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In 2002, Avril Lavigne took the music scene by storm with her debut album Let Go. Unlike the remaining teen pop stars, her sound involved rock elements which didn't stop her from becoming one of the main idols of her generation.
Recent years have been harder for the Canadian diva though. Off the radar since 2013, she announced on her Instagram account a couple of days ago that her upcoming album is in its final stages of production. Will she be able to reverse the downward spiral she is currently in and record a new hit? We will found out soon enough. In the meantime, let's review her past achievements!
Avril Lavigne original albums sales
Let Go (2002)
- America
- US - 7,100,000
- Canada - 1,100,000
- Argentina - 90,000
- Brazil - 350,000
- Mexico - 150,000
- Asia - 2,585,000
- Japan - 1,750,000
- South Korea - 260,000
- Taiwan - 150,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 550,000
- New Zealand - 80,000
- Europe - 3,990,000
- UK - 1,820,000
- France - 430,000
- Germany - 500,000
- Italy - 240,000
- Spain - 110,000
- Sweden - 65,000
- Netherland - 95,000
- Switzerland - 85,000
- Austria - 60,000
- Finland - 18,000
- World - 16,220,000
Under My Skin (2004)
- America
- US - 3,300,000
- Canada - 540,000
- Argentina - 70,000
- Brazil - 260,000
- Mexico - 120,000
- Asia - 1,575,000
- Japan - 1,125,000
- South Korea - 100,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 100,000
- New Zealand - 10,000
- Europe - 1,920,000
- UK - 660,000
- France - 220,000
- Germany - 320,000
- Italy - 190,000
- Spain - 55,000
- Sweden - 20,000
- Netherland - 25,000
- Switzerland - 60,000
- Austria - 40,000
- Finland - 13,000
- World - 8,020,000
The Best Damn Thing (2007)
- America
- US - 1,800,000
- Canada - 380,000
- Argentina - 35,000
- Brazil - 120,000
- Mexico - 110,000
- Asia - 1,490,000
- Japan - 1,080,000
- South Korea - 30,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 160,000
- New Zealand - 15,000
- Europe - 1,480,000
- UK - 480,000
- France - 200,000
- Germany - 240,000
- Italy - 170,000
- Spain - 25,000
- Sweden - 20,000
- Netherland - 10,000
- Switzerland - 45,000
- Austria - 30,000
- Finland - 13,000
- World - 5,660,000
Goodbye Lullaby (2011)
- America
- US - 410,000
- Canada - 65,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 55,000
- Mexico - 30,000
- Asia - 720,000
- Japan - 480,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 40,000
- New Zealand - 5,000
- Europe - 300,000
- UK - 85,000
- France - 30,000
- Germany - 50,000
- Italy - 45,000
- Spain - 10,000
- Sweden - 3,000
- Netherland - 5,000
- Switzerland - 10,000
- Austria - 5,000
- Finland - 3,000
- World - 1,650,000
Avril Lavigne (2013)
- America
- US - 165,000
- Canada - 40,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 40,000
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 340,000
- Japan - 225,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 10,000
- New Zealand - 1,000
- Europe - 120,000
- UK - 40,000
- France - 10,000
- Germany - 20,000
- Italy - 15,000
- Spain - 5,000
- Sweden - 1,000
- Netherland - 2,000
- Switzerland - 4,000
- Austria - 2,000
- Finland - 1,000
- World - 740,000
Original Album Sales - Comments
Lavigne was off to a superb start with her debut album Let Go selling 16,22 million units. Logically her following albums haven't equalled this magnitude of success, but they were big in their own right with Under My Skin shifting past 8 million copies while The Best Damn Thing, issued when downloads were already negatively impacting album sales, moved 5,66 million units. All 3 albums had insane sales in Japan, shifting close to 4 million sales combined there.
Goodbye Lullaby and Avril Lavigne have been flagged as flop albums and their album sales certainly do not prove otherwise. However, have they done well enough in singles downloads and streams to save them from this conclusion?
2002 Let Go - 16,220,000
2004 Under My Skin - 8,020,000
2007 The Best Damn Thing - 5,660,000
2011 Goodbye Lullaby - 1,650,000
2013 Avril Lavigne - 740,000
Avril Lavigne physical singles sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
By 2002 majors weren't releasing proper singles anymore in the US. Hits from Let Go were only available as video singles, a format with limited impact. The success in Europe and Oceania was big enough to grant Complicated nearly 1 million sales, while Sk8er Boi and I'm with You sold around 400,000 units a piece.
Hits from Under My Skin had a lower impact and also during a less favorable context with physical sales starting to collapse in Europe too. The situation only worsened by 2007, but Girlfriend was so big that it still registered 420,000 sales in that dying format.
Let Go (2002) - 606,000 equivalent albums
Losing Grip - 170,000
Complicated - 990,000
Sk8er Boi - 470,000
I'm with You - 390,000
Under My Skin (2004) - 228,000 equivalent albums
Don't Tell Me - 270,000
He Wasn't - 80,000
My Happy Ending - 270,000
Nobody's Home - 140,000
The Best Damn Thing (2007) - 192,000 equivalent albums
Girlfriend - 420,000
The Best Damn Thing - 10,000
When You're Gone - 160,000
Hot - 40,000
Goodbye Lullaby (2011) - 18,000 equivalent albums
What the Hell - 40,000
Wish You Were Here - 10,000
Smile - 10,000
Avril Lavigne (2013) - 6,000 equivalent albums
All singles - 20,000
Orphan - 2,000 equivalent albums
All singles - 7,500
Avril Lavigne digital singles sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.
Complicated, Sk8er Boi and I'm with You were all released before the digital age but their appeal continued in later years. They are all well over a million downloads and ringtones, in fact they sold nearly 7 million combined!
Don't Tell Me, My Happy Ending and Nobody's Home are arguably weaker, but with 4 million sales in total they aren't forgotten either.
Then comes The Best Damn Thing, the first era which enjoyed an already existing digital market. Girlfriend was one of the first monster hits in that format recording stunning results both in downloads and in ringtones sales. Combined, it sold well over 5 million in the US, far more than 2 million in Japan and a total of 11,63 million globally. When You're Gone and Keep Holding On are both multi-million sellers, contributing to the era total of more than 19 million singles sales.
What the Hell is rarely regarded as a big hit, but its 2,25 million US sales, added to its more than 1 million units in both Japan and South Korea, push the total to over 6 million. Later songs weren't quite as big with most of them struggling to reach a million sales worldwide in spite of the strong popularity Avril Lavigne has in Asia.
Let Go (2002) - 1,106,000 equivalent albums
Complicated - 2,760,000
Sk8er Boi - 2,560,000
I'm with You - 1,550,000
Remaining tracks - 500,000
Under My Skin (2004) - 657,000 equivalent albums
Don't Tell Me - 710,000
My Happy Ending - 2,120,000
Nobody's Home - 1,150,000
Remaining tracks - 400,000
The Best Damn Thing (2007) - 2,873,000 equivalent albums
Girlfriend - 11,630,000
When You're Gone - 3,130,000
Hot - 1,110,000
Keep Holding On - 2,480,000
Remaining tracks - 800,000
Goodbye Lullaby (2011) - 1,590,000 equivalent albums
What the Hell - 6,040,000
Wish You Were Here - 1,150,000
Smile - 950,000
Alice - 1,260,000
Remaining tracks - 1,200,000
Avril Lavigne (2013) - 593,000 equivalent albums
Rock n Roll - 760,000
Here's to Never Growing Up - 2,080,000
Let Me Go - 410,000
Remaining tracks - 700,000
Orphan - 105,000 equivalent albums
Remaining tracks - 700,000
Avril Lavigne streaming sales
Streaming is made up of two families - audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 132 million of the 212 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:
Audio Stream - 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream - 11,750 views equal 1 album unit
Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750
Streaming Part 1
As Lavigne hasn't had a successful single since the start of the streaming boom we may expect low numbers from her on those platforms. It is even more valid since the Asian popularity of the singer will hardly be reflected on Spotify where the brand is irrelevant. Despite these two aspects her results are far from bad. Complicated is up to 130 million streams there while it is closing in on 300 million YouTube views. Both Sk8ter Boy and I'm with You post great totals too with a combined 125 million on Spotify and 317 million on YouTube.
The most surprising results are the consistency of the album tracks. Debut albums from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera have their album cuts around 1 million streams on Spotify. Let Go's songs are far stronger with every song in the 3-7 million range. This shoots it to 400,000 equivalent album sales from streams.
Under My Skin is just as consistent but lacks big hits with no song reaching 50 million on Spotify. It has 180,000 equivalent album sales overall.
Streaming Part 2
Girlfriend has 68 million streams on Spotify. While this isn't low for a 2007 song, it isn't as big as we may of thought. The monster YouTube figure of nearly 500 million confirms she suffers from the weakness of a lack of Spotify in the Asian continent. When You're Gone is close behind with 59 million audio streams, while 3 more tracks are over 10 million. The album has sold 354,000 units via streaming.
Goodbye Lullaby may have been weaker upon release, but it is nearly as high at 341,000 equivalent album sales. It is powered by heavy YouTube views at more than 1,2 billion but it also has a complete list of songs over 5 million on Spotify. What the Hell and Wish You Were Here break 100 million cumulatively.
Streaming Part 3
Huge streams of the eponymous album from 2013 are quite good if we consider how much of a flop it was claimed to be. Once again the entire set of songs is over 4 million with as many as 6 songs topping 10 million. The same songs all crack 50 million on YouTube including 4 over 100 million. This brings the album total to 280,000 equivalent album sales, 38% as much as its pure album sales, a strong ratio for a 2013 release of an artist with a well-established fan base.
There aren't many interesting statistics inside the Orphan category with only some outtakes plus a few covers.
Avril Lavigne full length related record sales
It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era - studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams - to get the full picture of an album's popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.
All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.
How to understand this table? If you check for example the My World line, those figures mean it sold 850,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 407,000 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.
The second part on the right of the table shows how many equivalent streams are coming from each original album, plus the share it represents on the overall package. Thus, streaming figures tell us songs from the Let Go album are responsible for 98 % of the My World track list attractiveness. This means it generated 835,000 its 850,000 album sales and so forth for the other records.
Full Length related records Sales – Summary
Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.
Since the main long format release outside of her studio albums is the Live / DVD record My World which was full of Let Go songs, this album is naturally the strongest provider of compilation sales at more than 1 million units.
BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country
- America
- US - 13,145,000
- Canada - 2,195,000
- Argentina - 220,000
- Brazil - 950,000
- Mexico - 445,000
- Asia - 6,870,000
- Japan - 4,770,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 890,000
- New Zealand - 115,000
- Europe - 7,920,000
- UK - 3,125,000
- France - 915,000
- Germany - 1,155,000
- Italy - 665,000
- Spain - 205,000
- Sweden - 110,000
- Netherland - 135,000
- Switzerland - 205,000
- Austria - 135,000
- Finland - 45,000
- World - 33,140,000
Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.
Avril Lavigne Career CSPC Results
So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Avril Lavigne achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!
[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]
At 19,34 million equivalent album sales, Let Go is clearly one of the most successful albums from the 00s. There may be some frustration in seeing both Under My Skin and The Best Damn Thing under 10 million, but over 9 million three times in a row is no easy feat. Often regarded as a one-album wonder nowadays, the figures prove that Lavigne was a terrific seller for 3 successive campaigns.
Goodbye Lullaby and Avril Lavigne show a decline that can't be contested, but their figures aren't as chaotic as they were upon release. They close in on 3,6 million and 1,6 million respectively, not big nor consistent, but not irrelevant either. The positive indicator for the singer is that all her albums are solid on streaming platforms which means her fans can hope her upcoming records will not automatically bomb, plus her catalog is going to increase steadily in the future.
Her five albums together, along with the few orphan tracks released sparingly, add for 43,06 million equivalent album sales. This puts her in the same league as the likes of Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga and Norah Jones. All the aforementioned artists are on 50 million equivalent album sales in total, but also all with slightly larger discographies.
The following sections list her most successful songs as well as her records and achievements.
As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!
Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Chartmasters.org.
BIGGEST TRACKS - Avril Lavigne
The list of most successful songs is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each of them. It includes the song's own physical singles sales with a 0,3 weighting, its download and streaming sales, and with appropriate weighting too, plus its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.
1. 2002 - Complicated [Let Go] - 7,620,000
2. 2002 - Sk8er Boi [Let Go] - 4,620,000
3. 2007 - Girlfriend [The Best Damn Thing] - 3,880,000
4. 2004 - My Happy Ending [Under My Skin] - 3,270,000
5. 2002 - I'm with You [Let Go] - 3,010,000
6. 2007 - When You're Gone [The Best Damn Thing] - 2,280,000
7. 2004 - Nobody's Home [Under My Skin] - 1,550,000
8. 2011 - What the Hell [Goodbye Lullaby] - 1,520,000
9. 2006 - Keep Holding On [The Best Damn Thing] - 990,000
10. 2004 - Don't Tell Me [Under My Skin] - 980,000
Records & Achievements
- At 1,750,000, Let Go is the highest selling international studio album in Japan this millennium.
- At 3, Avril Lavigne has the most million selling albums in Japan this millennium among international artists.
- At 7,620,000 equivalent album sales, Complicated is the third most successful song from 2002.
- At 19,338,000 equivalent album sales, Let Go is the third most successful album from 2002.
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I wasn't surprised to see her results. I never consider her as big as even Christina Aguilera. Her image are just not that appealing, although she probably has bigger and more famous singles than Xtina. Although still, its not everyday you could get an artist that could sell 30 million albums. Still respectable total though.
Finally. Thank you very much. I expected her first two albums to be bigger. At that time Avril Lavigne was perceived as an authentic cultural phenomenon. But her third album is bigger than I thought, almost 10 M. His fourth album was a great descent, but 3.5 M is not bionic or Britney Jean. Would you consider it a semi-success or a semi-flop? The fifth album was unquestionably a flop, but albums like Joanne, with a lot of promo, didnt sell more than it.
Why do you think Avril had this decline after his third album?
Hi MJD! Wonderful job as usual!
Avril has had a great career, in fact, a lot of people don't realize how big and global she was during her prime. Easily one of the most global acts of the 2000s along with Britney and Eminem! And while she has declined a lot, her success in Asia has been very consistent thus keeping her at least moderately successful. On a side note, I was expecting her streaming results to be a lot worse than they actually are!
By the way, her achievements page says "Let Go" is the highest selling international studio album in Japan this millennium, are you sure about that? I think t.A.t.U's debut album takes the title as Billboard claimed it sold "close to 2 million" back in 2003!
The album was still selling loads back in August 2003 so I think it's safe to say it's past the 2 million mark by now. Anyway, both albums had massive sales there.
It's weird that The Best Damn Thing sold only 5,6 million. At the end of 2007 the album was close to 6 million sales. And at May 2014 the self-titled album has sold 650,000 copies, how it could get only 90,000 more over the past 3 years even with the Avril Lavigne Tour going to South and North America and Asia to promote the album?! I'm a little confused, I think it's not correct.
Avril Lavigne (2013) – 962,000 equivalent albums
Rock n Roll – 760,000
Here’s to Never Growing Up – 2,080,000
Let Me Go – 410,000
Remaining tracks – 700,000
This math doesn't make sense... it should be something like 600.000 equivalent album, not 962.000
Hi Pedro Labre!
You're right! The DL total adds for 3,95m, which would equal to 592,500 equivalent units. I'll inform MJD of this. There must be a typo on either the DL totals or the equivalent units totals.
Hi Stephen!
I did check their album while adding this achievement. t.A.t.U's album sold:
- 1,075,445 while on Oricon charts, dropped out in January 2004
- 170,827 as a Deluxe Edition
- 202,555 imports
That's some 1,45 million copies. Afterwards, imports were already included, plus both albums dropped out when the Top 100 was extended to a Top 300. Also, they never returned to charts as the band felt out of fashion quickly. At best both editions sold 50k in the 2 years following the initial run, then there is a decade of very low catalog sales to add, so this isn't good enough to top Let Go!
Hi Lucas!
I suppose you refer to the Mediatraffic figure which isn't accurate. As per the IFPI, TBDT shipped 5,0 million units during 2007. It is a shipment figure, which differs from real sales especially at the time when most sales were physical units - 98% of TBDT's sales. Its bulk of shipments came that year only. Same for the self titled, you can't go by Mediatraffic which are simply inaccurate.
Correct Pedro / Raffi! The formula was selecting the wrong range inside my Excel sheet, thus adding 'Alice' and GL's remaining tracks into the total. I'll fix that, thanks!
We know that Avril has always had problems with record companies. For example, her fourth record was deliberately sabotaged by her record company and not properly promoted. We also know that her last record was released by a label in crisis (Epic). The promotion (and the tour) of the last record were abruptly interrupted by her illness. How do you think these factors have affected? Moreover, how much do you think the general sales crisis has affected the sales of your albums?
We also consider that Avril is an old-fashioned artist who has never pissed hits that reflect trendy genres, even in recent years she has maintained her original vication to mix pop-punk/pop-rock with pop.
Is a problem for her the fact that pop-rock passed trend post 2006/07? Many define TBDT the last big album of the pop-punk era.
I then wanted to ask, an artist of her kind how many sales can keep after 5 albums to be considered relevant?
Now that the music market seems more sensitive to alternative sounds and requires artists more and more busy and able to tell stories, how much do you think she can get back to popular with a very deep album or power ballads as singles?
Thanks
Xtina is bigger than Avril for sure and Xtina has more popular songs than Avril.
Are these Numbers right? Didn't Let Go sold more than 20 million copies? UMS 15? TBDT 9? GL 3m? And AL 1m? As far as I remember Billboard updated her numbers in 2013 and were higher than yours and they didn't count Spotify
