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And no, Madonna and Janet aren't equal, artistically. Madonna is not even writing music, only lyrics. They are only equal commercially, like it or not.
What?
Madonna's self titled debut album DESTROYED Janet's worldwide.
LAP outsold RN worldwide
ROL outsold TVR worldwide
MUSIC outsold AFY worldwide
AL outsold DJ worldwide
COADF destroyed 20 YO worldwide
HC outsold DISCIPLINE worldwide
RH outsold UNBREAKABLE worldwide
The ONLY time Janet whipped Madonna worldwide with album sales was with her Janet album up against BOTH Madonna's Erotica and Bedtime Stories albums. 1992-1995 if you will.
These are statistical sales FACTS, you're embarrassing yourself.
Madonna got $60 million in 1992 for THREE albums NOT 7
IN 2000 Madonna resigned with Warner with a similar contract and in 2007, Madonna signed the biggest deal for a female artist in history with a $120 million deal with Live Nation. Goodbye Warner's
Janet was not a bigger touring artist than Madonna prior to 2004, Janet would make about the same if not slightly more with her 1990 RN and 1993 janet tours than Madonna was making with her 1990 BA tour and 1993 GS tour, BUT...
Madonna only did 57 dates for BA and 39 for GS, which made 70 million and had the highesr per concert gross by a female artist EVER. A record Madonna would break with her 2008-2009 Sticky and Sweet Tour
Janet by comparison did something like 150 dates PER tour, her per concert average gross was incredibly low compared to Madonna's and this was at Janet's peak.
LOL, Madonna wrote a lot more songs ALONE than Janet ever did. Madonna was a three-time nominee for Songwriters Hall of Fame. And Janet?
Yeah agree, Madonna and Janet aren’t equal, artistically. That's why Madonna is on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (inducted in her first year of eligibility), while Janet is not (even after a 35-year career). Good Day 😉
I said it before and again and again and again. There's no such thing as The Big 5 with Janet Jackson as part of it. There's only The Big Four: Madonna, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.
Hi MJD!
I want to ask you about your estimations on Jamet's physical singles sales.
I think some of them are a bit overestimated. According to Billboard's YEC, That's The Way Love Goes sold 1,1m in 1993, If sold 600K in the same year, and Any Time Any Place sold 500K in 1994. Yet, you put their worldwide totals at 2,27m, 1,28m and 1,05m respectively. I find it hard to believe each of them sold roughly the same amounts in the US and outside it considering that Janet was rather weak outside the States based on album sales. Also, the former only has certs in UK (silver), Aus (Platinum) and NZ, while the latter doesn't have any certs outside the US at all!
Moreover, could you please tell us how you estimated her earlier singles (Control and RN1814). Most of them only have US certs and some with UK silver certs. Still, we don't have figures for them like the 90's singles. For example, both Escapade and RN are certified Gold, but how do you know the latter sold more, or how much they sold in the US? They can be anywhere from 500K-999K. Also, Come Back to Me isn't even certified but you have it over a million copies sold.
Could you please explain how you came to your figures with such lack of information? Thx
Hi Raffi!
Singles you mention from the Soundscan era have definitely not sold as much outside the US as they did inside! The gap comes from the US itself. Figures you mention for Soundscan are correct, but I do not stick to them. In fact, just like for albums of that period, we can notice a notable gap between Soundscan figures and RIAA certifications for early 90s hits. Janet herself is concerned as Scream is Platinum while its SS sales are just over 700,000 units. It was certified after 9 full weeks so it wasn't an award rushed after the 30-days rule before returns happen. From that 1993 YEC, Mariah Carey's Hero is on 800,000 but still went Platinum by the end of the year, plus the few catalog units that get sold afterwards. The Tag Team single at #1 of the year sold 2,8m in 1993 and 700,000 in 1994 as per Soundscan but went 4xPlatinum from February 1994 as per the RIAA. Thus, to be consistent between all singles, I need to adjust accordingly. If I ignore that Soundscan - RIAA gap when it isn't directly visible, I would be putting 'low' SS sales for singles on 500-700,000 units or just over 1 million, while songs in the 750,000-800,000 range would jump on 1 million or more as they will often be Platinum in reality.
For 80s singles it is obviously way more complex, or at least less reliable. There is still various ways to identify which songs sold more. The best way is for sure the Sales chart - or even identifying a report stating the figure, which are more numerous than we think. It isn't always available, far from that, but even with the Hot 100 we can have tips to gauge sales between intervals.
- the hot 100 run obviously, a #2 will always be more likely to be a better seller than a #8 hit even if it is not granted
- the single #, e.g. with a similar run between a 1st and 5th single from one album, the 1st will be in all likelihood the top seller, while the 5th realistically airplay-driven
- the "jump", on pre-Soundscan charts we can notice a jump achieved thanks to the physical release. It enabled songs to enter high (Let It Be, ABC etc), and other to at least increase very fast. This pace of increase is very telling as per the sales achieved, airplay in the other side is slower
- the period must be reminded, summer / Christmas hits are always bigger sellers in singles
- the date of the certification. It helps a lot to know if a single hits Gold after 1 month or after 4 months
- other countries sales. Although less reliable, singles that were efficient in selling well in Australia, UK, continental Europe etc were likely stronger in the US too. It happened many times during the 80s with various singles from one era having similar Hot 100 runs but very different fortunes in other countries. It was due to the artist dominating airplay lists, thus runs in other countries end up more efficient to gauge US sales than the own US Hot 100 chart as surprising as it may seem
- Mediabase / Spotify figures. Surprising too, the strongest a song remains on Mediabase / Spotify, the weakest it likely was as a seller at first. If two singles from the same album peaked at #5 in the US, one has 3 billion mediabase airplay since 1997 the over 100 million, it is almost certain that the former was much more played upon release too, while the other managed a similar run thanks to sales
- audits of other artists. When label partners got mass audits and the one we are studying wasn't listed, then we can know it failed to reach the criteria needed
As you can see there is no exact science, the least information there is, the highest is the part of estimates. With those tips, we can already start to see it a bit clearer and with experience while we can't grant at 100% the accuracy, we can at least grant the consistency of figures across all artists 😉
Thanks for elaborating MJD! Those factors you've mentioned on your post for 80's singles are very precise and truly useful in estimating which single sold more! Regarding Soundscan era singles, do you mean that singles back then had their own "clubs" or unregistered sales like albums, hence the gap between certifications and Soundscan sales? I suppose it's because Soundscan didn't fully cover the market during the early-mid 90's. Has this situation improved during the late 90's/early 2000's, or was there still are large gap between certs and Soundscan sales?
Hi Raffi!
Exactly, for singles too Soundscan sales appear to be fairly incomplete. Supposedly the situation improved over the years although as sales of that format went down / many singles started to not be released anymore, it gets harder to get as many concrete examples of Soundscan - RIAA gaps!
Some of her fans in Ukmix say that:
"That would be a weird theory to think that Janet Jackson (Billboard's 2nd most successful act of the 1990s) didn't sell anything at Columbia House. His logic just isn't true at all!
And then he also went on to say that "Design of a Decade" was fairly expensive at Columbia? It was featured in all of their ads for buy 12 for 1 even in 2002! https://books.google.com/books?id=APMDA ... 22&f=false
1997: https://books.google.com/books?id=aV4EA ... 22&f=false
1999 as well for Columbia House - https://books.google.com/books?id=YG5Yu ... 22&f=false"
"He said record clubs vanished by 1997, yet Columbia House was promoting Design of A Decade up til 2002 (the latest I found). Could have been even later. Columbia House Music Club and BMG merged in 2005. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/201 ... ut_of.html
Columbia House carried all of Janet's album. According to him he is making it sound like it was impossible for Columbia House to sell a single Janet album despite all of the ads that ALWAYS feature her albums!"
"In 2005 "All for You" was still being sold and promoted as well. So his Virgin theory is wrong as well. https://books.google.com/books?id=DTBLA ... BDoAQhAMAY"
What would you say for the Columbia House informations that they have?!
Hi Marcus!
It seems her fans aren't aware of Janet Jackson's discography 😉
Her first big albums and the compilation covering them - Design of a Decade - were A&M albums. I carefully explained with various Billboard links how Virgin moved away from Clubs in mid-90s, e.g. the record label of Janet from her 'Janet.' 1993 album.
The UKmix thread covering the history of the Columbia House was opened by myself 10 years ago, I really doubt I need enlightenment on that. ALL albums were eligible for the 12 for 1 offer for new subscriptions, this has nothing to do with the price of a record and barely proves being putting out such cheap arguments don't know a thing about this subject. You can check the catalog listing from the thread I just linked to see that
1) only A&M albums were available
2) Design of a Decade price was $16.98, way higher than its retail price
Contradicting that clubs vanished from the end of the 90s is a lack of knowledge. They were already only 7,9% of the market by 1999 and 4,0% by 2002. That percentage isn't related to one club but all of them combined. By 2002, Design of a Decade was moving roughly 50,000 units a year, how much her fanatics would expect it to sell on Columbia, a Club on its way to be eaten by BMG as it was bleeding like hell?
I don't think giving much weight to fanatic trolls like Bojan (and all his additional accounts to confirm his own comments) is worth it though. It is known for long how ignorant he is and much he can't care less about facts. He is as blind as one might be. No matter how much wishful thinking one puts into it, facts remain what they are.
Thank you fot the answer. I think you're completely right, especially about fanatic trolls. 😀
Janet Jackson as far as I knew was a big TOURING act, like tina turner was and beyonce is now. She didnt have a universal pop sound like whitney, mariah and celine had that would attract an old audience. To me, she was a r&b superstar, not a pop singer like the media would promote her. Her music has a heavy focus on rhythm and beats because she is a DANCER who sings, not a serious singer. Anyway I think back in the day she reportedly got a contract from for $80 million but im sure that contract included touring revenue and movies. That figure couldnt have been from album sales. Here are some touring receipts :
https://math.illinoisstate.edu/day/courses/old/312/toursdata, http://www.mtv.com/news/1451603/u2-nsync-backstreet-top-list-of-2001s-biggest-concert-grossers/ and her first tour http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-26/entertainment/ca-1309_1_grateful-dead/2 Was this $80 million contract renewal something that really happened MJD??? http://articles.latimes.com/1996-01-12/news/mn-23892_1_janet-jackson
The pop star said Madonna's "Sex" is "a horrible book. She didn't even sell that many albums. Her last album sold 2 million. They shipped it, but it got shipped back," Jackson said.
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8226538.html
Janet Jackson really used to think she sold THAT many albums, so she confidently dissed Madonna's album sales. 😀
