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MJD, i hope that when you redo the Celine Dion chart analysis, you give a page per album including the ones released that you have called early material albums
Great, and this was probably difficult to launch into this.
This shows that selling records wasn't necessary to be a "Superstar" as we called them in the seventies. Even during the early eighties, when she didn't have a record deal, she was one. She even managed to make those downturn and erratic sales a part of her persona.
During the whole seventies, Cher was unseen in Europe or Asia, since she was locked in California for her tv series. When I first heard of her was in the early 80's and her Lps were all "Imports". Movies made her visible again and around me, Baby Boomers didn't realize she was Cher from "Sonny And Cher".
Even if it's probable that her past LPs weren't blockbusters and barely Gold for the most prominent, it's touchy to deflate all of them in a radical way.
Some uncharted, or poorly charted LP managed to went Gold or Platinum years after their released. I have a "Back To Basic" ONJ cd in mind.
Honestly speaking, no. So many music artists have sold more than 10 million copies for one album. Selling more than 6 million is good unless it was released today.
Only Believe made her relevant to music.
"Cher is an almost omnipotent personality who can play the role of a singer very well, but in no way can she be defined by such term. There are many, MANY singers whose music legacies are bigger than Cher’s, but Cher’s overall legacy is just one of a kind." quote
Well said.
Her sales are not impressive at all. Her studio albums alltogether sold like 35 million which is as much as Rihanna did. One released tons of albums during the peak of album sales, the other one debuted in the digital era. I am sure that Kylie Minogue sold less than Rihanna as well (and her fans call Janet Jackson local lol).
You should do Avril Lavigne next, she is an easy case to study. I wanna see if she moved more albums than Xtina (not equivalent units, but pure sales).
Until the late 1980s, Cher was almost never entirely focused on her music career as Rihanna does now. She starred in three hugely successful TV shows during the 1970s. Her star appeal back then lied in her TV persona; in fact, she was seen more as a TV star who also did recordings than a music artist. She spent most of the next decade developing her film career, and it wasn't until 1987 with her self-titled comeback album that she came to have control over her own recordings. That explains why most of her sales come from her last 7 studio albums (that's the number of albums she has released since 1987) and the fact that almost all of her pre-1987 studio albums are completely non-existent commercialy these days.
Also considering the fact that she was locked in California for her TV series during the entire 1970s and was unseen in Europe or Asia, as Grandizer have pointed out AND that she only became able to fully develop her music career when she was already in her 40s, her sale results are pretty strong. From all of her 1960s female contemporaries, I think only Barbra Streissand surpass her total sales. 🙂
Diana Ross (if you include her supremes work) should have a higher total than her i think.
Even a "flop" era like Erotica or American Life managed to outsell Cher's so called "successful" albums in regular form (Erotica sold almost 7 million vs Heart of Stone only selling 6 million). Heck, even Rebel Heart and MDNA have outsold all of her records sans Believe, Look at us, Heart of Stone, Love Hurts and the 1987 self titled release.
Laughing @ the ignorance. Cher debuted in 1965 when album sales were EXTREMELY low and barely starting. Do you even know how the market worked back then? Also, Rihanna debuted in 2005, a year in which 2.3 billion albums sold were sold worldwide (more than in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988). The album market was far better during 2005-2013 than during 1965-1985. Rihanna had the advantage of her record sales being inflated by 2005-2015 digital sales like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, etc did. But I don't see anyone complaining about that.
Global album sales peaked between 1994-2004. Cher only released three studio albums during that period and she was already more than 30-40 years into her career by that point. You should at least do some re-search before attempting to be shady.
Lol at these excuses. More albums were sold in 2005 than during those years because of CATALOG SALES. The highest selling album of that year (Coldplay - X&Y) did ~12 million while the top selling albums from the of 80s were doing 20 million easily (Madonna, Michael, Whitney and many others did). Just accept the fact that Cher was never a good album seller and that 95% of her albums are flops. Look at Barbra, she released as many albums as her but still sold over 100 million. And as I said, Rihanna selling ~35 million albums in the digital era (when people can stream music for free/download from Zippyshare/Youtube converters etc.) is more impressive than Cher selling 35 million of her studio albums with 30+ albums when there was no piracy.
Physical singles actually have bigger advantage in SPS foruma than digital singles, so you shouldn't be complaining about that. And as far as I know, Cher's music is available for purchase on Itunes/Amazon as well, but no one seems to care enough to buy it. Don't blame it on Rihanna/Gaga/Bruno/Katy.
Follow your own advice and educate yourself before attacking someone else!
The tages "Barbra Streisand" Where? Mistakes？
And "All main awards" without Tony…
Will you do Barbra's Sales next, she is the real mother of Divas
Again, you're forgetting that Cher debuted in 1965. Why do you keep bringing up the 1980s? Cher only released 3 albums during the entire 1980s decade, and it wasn't until the end of the decade that she had control over her recordings. Similar to how Janet Jackson's first two albums bombed and her stans like to pretend they never happened.
The album market was bloody AWFUL during the 1960s and 1970s, and most of Cher's albums were released during that period (16). Anyone who actually knows about charts will tell you this. The album market was definitely a lot healthier during the 2000s, especially internationally (most music markets were single-driven in the 1970s, thus limiting her international success even further).
Cher was never a huge seller, I'll give you that, but she's had a legendary career and the fact you're trying to discredit her success and comparing her to Rihanna is just hilarious. You know nothing about her career or the music industry before 2009. Stick to your digital era fads.
Btw, since you're bringing up one of Cher's peers (Barbra) to try and dismiss her sales, I can do the same with Janet too. How much did Janet sell in comparison to her peers? Janet Jackson (59 million albums) vs Madonna (200 million), Michael Jackson (250 million), Whitney Houston (130 million), Celine Dion (170 million), Mariah Carey (140 million), Prince (100 million). Hell, even Shania Twain and Britney Spears outsold Janet with ease. Eminem and Adele have outsold her too. Beyonce with Destiny's Child too. Taylor Swift, Rihanna and P!nk are not too far off either. Does this make Janet's sales any less impressive? 😉
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Barbra Streisand were selling millions in the 60s; Diana Ross, The Bee Gees, The Jackson 5 and Donna Summer were doing great in the 70s; Olivia Newton John, Whitney Houston, Madonna and MJ were dominating the 80s; Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Celine Dion and even Madonna with "low sales" were selling multiple 10 million records ww....
What is Cher's excuse? Just accept the fact that she is a very poor album selling, except a couple of exceptions (Believe seems to be the exception to every rule). Even in the 90s where everybody was selling good because of CD format increase, Love Hurts did bad outside of the UK and It's a man's world flopped world wide. Cher only has two solo successful releases, Heart of Stone and Believe.
Hi Slobro!
I let everyone free of their opinion about the results of every artist, Cher included. There is several wrong facts you point out though. First, catalog sales always existed. During the 80s, tons of classical records were sold too. No album was doing 20 million easily during the 80s, in fact Thriller is the only album to reach 23 million during that decade. The albums you quote like Madonna or Whitney did it thanks to decades of sales, even Michael Jackson's Bad sold 'only' 22 million after 3 massive years of sales in 87-89, while global sales were much lower from 1980 to 1986. A blockbuster like The Joshua Tree sold only 14 million units at the time, True Blue shipped 15 million by the end of 1987 and under 17 million by October 1990, which was still enough to make it the highest selling female album ever, ahead of both Whitney LPs.
As for physical singles vs downloads, physical singles averaged 441 million yearly sales from 1980 to 1999, e.g. 132,5 million equivalent album sales using the 1:0,3 ratio. Downloads plus ringstones topped 2 billion during most of Rihanna's career, worth more than 300 million equivalent album sales.
Hi Babyshowers!
Just like Slobro, you are over-estimating sales in the old days due to catalog sales. Most Stones albums from the 60s sold under 1 million during the decade in spite of their immense popularity. Same for the Bee Gees, Barbra Streisand or the J5, they weren't selling multi-millions of units of their albums until mid-70s.
Even the ultra-massive Beatles sold much lower numbers than most assume during the 60s. By the end of 1969, Sgt Pepper's had sold 5,3 million units, Abbey Road less than 6 million. They were still their top 2 sellers. The likes Revolver or Rubber Soul sold 2/3 million 'only'. This shows that selling 500k/1m with 60s records that were quickly deleted is huge.
Re: UKmix' discussion about the accuracy of figures
I was directed to that thread in order to check the relevance of some posters there. A couple of highly uneducated persons have been claiming that Believe album sold only 3,6 million units in the US and that it wasn't available at Columbia House.
First, it must be said that 3,6 million refers to Soundscan sales only - same for 600,000 of Living Proof. It means that Club sales are unaccounted for from this number.
Second, Believe was obviously available at Columbia House. It wasn't only available - it was there as early as by April 1999 when the album was peaking inside the BB200. Over the next promotion campaign of the Club on SPIN magazine, it was appearing as the 3rd pictured album, showing it was selling great volumes there.
Third, the album went 4xPlatinum in December 1999. It climbed over Platinum awards steadily (February, April, July, December) and was out of the BB200 Top 100 and decelerating its pace of sales when it managed to hit 4xPlatinum. Thus, with the album selling 10,000 copies a week and an era clearly ending, it is highly delusional to expect a heavy number of additional shipments being sent / unsold by then.
Fourth, the album was up to less than 2,9 million copies scanned when it went 4xPlatinum. Considering facts from point 3, it means the album moved roughly 1 million units on clubs by then. It sold an additional 700,000 plus copies as per Soundscan since then plus it continued to sell on Clubs too which brings the total to 4 million (by 12/1999, RIAA), minus 100,000 unsold units by then (estimate as per pace of sales), plus 700,000 (Soundscan 2000-now), plus 100,000 (Clubs 2000-now), e.g. to 4,7 million.
May I remind how fundamental it is to cross-check every available information and understand it correctly before doing estimates. Randomly checking one raw data doesn't provide comprehensive and valid conclusions. US sales of the Believe album is just one example, the exercice should be applied to each and every record in each and every market.
This was fascinating. It’s always amusing to me when fans of other more popular female pop singers take such umbrage with Cher’s record, accusing her of an icon status they don’t feel she deserves or a history of hits she has never claimed to have had. Considering how Cher’s career has solely been in the hands of producers like Snuff Garret and Sonny Bono and upwards of 8+ producers piling up on later albums, you can say Cher is too over-produced to be successful. MDNA, in comparison, has an entirely calculated (in a good way) and controlled oeuvre. Cher has never been a successful pop star in comparison and yet she is consistently accused of being simultaneously too popular and calculated (by rock artists who never have pop hits) and not being popular and calculated enough (by fans of young pop hit-makers). This survey proves she is neither calculated nor popular. Which just makes her icon status all the more mysterious and remarkable.
In my mind this probably has to do with her stratified product offerings. Some fans collect the recorded music, some collect movie memorabilia, (some collect movie memorabilia only from the 60s!), some collect the TV shows on bootleg, some collect dolls and toys, some collect posters and magazines, some only go to live shows and collect concert merch, some collect paraphernalia not even relevant to entertainment: for instance, her perfume Uninhibited still sells inexplicably well on Ebay, etc. Other pop stars get into some but not all of these product areas.
I also wonder if her abysmal streaming rates might be due to her older fan base. My Cher Scholar blog site analytics show the highest demographic of 55-64, then 45-54, then 35-44, and dropping off by lower age groups, (in comparison my literature blog shows the exact opposite trend, similarly because older writers don’t use the Internet to connect). Maybe older Cher fans just aren’t use streaming sites. Or possibly listening to Cher on them isn’t satisfying. I’ve only used Pandora but that service has Cher solidly classified as a 80s soft rock artist with the likes of Tina Turner. If I was instead interested in playlists based off Cher as a 60s folk-rock artist, as a 70s torch singer, as a disco queen or a 90s dance-remix artist, I’d be out of luck. AllMusic.com tags Cher under 9 music styles. And that might expose another problem for her: she’s spent too much time dabbling in too many styles to gain momentum in any one or get traction as a suggested artist on Streaming.
Another issue is not the fact that Cher fans have abandoned her back catalog, but Cher herself has.
I have two burning questions:
1. How does YouTube classify streams when many versions of songs are posted by fans with odd titles and misspellings? Does YouTube only count “official” postings of songs by record companies and disregard these bootlegs. Considering Cher’s own abandonment of her back catalog as mentioned above, this is a contributing factor. Few of her songs are “officially” on YouTube. And then only the new ones.
2. When I look over what DOES appear to break out in streaming (specifically Spotify), I’m wondering why the studio-released singles still stand out. Considering the fans on streaming are mostly younger and are likely free of the cultural memory of what those singles even were (especially if they weren’t successful singles), why does this happen? And does it happen with other older artists and their albums from decades past? You’d think streaming, but its nature, would create an even playing field for all the old songs on an album and for new discoveries. Sometimes studios make ignorant mistakes when choosing singles and you’d like to believe streaming would rectify this. But in all of Cher’s case, the studio singles consistently do better than non-single songs.
There were some singles miss-attributed under the Orphan category in the section Streaming Part 3 (Sonny & Cher):
I Surrender (To Your Touch), Leavin’ Town, La la lala La, Their Hearts Were Full of Spring, Two Hearts, Wo Yeah! – these songs were never recorded in any medium by Sonny & Cher or Cher solo.
Once in a Lifetime, Got to Get You Into My Life, Someday, Danny Boy, Something and Hey Jude were from the Sonny & Cher Live album (1971). Or are live albums orphan?
You’ve Got a Friend, Where You Lead, You and I were from the album S&C Live Vol. II (1974).
Miss Subway of 1951 is actually a Cher song from the Dark Lady album (1974).
When You Find Out Where You’re Going Let Me Know is actually a Cher song from the Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves album (1971).
Orphan singles miss-attributed in the section Streaming Part 13:
Chastity’s Song, Chasity Overture, Motel 1, Chastity Walk, Flowers, Chastity Love Theme, Chastity Titles, Motel 2, Chastity Carousel, Mexico, Closing Theme are all from the Chasity movie soundtrack (1969). Since Burlesque soundtrack was separated out, it would seem Chastity would be too.
What I’ll Do I think is actually What’ll I Do from Cher’s Dark Lady album (1974).
Don’t Come Cryin to Me is from Heart of Stone album (1989).
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for was from Cher’s Farewell Tour CD (I suspect) (2003).
I’m No Angel, Hold On, Tougher Than the Rest, Take it to the Limit, The Fire Down Below, Taking it to the Streets are all from Extravaganza Live at the Mirage TV Special (1989) but I think only a video was released officially in 1992. So that’s pure bootleg.
Still, Sisters of Mercy, Runnin, Born With the Hunger, Kurt’s Blues, With or Without You, Fit to Fly, Disaster Cake and Our Lady of San Francisco were all from Cher’s self-produced studio album Not.com.merical (2000) only sold online and at live shows.
There are also missing singles from the mid-70s:
Woman’s Story/Baby I Love You (Warner Bros, 1975)
A Love Like Yours (Don’t Come Knocking Every Day) with Nilsson (Warner Bros, 1975)
You’re Not Right For Me/Wrong Number (S&C single 1977)
I don’t believe any of them charted. But they belong with the other sad songs here. 🙂
She also has an Academy Award for Best Actress, something divas far ahead of her in record sales could only dream of. Cher remains a living legend.
Thanks for this hard work, just a few questions though. It's a Man's World can't be at 225k in the UK as it only sold 101k in 1996 and only reached no.28 in 1995 so that number really should be at 150k max. Also, the Cher 1987 album can't be at 200k in the UK as it sold less than 100k in 1988 and didn't chart again. Heart of Stone didn't reach double platinum in the UK so can't be at 750k, more like 550k. Great work but some of the album sales for the UK and some other European countries are too high.
Hi Stephen!
There is no way It's a Man's World is at 150k max with its chart run, you are massively downgrading the Xmas market. The year 1995 was bigger than 2007 in the UK (196m to 193m album sales). Check those figures from 2007:
1wk after Xmas - #65 album sells 7,771 (Cher was #70 on that week)
Xmas Week - #56 album sells 16,062 (Cher was #75 on that week)
2wks before - #51 album sells 14,499 (Cher was #60 on that week)
3wks before - #40 album sells 16,902 (Cher was #53 on that week)
4wks before - #56 album sells 6,147 (Cher was #39 on that week)
5wks before - #40 album sells 8,854 (Cher was #28 on that week)
Basically, she averaged about 12,000 units a week for 7 weeks, which means 84,000 units. Then, you need to consider Brittania Music Club which was strong at that point. You can add 10% on those 185,000 units. Then, it hasn't gone from 101k in 1996 to 0 in 1997. By experience, I can tell that the worst an album can do from year A to year A+1 is divide its sales by 10 and in fact 10k is a good estimate for It's a Man's World in 1997 considering it was still selling 1k/week by September 1996. Add in very low sales since, you get up to 225,000 units shipped to date.
Not sure why you think that the 1987 album sold less than 100,000 units in 1988. In fact, it went Gold in May, 10 of that year! It was Silver as early as in February, which show that it was selling Ok amounts in 1987 although it was outside the Top 100. That's your main error on all your comments - you seem to assume an album sells 0 as soon as it is out of charts, that's not how it works. 'Cher' started selling in 1987, broke 100k in May 1985 and ended the year on about 125,000 units. Then it continued selling from 5,000 to 10,000 copies a year until the release of Greatest Hits in 1992. This was her first album in CD format, it preceeded two strong efforts and wasn't cannibalized by compilations when they smashed, you can't assume it stopped selling during those years. It re-entered the Top 200 in 1995 for two weeks, no doubt if a top 200 was available in 1989-1993 we would have see more occurences of this kind.
Heart of Stone was #28 of the year in 1990, no figure available but at the same position the album from 1989 sold 380,000 units. The market dropped 7% in-between, so you can go with 355,000 units for the year. It was Silver in October 1989 and Gold in November, reaching Plat in February 1990 already. It was solid during Christmas time (similar to It's a Man's World) but had several more months to sell. The estimate is 140,000 units for 1989 (sadly the cut-off for the year end chart was as high as 190,000). In 1991 it spent 21 weeks Top 75 averaging about 3,000 units per week giving the market size, that's 66,000 units, plus 31 weeks just outside, about 1,500 per week, a total of 112,000 for the year - a total of already 635,000 units. It still went top 50 in mid-1992! Again, if the chart was a Top 200, we would have see it charted more often than not until 1993. Even assuming a low 30,000 units for 1992, 15,000 for 1993 and 7,500 per year until 1998, that's 707,000 units. Then you have 20 more years of catalog sales at 2,000 units per year - it was still moving 20k/year in 2004 in the US and the UK is a much better market for catalog sales.
BTW, you say "can't be at 750k", I suppose you refer to the album being "only" 1xP. The automatic process of certifications accounts only for sales since 1994. It wasn't certified at the time that's true, but it is irrelevant as it is a Geffen album. They never cared certifying their catalog albums. Even their golden act, Nirvana, is ignored. Nevermind remained 2xP while it was over 2 million, In Utero was still barely Gold until the automatic process, and the Unplugged was barely Platinum. They all sold way more. Same for Appetite For Destruction by Guns N Roses, also a 2 million seller that remains 2xP since 1989. The list goes on and on, Geffen never certified albums after their first 18 months or so.
Oh and German sales are definitely not as low as you expect 😉 you need to consider it was a bigger market than the UK in 1987-1992. Top 20 albms with 20-ish weeks on charts were hitting Gold (250,000) during their promotion campaign, so albums that did close to that and had consistent sales spread over 2 or 3 years sold way, way more than only 100k there!
MJD, you're the man! 🙂
A case that impressed me much about UK sales, was the Emma Bunton's album Life in Mono, which was released near Christmas (December 4), and peaked only 3 weeks there (#65,#75,#79), it sold around 40k in UK, thanks to "Christmas effect". Cher albums, same case... ^^
