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and do you think more recent artists like Rihanna, Taylor, Adele and Beyoncé will have the same fate ??
Ooh such an interesting analysis. I always find it weird why many big Adult Contemporary singers streams are somewhat weak compared to pop/urban singers, and your explanation make sense. Just like how Barbra Streisand catalogue isnt selling as well as lets say Tina Turner who is more urban sounding. Also, from your comment are you suggesting that in the next few years Madonna will have a rebound of strong streams, and Whitney will continue to produce strong streaming sales? I am not sure about this but I think Whitney catalogue right now is selling on par with Mariah or Madonna.
This needs to be update as Barbra has released walls and release me 2, which were moderately sucessful. Plus songs like "woman in love" have surpassed 100 million streams this year.
Something that never gets mentioned is Streisand never did concert tours in the 70's or 80's to promote album sales. Had she done so, she would have (easily) more than doubled even tripled her album sales! All the others did concert tours! -FFT
She had a movie career back then, when being an actor was more profitable than being a singer. So she benefited other way around with a movie career.
Walls sold over 60 thousand in Australia, it's safe to assume the album has sold at least over 200 thousand copies worldwide. The same can be said for Release Me 2, which charted moderately high is several countries. Also why aren't her DVD sales included? Most of them were number #1! Katy Perry's DVD sales were included in her analysis. Also Woman In Love has over 111 million streams in Spotify and with the spread videos on YouTube at least another 150 million, are these streams already included in the analysis?
Hi MJD, why didn't you count Funny Girl (1964) and Nuts as Barbra albums but you did countThe Main Event?
HI MDJ, can you tell us how many physical singles did she sell in USA?
She only has 7.5 millilon units certified on RIAA.
I know this will likely not be updated again. But according to a soundscan update from 2007 (provided by a user from UKmix) Higher Ground has sold additional 3 million copies in the US which are uncertified, and "Back to Broadway" another 1.7 million, also uncertified. " A Love Like Ours", another 1.1 million, other albuns also got plenty of uncertified sales in the US (I could have interpreted it all wrong though, feel free to correct me). "Guilty" also has certs in more countries than mentioned here (like in Brazil, before Pro Musica existed and reformulated the whole certs system, Barbra and Diana were the only woman with gold records in here. Barbra has two for "A Star is Born" and "Guilty" which are 20 thousand copies each, and she has another 10 thousand from the database codes available since 2003 which is 30.000 copies for guilty here then). Also in the booklet of "Just for the record" it's written some countries where is has been certified: Australia/New Zealand, Canada, UK, Brazil, Japan, France, Italy, Holland, Germany, Austria, Israel, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, USSR). Also with the sales from "Walls", "Release Me 2" and "Live At The Bon Soir" and the uncertified ones I mentioned, I believe Barbra could have surpassed Whitney, but I'm not sure.
Some additional trivia from Brazil: Although Barbra became a big international star in the 70s, 80s, she already was famous in Brazil since the 60s.
Singles chart history in Brazil:
1964-1965: People #55 in the pop Brazil chart and #74 in the overall Brazil charts+
1968: Free Again #40 in the overall Brazil chart
1971: Where You Lead #100 in the Rock Brazil chart
1974: All In Love Is Fair #39 in the overall Brazil chart
1974: The Way We Were #54 in the overall Brazil chart and #8 in the pop Brazil chart.
1977: Evergreen #28 overall Brazil chart and #11 pop Brazil chart (movie was a hit here too).
1978: You Don't Bring Me Flowers #8 in pop Brazil chart.
1979: No More Tears #30 overall Brazil chart,
#64 pop Brazil chart, #9 R&B chart
1979: The Main Event #82 pop Brazil chart
1980: Woman In Love #2 in pop Brazil chart
1980: Guilty #22 overall Brazil chart, #46 pop Brazil chart
(Guilty plays on Radio to this day)
1981: Comin' In And Out Of Your Life #95 overall Brazil chart and #91 pop Brazil chart
1985: Make No Mistake He's Mine #52 overall Brazil chart
(The last two songs were also themes for soap operas and made more famous for that during that time)
1997: I Finally Found Someone #29 pop Brazil chart.
"Wet" was a successful album here too, Roberto Carlos has even covered "Niagara" and is a fan of hers.
So overall she's had a huge longevity here.
Also channels like SBT would change their entire programming to exhibit her 90s concerts.
In the last two decades she sold decently here too:
The Movie Album: 5500
Guilty Pleasures: 25000
Live in Concert 2006 : 3000
Love Is The Answer: 10000
The Ultimate Collection: 7000
Partners: 7000
Encore: 2000
Walls was number 1 in ITunes Brazil.
She could have sold over 200-300k records in here from the 60s to today.
Considering her total physical single sales are of about 36 million and that according to the analysis 67% of her album sales comes from the US, I'd say we can calculate the percentage of about 67% of her total single sales, which the result is about 24.120.000. So she has probably sold from 20-25 million singles in the US.
According to Barbra recent memoir My Name Is Barbra by herself
https://www.vulture.com/2023/11/book-excerpt-barbra-streisand-broadway-album-stephen-sondheim.html
The Broadway Album it sold 7 and a half million copies worldwide, 40 percents higher than this article's figure, so her total physical album sales should be over 138,610,000 * 140%= 194 million, total csps over 215 million.
