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Thank you MJD, Hernan and Anthony. A massive job, done in a magnificent, meticulous and masterly manner. Congratulations to the Chartmasters team. Much appreciated.
This was such a fun afternoon going over the Elvis article.............I cannot wait for Rod Stewart............Thank you for all your hard work..........and to theWHOLE team too! Iimagine the only artists that would be even close to this much work would be Older artists like Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. Am I right?
Box sets usually come with a multiplier correlated to the number of CD's inside.
So a box set of 3 CDs would count as 3 albums.
they only count the tracks for streaming, not for physical album sales.
For example, The Wall sold 33 million copies, but as a double disc, it should count as 66 million
Hi Brenn!
In terms of pure, physical, unweighted sales, yes, he sold more than any other solo artist!
Crosby should challenge him in terms of physical singles but he is nowhere near him in album sales / total CSPC. Sinatra is in the middle, he sold a lot - both albums & singles - and even has a chance to hit the general Top 10.
Hi Lance!
As I just said on my previous comment, Sinatra has a slight chance of making the Top 10.
About box sets, they are tricky! I already wanted to weight them stronger multiple times. Some of them are super expensive, but some of them are super cheap too. For example, Garth Brooks used to sell his 10-CDs boxes for $19!
With Presley, gross lists wouldn't help him - kind of the opposite. During the 70s, he sold a monster amount of albums thanks to them being budget-priced. He was virtually the only big name featuring the budget lists, his only challengers were multi-artists compilations and albums of pre-War glories. Even his arguably expensive items, like Aloha from Hawaii, a double LP that wasn't from the budget line, costed only $1 more than John Denver's Greatest Hits that was #1 that year during the holiday season. That's why it is always tricky to weight these records - one would think it's natural to double count Aloha since it had discs, in the other side a second disc for only $1 more is almost an incentive to buy rather than working against it.
I should add a new wording for these boxes yet. There is two kinds: boxes of already existing discs (that can have only 2 discs) and box-sets, packages of 4+ 'new' (in that they were never issued individually) discs. The first category is already 'multi' counted. Setting a weight 2 or so for the latter is a possibility, although as I said I never found a satisfactory formula for them.
A last word on that matter, although they are weighted as 1, extensive boxes are already very positive for one artist's EDS and so ASR. Since it has a lot of content, that's almost the full discography that is purchased immediately, fuelling the indicator used to calculate the ASR.
Hi Che1967!
Thanks to you and all others for the very nice words, it's always appreciated 😉
Hi, Just one word. MJD...
In overall Who is best selling solo artist of all time? I won’t ask bc the answer is here
EAS and ASR Chartmasters.org show us the answer it’not Elvis as many people think but It’s Jackson Who truly is .
What do you think about this?
Hi MJD
I can only echo what everyone else has already said... fantastic work by you and the team🙆. It has been a thrill to read each article and uncover every step of the way a better understanding of the Elvis catalogue. I am amazed by the sheer numbers involved, be it the volume of product, sales figures or the man hours spent to assimilate these and present them in a coherent way. I applaud you all.
With circa 500m records sold, the highest for a solo performer, it is jaw dropping and makes you wonder what might have been if he had not been in the army for 2 years at the height of his fame and spent more of the mid sixties recording proper studio albums and not the soundtracks.
One item l am curious about is the album If I Can Dream with the RPO as I see no mention of it in this article? It was a huge seller in the UK.
Once again fab work. Now have a holiday!!!☺
Its just a simple math tab, imagine if MJ had had released so many albums, compls, and singles like Elvis... he would have sold..... how many records?
MJ has reached his records sales only with 1/3 of the whole Elvis catalog.
Join the discussion..Imagine if Elvis had the extra 1.5 billion people that Michael had to buy his records, during his prime? The Beatles had a 500 million advantage over Elvis, during their prime. When adjusting for population, Elvis is the greatest record seller of the modern era. Bing Crosby is the greatest seller ever.Elvis had a 600 million population advantage over Bing, during his prime. In America, Elvis had about 50 million more people than Bing, during his prime. In America, the Beatles had about 23 million more people than Elvis, during their prime. In America, Michael had about 50 million more people than the Beatles, during his prime. The bigger the population, the bigger the sales numbers will be. You have to adjust for population when comparing the best sellers or it really is unfair to older acts. Equivalent sales are unfair to the older acts as well, since very few albums were sold until well into the sixties.
Your works have always been outstanding. Excellent quality!! Thank you. I hope some days big artists and record labels will use your info
Hi Kwjw!
Thanks for the nice words 🙂
Thanks also for pointing out that miss! In the copy step, when I put all my albums' figures into Anthony's macros, I missed the year 2015. That's 3 albums: If I Can Dream, Elvis Forever by the US Postal Service, and Ultimate Christmas. Together, they add 1,75 million to the total! I cross-checked, supposedly there is no other miss although in a discography like this one we never know 😉
