You are indeed too optimistic, Queen were already hugely popular before the movie while Elvis is more in the league of a David Bowie for example.

And he's already past MJ as far as I'm concerned, after all he sold more albums and more singles (not to mention his countless hit movies).

Elvis & Michael are pretty much tied, according to this site. They're both around 425 - 430 million records (Albums, Singles, Boxsets & Videos) sold globally. I think MJ edges him out tho, considering his digital single sales haven't been factored in since 2018. Also, MJ sold the same amount as Elvis, according to this site, despite releasing FAR less material. That's probably why MJ is considered the most successful, even over The Beatles. I think the movie will help boost Elvis's vinyl & streaming sales.

"Records" doesn't mean anything, combining albums and digital singles is ridiculous, don't you think ?

And I'm pretty sure most people consider The Beatles to be more successful than MJ.

MJ sold more total equavilent units than Elvis, which is what matters in the end.

It would be nice if it were a massive hit but I'd be suprised if it did as well as Bohemian Rhapsody.

I don't really have a 'dog' in this one so to speak. I appreciate Elvis and MJ but wouldn't call myself a superfan of either.

Just a thought. According to the ASR scale Elvis is around 70% as successful as MJ (696 VS 1000 as the baseline). Does this mean that because Thriller, Bad and Dangerous account for 69.3% of MJ's total EAS (ie 693 on the ASR scale) then just these three albums gave MJ the same level of success as Elvis?

Would another way of reading this be to say that these three releases made MJ 'as big/popular' as Elvis? It would also mean the these albums alone made MJ 'bigger' than The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin , The Stones, ABBA and Madonna for example. Astounding if true!?!

I'm not a statistician and I know that this is a very basic/general way of interpreting it so I'm entirely willing to be corrected! Perhaps MJD and the team can enlighten me!

Thanks!

Elvis sold more albums and more singles than MJ, which is what matters in the end (to me).

MJ's total includes about 30m of "music videos" (such as documentaries like This Is It or The Making Of Thriller) which I personally wouldn't include.

Just for the record, Elvis' remaining sales (outside of the physical singles and studio albums categories) also include nearly 10 million music videos, as well as 16 million EPs valued as 8 million albums, plus nearly a million of interviews/tapes and loopholes, so I'm not sure that according to your way of seeing it Elvis did sell more albums than Jackson.

I'm just quoting the "Raw sales - All albums" list from this very website :

1. The Beatles – 333,145,000 (as of Mar 2017)
2. Elvis Presley – 244,475,000 (as of Sep 2018)
3. Michael Jackson – 235,440,000 (as of Sep 2017)

+ 16 million EPs for Elvis, indeed.

I just realized that HIStory is counted twice in MJ's total (18.6m in "Studio Album Sales" + 18.6m in "Other LPs Sales") which is like saying it's the 5th best selling album of all-time, above Zeppelin IV and Back In Black... That doesn't make any sense to me.

It's a double disc. One is a Grestest Hits and the other one with new songs. What does not make sense?

Actually MJ didn't invent double albums, there were others before like Pink Floyd's The Wall for example. Do you think all of these albums should be counted twice ?

I really think this double counting of HIStory deserves an explanation, and by the way Clockingbell asked the same question in the MJ thread two months ago, with no answer...

Hi Analord!

No need to use that suspicious and kinda childish tone, it's not like I manage to be up to date in answering comments, just now I only see these ones because I heard about another starting fan clash.

The Wall and HIStory are completely different subjects. One is a studio album, which happens to be double due to lenght, the other is a pack of two records, a compilation of already released songs, and a studio album with unreleased material. As you know, the difference between a studio set and a compilation is key inside the CSPC process. Sales of already existing material are distributed into original albums, because they cannibalize their sales. Had that 18m (or whatever) selling CD not come out, there would have been a spot for a compilation in these years, or latter comps would have sold more, it's the whole CSPC concept.

It's a rare occurence when artists mix old and new material to this extent, but there are still many examples of this kind of packages for other artists. A prime example coming instantly to my mind, Garth Brooks did it like 4-5 times, with double CDs or much larger boxes combining old material plus a new CD. These were treated same as HIStory. Can't remember their title, but Elvis Presley himself has this kind of packages, although much lower sellers.

I didn't mean to sound "suspicious", but surely you understand that not answering to a two months old post and then a two weeks old similar post might be a little frustrating...

As for your explanation, sorry but it still doesn't make sense to me. HIStory sold 19m copies, not 38m. Yes, it consists of old and new songs, so what ? Just because an album contains old and new songs we should multiply its sales by two ? I hope I'm not the only person thinking this is illogical.

And I'm surprised you agree with the RIAA inflating Garth Brooks' sales with these cheap box-sets... I certainly don't.