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"It’s because with 10 million people, they will be way more likely to share the same culture than if there is 300 million people." I assume you use "most likely" in an attempt to dissuade other blatherskites from challenging such a logically inept statement. Am I right?
Elvis record sales aren't that hard. People have worked on them for decades with the help of Rca/Bmg/Sony execs. You'll notice here it is stated that 3/4 of Presley's album sales have not been accounted for by the riaa.
https://www.elvis-atouchofgold.com/riaa-certifies-elvis-for-18-new-gold-and-platinum-awards/
"The Beatles sold 72-73m albums in the US up to 1980. It is harder to tell for Elvis, his albums up to 1980 included add for 105 million in the US with 10 million coming from Soundscan sales. We then need to remove sales from 1981 to 1990 and unscanned units since 1991 of pre-1980 albums. That puts him in the 80-85 million range up to 1980."
total bullshit,
you need to justify a deduction to fit your narrative. Oh btw, your total for Elvis is demonstrably wrong.
ca.1986...RCA gave an official plaque to Graceland for 1 billion record SALES worldwide. Now let's get your nonsense over with right here....
That announcement if true,
RCA would be under threat by songwriters and publishing companies for any royalties due because he has sold that but they only received royalties based on your source and sale numbers.....
Where are the lawsuits saying, "RCA, officially and publically admitted he sold one billion records", (that's at Least 400 million domestically) which is twice as high as your source.....
So either.....
There are no lawsuits because that official announcement was true and RCA paid necessary royalties.....
OR...... it's "promotion nonsense by an artists record company" and therefore, there are hundreds of songwriters in on the lie because they, what?..... were paid royalties as if that sales figure, one billion, were true so they'd shut up about not getting their money....bwhahahaha
Just be happy, we had Elvis, no body will ever know how many records Elvis actually sold!
Thank you for your amazing work. I have a doubt about Brazilian sales, the collected sales that came from 50s to 70s records are all collected from CD releases using the code number that came in CDs released after 2003?
MJD, It appears the RIAA has re-evaluated Elvis EP's & removed them from his Album total. His album total decreased from 146.5 to 139 million.
Hi Marcus!
Maybe you can rephrase or something since I'm not sure to understand your question. For albums with missing data, LP owners have been used to estimate 50s-70s sales, CD codes got mostly used to estimate catalog sales since the 90s to date.
Thank you! You actually answer my question. I thought the sales of some of his old records came all from CD releases after 2003, when Brazil begun to include codes of shipments in each CD release. 😉
how is the world wide sales figure determined. US sales of Elvis Golden Records is 6xPlatinum, how are the additional 2.8 million determined for the rest of the world
Where are all his live albums which have been certified gold and platinum or multi-platinum by the RIAA. TV Special, In Person International Hotel, On Stage, Madison Square Garden, Aloha From Hawaii, Live On Stage Memphis and Elvis In Concert?
His heyday of singles and EP era of the 50s and early 60s when you factor in the smaller market he was bigger than anyone ever has been.
This Drake person doesn't even sell records, streaming and downloads are shit.
Hi Daniel! All live albums are included in pages 89-91, inside the "remaining long format" section.
Hi Breno!
You are making a very wrong claim here. Drake does music from a genre which targets an audience that stopped purchasing records years ago. It doesn't mean he can't sell. In fact, his albums used to open with 500k+ in the US alone, and that was before he got even bigger. If the market was still fully physical, all his albums would be 5-8xPlatinum by now. You only need to look at Jay-Z sales and think that Drake is more successful than the former has ever been.
What you don't take into account is the sheer impact of Presley on the culture. Jackson and Queen did not come close to that and even John Lennon said, " before Elvis there was nothing."
So what? It doesn't change the fact he's the third biggest selling artist ever not the biggest of all.
You're talking from an American perspective. In Europe, Queen and MJ had a MUCH higher influence than Elvis.
The more I examine some of these numbers, the more dubious they get. You report sales in the Netherlands ( 2,125,000), but that must be a joke, pardon my French. I quote from Billboard Magazine, dated September 3rd 1977 issue:
"In Holland, Inelco has sold more than 5 million Presley albums since the start of his career and more than 100,000 were sold in the first three days after his death. Such concentrated sales activity is considered phenomenal in Dutch music business history. There was special interest in the double album "Elvis Forever," the compilation "Portrait In Music" and the new "Moody Blue."
I`m sure You dismiss this (also) as "hype", "fake news", but come on...! You cannot expect everyone to believe that Your numbers are "definitive", and we shall not trust the trade Magazines that were around in those days (Billboard, Cashbox, Record World, etc). I do not believe that Elvis sold one billion records, but Your total of 300million+/-, are most certainly up for serious debate.
Regards
KA Jensen, Norway
Sweden – 2,135,000. Oh, my! Only missing about 6-8 million record sales
Lennard Andersson, Electra press officer, says: "We'll never have an artist of that stature again and there is no one to match him with any other company in the world. It was a great and sad loss. As for sales, it was just like a pre- Christmas rush, though one based solely on Elvis product. He has sold around 8 to 10 million units in Sweden since 1956, with "Elvis Forever," the double album, the best -seller with 225,000 copies." (Billboard, sept 3rd, 1977)
Japan...-4,770,000. It gets better and better. About 2,5 million lacking here...
"Over the years, Presley has been a top record seller in Japan. Today he has sold 2 million albums and 5 mil- lion singles of 46 titles.""Elvis In New York (MSG)," "Elvis In Hawaii" (a two- record set, Aloha From Hawaii)), and "Blue Hawaii" have all sold more than 100,000 copies. His other double LPs, "Presley Special 24" and " Presley Gold 30", have sold 60,000 and 50,000 respectively"
(Billboard, sept3, 1977)
I`m sure there is more to come….
Aloha from Norway
The 2.1 million sales and the 4.7 million sales from Sweden and Japan respectively, are album sales only.
Also, this is CSPC, not records.
Hello, nice to see fellow Norwegians here 🙂
The figure for Sweden might refer to the old "single equivalent units" which were commonly used back then (1 album sale = 3 units + single sales iirc) or simply single and album sales added together, I suspect the figure for Holland is of similar origins.
There is of course a chance they are "pure" album sales since the source is BB after all, but you need into account that both Sweden and especially the Netherlands exported a lot of albums throughout Europe back then which could have gotten counted into other countries' totals.
For Japan, It's stated 2 million albums in 1977, so his 4.7m figure up to 2018 sounds reasonable I suppose.
When we study an artist, and especially one as big and important as Elvis we look through these kind of sources. I'm sure these you mention are already taken into account or dismissed for some of the reasons I mentioned.
Hi Kjell Arne!
It's not about screaming "fake news!", a la POTUS, everytime we read something that doesn't please us. The point is to understand correctly what we are reading. Here, you are comparing a figure for local pure album sales as of 2017, with albums produced locally, which is tremendously different considering that the Netherlands along with Germany produced the majority of European copies back then, up to 1977. Then for Sweden and Japan you are confusing albums with singles-converted totals of albums and singles sales.
If you really start 'examining' data, you'll understand that 5 million album sales inside the Netherlands by 1977 is completely delusional, same for 8/10 million records in Sweden. Up to his death he still hadn't release that many records, if you look into them and calculate a simple average, you'll notice that doesn't make sense. It isn't that claims are fake, it's simply that they don't mean what you think they do.
