21! So it seems Ballbreaker has dropped in popularity.
FOTS on the other hand has gained in popularity. It still has 5 songs in the bottom 20, but this time only 2 in the bottom 10. Four years ago all 5 were in the bottom 10.
Almost the same story for FOTW. Still 5 songs in the bottom 20, but all 5 have gained places.
That means BUYV has taken a fall. It has gone from bad to worse. Still 8 songs on the list, but in stead of just one song in the bottom 10 it now has 5 songs in the bottom 10! In fact there's now a 300K gap between #17 and #18 - and the 8 BUYV tracks are all in the bottom 17! If it wasn't for the hit singles Heatseeker and That's the Way I Wanna RnR BUYV would easily be their least popular album.
They need to avoid calling any future recordings, a title that begins with S, ends with D, has two Ls, one O, one E, one N and one B, in it and has exactly ten letters! lol
Personally, I don't really rate anything post Back In Black. I've enjoyed a handful of tracks that were contemporary to me, such as Who Made Who, That's The Way..., Heatseeker, Thunderstruck and Rock N Roll Train but not one of their post BIB albums (and I've owned them all, since the late 80s) has left any kind of lasting impression on me. I did enjoy Black Ice initially, but I haven't listened to it since it came out. The rest, I haven't listened to in over 30 years or since they came out but then again, I'm am quite staunchly a Bon Scott era man.
Snowballed and Spellbound? LOL!
Bon was something else. There's a reaon no Bon songs are in the bottom 20.
But as you know, I'm a fan of both frontmen.
Inspired by the comments from Martin and myself I thought it would make sense to look at the bottom Bon Scott era tracks too.
B-sides and rarities excluded. From an international point of view that is. For example. "Love Song" and "Soul Stripper" are both on the Australian debut album (1975), "Soul Stripper" was then included on the 5 song EP "74Jailbreak" (1984), "Love Song" was not. So internationally "Love Song" remained a rarity (now available on the "Backtracks" boxset).
I'll start by posting the list as of Jan 2019, the time I posted the old list of Brian tracks.
1 You Ain't Got a Hold on Me 873K (74JB)
2 Soul Stripper 924K (74JB)
3 Show Business 1050K (74JB)
4 Up To My Neck in You 1124K (Powerage)
5 Kicked in the Teeth 1131K (Powerage)
6 Overdose 1319K (LTBR)
7 Baby, Please Don't Go 1348K (74JB)
8 Gimme a Bullet 1350K (Powerage)
9 Squealer 1503K (DDDDC)
10 Down Payment Blues 1522K (Poweage)
11 There's Gonna Be Some Rockin' 1568K (DDDDC)
12 Love At First Feel 1627K (DDDDC)
13 What's Next to the Moon 1631K (Powerage)
14 Go Down 1649K (LTBR)
15 Ain't NoFun 1905K (DDDDC)
16 Little Lover 2110K (HV)
17 She's Got Balls 2370K (HV)
18 Bad Boy Boogie 2451K (LTBR)
19 Cold Hearted Man 2541K (Powerage)
20 Can I Sit Next to You Girl 2863K (HV)
------------------------------------------------------------
21 Love Hungry Man 3153K (HTH)
So that's 4 songs from '74 Jailbreak
3 songs from High Voltage
4 songs from Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
3 songs from Let There Be Rock
6 songs from Powerage
0 songs from Highway to Hell
Obviously HTH is the biggest Bon album. Love Hungry Man at #21 was about 300K on the safe side in 2019.
4 songs from the 5-track '74 Jailbreak in the bottom 7. I suppose they might be considered B-sides to the track Jailbreak?
With 6 tracks in the bottom 20 (and the 2 smallest non-74JB tracks) Powerage is the least popular proper Bon Scott album.
With no songs in the bottom 15, High Voltage is the 2nd most popular Bon album (after HTH).
And here's the bottom 20 Bon Scott era songs on Spotify as of 2/2/2023:
1 (1) You Ain’t Got a Hold on Me 2307K (74JB)
2 (2) Soul Stripper 2825K (74JB)
3 (3) Show Business 2846K (74JB)
4 (4) Up To My Neck in You 3430K (Powerage)
5 (5) Kicked in the Teeth 3653K (Powerage)
6 (6) Overdose 4027K (LTBR)
7 (8) Gimme a Bullet 4219K (Powerage)
8 (9) Squealer 4296K (DDDDC)
9 (11) There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’ 4301K (DDDDC)
10 (12) Love At First Feel 4374K (DDDDC)
11 (7) Baby, Please Don’t Go 4634K (74JB)
12 (10) Down Payment Blues 4736K (Poweage)
13 (14) Go Down 4987K (LTBR)
14 (13) What’s Next to the Moon 5056K (Powerage)
15 (15) Ain’t No Fun 5255K (DDDDC)
16 (19) Cold Hearted Man 5632K (Powerage)
17 (16) Little Lover 6060K (HV)
18 (17) She’s Got Balls 6463K (HV)
19 (18) Bad Boy Boogie 7280K (LTBR)
20 (20) Can I Sit Next to You Girl 8350K (HV)
————————————————————
21 (22) Get It Hot 9555K (HTH)
Still no HTH songs in the bottom 20. This time Get It Hot is about 1200K on the safe side. Meanwhile Love Hungry Man (16764K) has climbed #21-26!
So it's the same 20 songs on the list, but in slightly different order. Most have roughly tripled in plays, or close.
Baby, Please Don't Go has done better and climbed #7-11.
Cold Hearted Man has done a bit worse and dropped #19-16.
Apart from that there are only minor changes.
Powerage is without doubt my favourite album of theirs. Not sure exactly, why its tracks are so unloved in general, maybe because it doesn't have any hugely popular tracks on it, to bring people to it. I've read a few forums etc, where a lot of people and AC/DC fans, also claimed it to be their best.
Powerage is indeed the typical fan choice. I've read that a lot too.
I"ve been an AC/DC fan as long as I can remember. Since way before I learned any English. And I love Powerage too. It's more consistant to me than DDDDC. Maybe more than High Voltage too. And Sin City & Riff Raff should have been HUGE imo. However, I always preferred the Let There Be Rock & Highway to Hell albums. Still do. Those are even more consistant and have better top tracks imo.
Btw. I probably should have included the demo version for Get it Hot. New total 9936K (#21).
I'm not sure I had any of their albums prior to buying That's The Way I Wanna Rock and Roll but that was definitely the first contemporary record I bought by them, a 12" picture disc, with Angus on it, if I remember correctly lol. So I guess I've been a fan since at least early 88.
I'm pretty sure Back In Black and Highway To Hell, were the first two I got into, BIB first, then HTH. I then picked up tons of their albums over the next few years, in 2nd hand shops, charity shops, 2nd hand record shops, usually for 50p or £1! HTH was definitely my go to DC album in the late 80s and early 90s. Powerage just slowly grew on me, until one day I realised it was clearly the album of theirs I was going to most often. I absolutely love High Voltage as well, it's hard to choose between HTH and it, which is my next favourite. BIB next, then Dirty Deeds and sadly, your favourite is my least favourite of their albums that I listen to.
Interesting. Well, mindblowing actually. I can't find a single weak spot on LTBR! Well, each to their own.
I do agree with you on Beating Around the Bush. It's my least fave on HTH.
HTH, Touch Too Much and Shot Down in Flames being my top 3 on that album. Incredible album.
DDDDC is my least fave Bon album. The title track is great, but maybe not as great as it's reputation. Big Balls is more funny than good. Rocker was never my cup of tea. And There's Gonna Be Some Rockin' is possibly my least fave Bon tune ever.
I love Ride On and Squealer though. And Problem Child is pretty damned good. Jailbreak was on the Aussie version of course. Being an all time fave of mine that one would have lifted my thoughts on DDDDC considerably!
I just reworded my reply, so your reply might look odd now!
Yeah, I'm just the exact opposite to you with LTBR, even Rosie doesn't work for me as a studio version...I need to hear "Angus"..."Angus". For me, there's just nothing standout on it and I've never been a big fan of the actual track LTBR, I actually think there are a few weak/filler tunes on it. Sorry lol
Least streamed songs on their pre-2010 albums :
Back In Black 18m
Highway To Hell 10m
High Voltage 6m
Dirty Deeds 4m
Let There Be Rock 4m
Black Ice 4m
The Razors Edge 4m
Powerage 3m
Stiff Upper Lip 3m
Ballbreaker 2m
For Those About To Rock 2m
Fly On The Wall 1m
Blow Up Your Video 1m
Flick Of The Switch 1m
Zeppelin for comparison :
II 22m
IV 16m
I 14m
Houses Of The Holy 11m
III 7m
Physical Graffiti 6m
In Through The Out Door 4m
Presence 3m
It's true that AC/DC have a lot more forgotten/overlooked tracks than Led Zeppelin.
In all fairness they've had a much longer recording career. AC/DC released about 175 regular songs, Led Zeppelin about 75.
It's like comparing Guns n Roses to Aerosmith. It's easy to discover all of GnRs catalog, Aerosmith not so easy.
With just 3 studio albums Nirvana is another example. Lots of fans would hear all their tracks repeatedly. And listen to Nirvana randomly on Spotify, after an hour or two you're deep into their catalog.
I know Led Zep have 8 studio albums and are somewhere in between, but you get my point.
The exception might be Metallica. Long career, high play counts all over!
Now that I've listed the bottom tracks compared to jan 2019, let's look at their top 30 tracks on Spotify as of 7/2/2023 (and jan19):
1 (1) Back in Black – 1212,6M (343,0)
2 (2) Highway to Hell – 1174,0M (329,2)
3 (3) Thunderstruck – 1126,8M (327,5)
4 (4) You Shook Me All Night Long – 828,1M (231,2)
5 (5) T.N.T. – 547,9M (158,2)
6 (6) Hells Bells – 316,4M (92,0)
7 (7) Shoot To Thrill – 310,7M (90.4)
8 (8) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – 291,2M (83,3)
9 (9) It’s a Long Way to the Top – 204,3M (58,3)
10 (10) Rock n Roll Train – 161,5M (41,2)
11 (11) For Those About to Rock – 112,9M (33,7)
12 (13) Whole Lotta Rosie – 105,9M (30,3)
13 (16) Moneytalks – 88,3M (24,0)
14 (14) Let There Be Rock – 83,1M (25,5)
15 (15) If You Want Blood – 78,1M (24.6)
16 (12) Rock or Bust – 74,9M (32,5)
17 (-) Shot in the Dark – 73,6M (new)
18 (22) Who Made Who – 70,1M (17,6)
19 (19) R’n’R Ain’t Noise Pollution – 66,6M (18,5)
20 (21) Touch Too Much – 62,5M (17,9)
21 (17) War Machine – 57,7M (19,8)
22 (22) Stiff Upper Lip – 57,3M (16,5)
23 (34) Are You Ready – 57,2M (10,8)
24 (26) Girls Got Rhythm – 55,1M (15,1)
25 (18) Have a Drink on Me – 53,8M (19,4)
26 (25) Hard as a Rock – 53,2M (15,2)
27 (24) High Voltage – 52,3M (15,9)
28 (20) Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be – 49,5M (18,3)
29 (44) Jailbreak – 43,2M (8,2)
30 (32) Fire Your Guns – 39,8M (11,3)
The top 11 remain the same. Rock or Bust (released in 2014) dropped #12-16 and Shot in the Dark (released in 2020) enters at #17.
Most tracks more than tripled since jan19. RnR Train and Who Made Who almost quadrupled. Are You Ready and Jailbreak did fivefold!!
Have a Drink on Me (#18-25) and Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be (#20-28) didn't do so well. I don't know about HADOM, other than it was removed from "This is AC/DC" at some point. It actually did well until oct2020, neck to neck with RnR Ain't Noise Pollution, but then suddenly it stalled.
HAABPTB was always a popular live track and there haven't been any new live releases since 2012. So while the studio version actually quadrupled since jan19, the total live versions only doubled. As of now 52.4% of it's total plays are from live recordings, back in jan 2019 that number was a massive 69.7%!!!
We learned that bottom Bon tracks are far stronger than bottom Brian tracks. Here it's the other way around. 5 of the top 7 are Brian tracks, and 18 of the top 30 (If we exclude new track Shot in the Dark, next in line is Big Gun (39.7M) - also Brian).
Part of that is because of the landmark Back in Black of course, but also because the Brian catalog is much larger (about 125 songs compared to around 50), so some tracks are bound to be overlooked/forgotten. Also, most people consider the Bon era more consistent.
The Beatles have released more songs than AC/DC :
Abbey Road 27m
Revolver 15m
Rubber Soul 14m
Magical Mystery Tour 14m
Let It Be 14m
Sgt Peppers 14m
The Beatles 11m
Please Please Me 9m
Help 9m
A Hard Day's Night 6m
With The Beatles 6m
Beatles For Sale 6m
Plus all of the "orphan" stuff (Hey Jude...etc).
Some of Metallica's albums are quite recent so it's difficult to compare, Load/Reload are around 6m I think, St Anger more like 5m, which isn't that much for a 2003 album...
Obviously, the Beatles rule just about any stat you can think of 😉
The Rolling Stones have an insanely long recording career. Almost 30 studio albums. If you listen to the "This is the Rolling Stones" spotify playlist of 50 songs (3½ hours) you have barely heard all their hits, let alone deep cuts. Compare that to smaller catalogs by GnR or Nirvana and it's no wonder that the Stones have a lot more small/forgotten tracks.
