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Hey MJD!
Don't mean to bother, but I was very curious to see a breakdown for "A Decade of Song." Hope you don't mind providing one!
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) is currently Celine's #5 most streamed song on Spotify. Can somebody tell me which part of the world is this song doing well? I also feel the song is just ok. Nothing really special, and there are like more 10 songs on her TAST album that I find better than this song yet this is Celine's most -streamed Xmas song with a large margin.
Anyway, aside from waiting for the update of Celine Dion's Popularity Analysis, also waiting for a global heatmap article for her.
http://web.archive.org/web/19991118184023fw_/http://www.sonymusic.com.tw:80/intl/cdion/album.shtml
According to Sony Music Taiwan back in 2000 ( from Wayback Magazine), The Colour Of My Love sold 4 million in US and 18 million copies worldwide.I think the label inflation was not that much back in 2000,not like nowadays.
https://books.google.com.sg/books?hl=zh-CN&id=9AsEAAAAMBAJ&dq=billboard+magazine&q=celine+dion#v=onepage&q=the%20colour%20of%20my%20love%20asia-pacific&f=false
By 05/11/1996, The Colour Of My Love sold 1.5 million in Southeast Asia.
I think it would be better if you try to create your own site/thread for the figure that you believe are accurate. And give us the link.
Hi dhhd,
There is easily enough information to know this is 100% incorrect, onyl goes on we shouldn't blindly accept these figures printed here and there.
I don't know what you are talking about. I think MJD's figures are pretty accurate so I like to stay here and ask for some questions.For example, According to Billboard The Bodyguard sold over 300k copies by 1993 or 1994 and MJD added 200k catalog sales, and the offcial edition shows that it sold 600k copies in total there.It doesn't mean he is innacurate,it just due to that catalog sales is unknown there.
Its kind of annoying when u do it every 30 minutes. U never accept his answers anyway. If u think u r so good and so accurate thatn I agree with RLAAMJR. Create ur own website. Bcoz its getting really annoying.
Lol you can ignore my comment why do you think I bother you?It is ridiculous. Do you watch chartmasters.org comments updates every 30 minutes?
LTAL shipped 500k by Oct. 24th, 1998. How many copies has it sold up to date in Taiwan? The same with Music Box since it shipped 500k while being 8xP in US and 24 million.
Hi dhhd!
Wel, basically not much. For 4 main reasons.
1) It's important to understand shipments in countries with less culture variety than the US (more on that later about Canada and your comment related to Britney) is that shipments happen faster. When the target audience is well defined, it's easier to ship large numbers. In the US, there is very different areas. You can hit big a certain part of the population today, another in 3 months, and never be successful among another one. In a country like Taiwan, it's hit or miss, everything happens very fast.
2) The market of Taiwan (and of most Asian countries) completely crashed in late 90s/early00s. It went from over 47m to 26m to under 17m from 1997 to 2000 to 2002. Not only that's way less sales, in these situations we also need to see that the younger generation, the ones likely to discover an act from 5 years ago, doesn't buy albums anymore. Remaining sales are purchased by people who were already purchasing before the collapse, people who, if interested, already bought albums like MB or LTAL.
3) In the US, these poor catalog sellers (pop albums to make it short) used to get nice mid-run sales thanks to music clubs. They sold millions at retail during the first months, then once it started slowing down, they were moved to music clubs and got a pair of extra millions afterwards. This second life was typical of countries with relevant music clubs, something that never existed in Taiwan. We can see it with MB itself. Since the release of Daydream, it went from 8xP to 10xP in the US, and remains there since 22 years. Since that release though, it scanned only 800,000 copies, and a good chuck of them, likely about 150,000, were already shipped by 10/1998. That means its sales at retail increased by less than 10% the certified amount from that time. It's in a country where the market remained strong for many years, now imagine by how many % its sales increased since then in a country were the market completely vanished soon afterwards!
4) Now that we understand that catalog albums are poised to sell tiny numbers in these markets, we also understand that they are often discontinued on them. It has been a long time since this kind of albums aren't available for purchase at all in most Asian markets. At best you can pick up some imports, but not all countries can continue to make available zillions of albums like the US. Now some Mariah Carey new albums aren't even released in various markets, so her catalog records are no doubt long gone.
Hi, MJD
so, what's your eventual estimate for MB and LTAL in Taiwan considering tiny catalog sales? And BTW, we already have figures for 5 MJ's albums by June 2009. Considering MJ's catalog sales getting huge since his death, what's your eventual estimate for those 5 albums in Taiwan? And how many estimated copies has MJ sold in Taiwan in total based on known information?
MB sold 1.6 million in Southeast Asia(main 8 markets?) including 600k in SK and 320k in Taiwan.Considering catalog sales, it seems like 1.6/2*3≈2.4+million in total. But it didn't include countries like China & India. It surely did very well in China, why is the Asian estimate only on 4840k?I remember it was issued in those countries. And for FIY, It sold 1213k in Southeast Asia(main 8 markets) by December 1996. 1213k/2*3-176.8k/2*3+650k≈2.2 million. Considering that it also surely was issued and did well in China & India or somewhere, why did you ignored them? The Bodyguard sold 1.9 million in Southeast Asia(confirmed main 8 markets) by May 1993, including 900k in SK, 265k in Indonesia and 255k in Taiwan(eventually sold 600k according to official Taiwanese edition of this album).You estimated on 3385k in Asia(outside of Japan). Does it include estimated sales in China or somewhere outside of the main 8 markets?If you did,what's the estimated number for it and was it based on market size? Could you tell me some calculated formulas about it? And, is there any information about Southeast asian, African&Middle Eastern market size in 70s, 80s and early 90s on the Internet?Thx!
Hi dhhd!
It takes really a lot of time to get into all the details needed to set up new estimates, I always avoid doing that in comments elseway I have really no more time for new articles. Some general remarks through:
1) catalog sales in 'small' markets are of different nature than catalog sales in the US for example. The US is such a big market/country, that sales are very consistent through years. In small markets, it isn't worth it to keep import old records at retail to sell a few copies per year. So their catalog sales are much more hit or miss. Most old pop albums won't sell at all, then when the artist dies or tours there they explode. So for Madonna for example the best way is to start checking her tour history. But then again, what would sell when she tours there is her compilations, the availability of her studio albums must be close to 0 right now in most Asia.
2) we should always be careful about who released albums in previously not structured markets. For example I'm updating Metallica right now and their first 3 albums were issued by different labels at first in Asia, so all numbers which leaked / certs that we know actually track sales since 1989 only when Vertigo started selling their albums there. The same may affect an album like OTW and possibly Thriller, or LAV or Madonna.
3) the most generic formula when really there is 0 info (which actually never happens anymore thanks to discogs) is set on Japanese sales * 45% + continental EU sales * 1,2% + Spanish sales * 15% multiplied by a market factor (which peaks in mid-90s and is high only during the 90s basically) multiplied by another factor depending on the type of release since compilations over-perform studio albums there multiplied by another factor based on the strength of the artist there (if he has 2 albums with known data that out-do the formula by 30% for example, that factor will be set at 1.3).
4) you can get a good picture of markets by the time of albums you mention here.
5) No, no figure for Bodyguard in China / India available AFAIK. I don't understand your /2*3 calculations?
Also, keep in mind all figures you mention pre-dates discoveries from YouTube Insights and Discogs. No doubt if updated we would be able to be more precise and avoid generic formulas and also no doubt that aren't perfect, especially not for all albums. The point was to get the most realistic figure out of next to nothing rather than claiming each number is the actual sales data provided by the label, we have always been very transparent with that!
