very interesting analysis. so basically for madonna in evita, who's that girl, and i'm breathless or whitney in the bodyguard, preacher's wife and waiting to exhale, they get all the album sales even if not all songs are theirs, but because they were the main reason behind the album selling basically (and they starred in the movie).
can't wait for mariah and whitney as well as barbra and see how much these 3 epic artists have sold as well. and i can't wait for MJ, Beatles, Elvis and all the artists that have CSPC sales of an album that is more than 40 million. This just gives so much perspective into how big an album is or an era for an artist. celine has had i would assume the biggest era (consecutive albums) of any female artist ever.

That's very nice from you to be ready to provide some of your time to contribute! You haven't set an email here, but feel free to send me a PM on Facebook / Twitter that we can discuss and that I can send you the templates I use to fullfil! 🙂

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for your nice words! I have read your messages on Hernàn article, definitely an extensive list hehe. I'm myself interested in all those artists and while that will require a lot of time, we will be doing our best to cover all of them!

You're welcome!
Here is my email address: [email protected]
I'm from France, so feel free to speak me in French in our future email discussions 😉

thanks to you dear MJD, are curious about the CSPC analysis of all the artists that I mentioned to you and Hernan in yesterday's messages, but I would be happy if next week you could analyze the solo career of Paul McCartney and The Beatles (the Fab Four). I'd be very grateful !!!

Note: please read my post slowly cos I'm not mad. 🙂

A soundtrack album is a soundtrack album. People buy it because they love the movie. Whitney never sold more than 30 million copies for one album. And same with Madonna's Evita, why credit the album sales to them when the album was made for the movie and not for them, which explains why not all of the tracks in the soundtrack album are theirs?

Second, do you think the Titanic soundtrack album will sell more than 30 million copies if "MHWGO" wasn't in it but was just in Celine Dion's "Let's Talk About Love" album? Do you think a lot of people will buy a Titanic soundtrack album with just all instruments and no song? And one more thing, it was only "MHWGO" that went to the music charts worldwide and not the other tracks in the Titanic soundtrack.

So my take is, if they have credited The Bodyguard album to Whitney, the Evita soundtrack to Madonna, then they should also credit the Titanic soundtrack to Celine Dion. If they don't credit the Titanic soundtrack album sales to Celine, then they should not as well to Whitney and Madonna's. ( or any other soundtrack albums)

If that isn't fair, then the sales of the soundtrack album should be divided (by ratio) to the artists involved, not just Whitney nor Madonna, because it wasn't just them who recorded songs.

Luckily for Titanic album, only Celine's track had her voice singing. So she gets all the credit.

My take.

One more tiny question:

Hasn't her live-album "Live A Paris" been officially certified 2xPlatinum in Europe (IFPI European Platinum Awards) for shipments of 2 million?

I was a little confused when I saw your worldwide figure of only 1,8 million?

The same should apply to "A L'Olympia", which is also certified 1xPlatinum for European shipments of 1 million, but you still give a figure of only 800,000 ww.

Thanks as always!
Your Luminator!

Hi everyone!
I reversed MJD’s formulas to determine the CSP for each track. We could interpret this as the CSP total “due to” a track, so its success.

I have calculated the top 10 below (All songs):
Song [Album] = CSP total (millions sales equivalent)

My Heart Will Go On [Let's Talk About Love] = 36,37
Because You Loved Me [Falling Into You] = 16,18
The Power of Love [The Colour Of My Love] = 13,01
It's All Coming Back to Me Now [Falling Into You] = 12,21
Beauty and the Beast [Celine Dion] = 6,70
All by Myself [Falling Into You] = 6,53
Think Twice [The Colour Of My Love] = 6,23
Pour que tu m'aimes encore [D'Eux] = 5,90
I'm Alive [A New Day Has Come] = 5,29
The Prayer [These Are Special Times] = 3,39

Top 5 French songs:
Pour que tu m'aimes encore [D'Eux] = 5,90
On ne change pas [S'il Suffisait D'Aimer] = 2,30
J'irai où tu iras [D'Eux] = 1,82
S'il suffisait d'aimer [S'il Suffisait D'Aimer] = 1,35
Je sais pas [D'Eux] = 1,21

As expected, "My Heart Will Go On" is by far Dion's most successful track with an unbelievable 36.37 million sales equivalent! It is by far, if my calculation is correct and consistent, the "biggest" track from all the CSPC analysis made on this website. Here the top 10:

Song [Album - Artist] = CSP total (millions sales equivalent)

My Heart Will Go On [Let's Talk About Love - Céline Dion] = 36,37
Bohemian Rhapsody [A Night At The Opera - Queen] = 26,27
Stairway To Heaven [Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin] = 25,35
With Or Without You [The Joshua Tree - U2] = 23,14
Wish You Were Here [Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd] = 20,52
Like A Prayer [Like A Prayer - Madonna] = 19,21
...Baby One More Time […Baby One More Time - Britney Spears] = 18,13
You're the One That I Want [Grease - Soundtracks] = 17,59
Sweet Child O'Mine [Appetite For Destruction - Guns N Roses] = 17,25
Walk This Way [Toys In The Attic - Aerosmith] = 16,97

If you have any question/remarks about the method/calculation I used to obtained these numbers, I will be pleased to answer you.
Tony

Hello RLAAMJR!

I'm sorry but I have to deeply disagree on everything you post as you are clever mixing very different things.

When Random Access Memories sells well, nobody claim sales should be attributed to Pharrell Williams, because it is a Daft Punk project. There is no Daft Punk vocals, but Get Lucky was their song just like the album is their album. In the same way, when Crisis sells a lot of copies in 1983, sales go to Mike Oldfield, since it was his project, his album, that Maggie Reilly sings vocals on Moonlight Shadow doesn't provide her album sales. Bodyguard Soundtrack was a Whitney Houston project. Who's That Girl was a Madonna project. Titanic was a James Horner project. This is the huge difference. It was at 100% James Horner project, the movie team selected him as a composer and as a successful composer he was free to do whatever he wanted. He elected to put mostly instrumentals, he elected to do a proper single with vocals, he elected Celine Dion to sing on it. He would have elected Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston to perform it, the song would have been utterly massive as well. Celine Dion was just a guest on Titanic Soundtrack, just like Maggie Reilly on Crisis, just like Pharrell Williams on Random Access Memories. She is already incredibly lucky to gain a lot of album sales thanks to the song being on LTAL, the norm would have been that she got none except for later compilations.

As for non-Madonna / Whitney songs on their respective Soundtracks, Prince often added songs from random artists to his last albums, do you consider some sales of them must be removed from Prince total? Of course not, they are his albums, his projects. When people bought Bodyguard or Who's That Girl, they were purchasing a Whitney Houston / Madonna album, no purchaser of Titanic OST ever expected a Celine Dion album. Vocals is just a small part of a song, let alone of an album. What matters is not who has vocals or not on a song - elseway why don't you add to every artist who does a featuring sales of an album that is not from him? - what matters is who is responsible of the album, who's the owner of the project, and the responsible / owner of Titanic OST is James Horner.

Hello Luminator!

As you can imagine I'm fully aware of those awards. Both of those awards, especially by the time they were attributed, are completely impossible to validate as per official data from European countries.

It is unclear as to why Sony Music went after those awards, if they included a free album on tour tickets or if they added various exports and music video sales to their report. Both certifications happened in early 2004, I happened to speak with the person that requested all three Jean-Jacques Goldman certifications received in 2003, from Sony Music too. At the time, I was surprised when he told me no verification was ever done by the IFPI on the amount claimed on those awards template filled by himself. The IFPI confirmed it themselves in their procedure:

"Procedure

It is the sole responsibility of the individual record company to monitor and verify the accuracy of sales figures."
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/plat_criteria.htm l" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Link

The system is still usually valid as majors must pay royalties for certified awards, so they won't certify fanciful amounts of unsold records. At that time Sony was heavily promoting Celine Dion by her success, even providing her a 50-million sales award in Europe a few months earlier. It isn't impossible at all that they agreed with her management team on requesting those awards if they didn't claim for royalties. Interestingly, in the same month, Sony also certified another French record, Tryo ska band debut Mamagubida from 1998, itself clearly way short of a million - but the band, as underground beginners, most likely had rights on no royalties at all, only being paid a fix amount upon the album release.

The fact Sony Music earned 10 IFPI certifications in 2002, 13 in 2003 and then 13 in the sole first quarter of 2004, when both Celine Dion albums (plus Tryo) got certified, is also quite intriguing, especially considering the market was slowing down a lot.

Fantastic work MJD! Unbelievable total for Celine! She was really huge during her FIY/LTAL years! This must have been very hard work considering her extensive discography!

Is there anyway, MJD, that you can post Celine's Asian sales outside of Japan and her African sales? I'm quite interested in that information since there are either 0 info on those countries or inflated/falsified info. I also hope you will do that when you do a CSPC analysis on Mariah Carey as we know how huge she was in Asia in comparison to Europe!

Finally, MJD, i hope you will do a CSPC analysis on rap legend 2Pac since 2016 marks the 20th year since his murder. I know a lot of his sales are concentrated in the US, but it would be nice to see how he ranks among rap artists like Eminem. Also, 2016 also marks the 15th year since Aaliyah passed away, so i hope you can do an analysis on her too! She shouldn't be hard as she only has 3 studio albums to her name.

Anyway, keep up the good work MJD! Looking forward for the next artist you're gonna work on!

As for your post"Just imagine a second the movie would have bombed", what about Avatar? but I See You is not even a hit, or gone with the wind, which song isbits theme song? And in the Billboard Music Awards ceremey of 1997, they award Album of Year for the soundtrack to celine

wow wonderful Tony i look forward to seeing the changes in that list when other big songs by big artists are added!

Now that you are writing about equivalent album sales, you can't ignore that "My Heart Will Go On" sold 30 million copies on the Titanic soundtracks. The soundtrack was promoted by "My Heart Will Go On". It was the only track you heard on the radio, that won awards, that was performed on TV. The same for Beauty And The Beast, Sleepless in Seattle, Up Close And Personal and many other soundtracks.

Also, you can't ignore the VH1 Divas 1998, VH1 Divas 2002 or albums like God Bless America or America: A Tribute To Heros.

You are doing an incomplete work if you ignore equivalent track/album sales from soundtracks or compilations (like God Bless America, America: A Tribute To Heros and the Now series).

Hello Bjs,

We speak about equivalent album sales of the artist, not equivalent album sales of albums from others. Rather than getting into arguments, I'll just ask you two questions that will point out how wrong your logic is.

1) Do you think Eminem, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake, David Guetta, T.I., Maroon 5, Shakira, Nicki Minaj or Calvin Harris album sales must be added to Rihanna results?
2) Do you think a few million sales from Let's Talk About Love must be removed from Celine Dion and attributed to Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees? Or half D'Eux sales being assigned to Jean-Jacques Goldman?