One month away from her 50th birthday, Kylie Minogue is back with her 14th effort, Golden. The Aussie icon has been through a long and hilly road since her debut hit Locomotion. We all remember her early teen pop hits as well as the ground-breaking comeback Can't Get You Out Of My Head, but apart from these two periods her career seems much more obscure.

https://flic.kr/p/Y71hW3

Often described as the rival of Madonna, we begin to wonder how legitimate this is. Indeed, if she only recorded a pair of successful eras out of a dozen, she is hardly a Queen of Pop, not even the Princess as she is nicknamed. She isn't a nobody though as shown by the #1 debut of Golden in both the UK and Australia. So, where is the truth? How big Minogue really is?

Kylie Minogue original albums sales

Kylie (1988)

Enjoy Yourself (1989)

Rhythm of Love (1990)

• America

  • US - N/A
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 170,000

  • Japan - 110,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 95,000
  • New Zealand - 2,500

• Europe - 550,000

  • UK - 280,000
  • France - 80,000
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - 50,000
  • Sweden - 5,000
  • Netherlands - 10,000
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 910,000

Let's Get to It (1991)

• America

  • US - N/A
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 85,000

  • Japan - 60,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 35,000
  • New Zealand - 1,000

• Europe - 130,000

  • UK - 75,000
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherlands - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 270,000

Kylie Minogue (1994)

Impossible Princess (1998)

• America

  • US - N/A
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 30,000

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - 125,000
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 90,000

  • UK - 50,000
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - 15,000
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherlands - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 250,000

Light Years (2000)

Fever (2001)

Body Language (2003)

X (2007)

• America

  • US - 50,000
  • Canada - 12,500
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - 7,000
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 65,000

  • Japan - 30,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 85,000
  • New Zealand - 2,000

• Europe - 710,000

  • UK - 480,000
  • France - 60,000
  • Germany - 60,000
  • Italy - 7,500
  • Spain - 5,000
  • Sweden - 5,000
  • Netherlands - 7,500
  • Switzerland - 15,000
  • Austria - 5,000
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 960,000

Aphrodite (2010)

Kiss Me Once (2014)

Kylie Christmas (2015)

Original Album Sales - Comments

At 20,26 million units, Minogue's studio albums average less than 1,5 million sales. This unimpressive figure is made even worst when we consider that her career happened when the album market was peaking, that her 12 albums outside Kylie and Fever add for less than 9 million and that the UK and Australia provided her with healthy sales all along her career.

In fact, her sales display extreme patterns. Light Years shifted 800,000 units in the UK and Australia combined against a mere 420,000 copies elsewhere. Albums like Enjoy Yourself, X and Kylie Christmas sold roughly half of their copies in the UK alone.

Expectedly, Fever ends up as her most global album to date with more than 4 million units sold outside of her two strongholds. It remained a one-off as Body Language completely failed to sustain this success.

Please notice that 100,000 units for Golden reflects the minimum amount shipped by the album on its first week.

1988 Kylie - 5,040,000
1989 Enjoy Yourself - 2,320,000
1990 Rhythm of Love - 910,000
1991 Let's Get to It - 270,000
1994 Kylie Minogue - 440,000
1998 Impossible Princess - 250,000
2000 Light Years - 1,220,000
2001 Fever - 6,330,000
2003 Body Language - 1,230,000
2007 X - 960,000
2010 Aphrodite - 750,000
2014 Kiss Me Once - 230,000
2015 Kylie Christmas - 270,000
2018 Golden - 100,000

Kylie Minogue physical singles sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.

1988-90

The arrival of Minogue was stunning in the UK. She sold over 2,1 million singles during the year 1988, twice as much as Bros the #2 top selling act of the year. In the US, The Loco-Motion was the only single which took off, peaking at #3. This song, along with I Should Be So Lucky, sold well all over the World, breaking the 2 million mark.

After more than 6 million physical single sales during the first era, the hype slowed down in following years. Results were still very healthy during the promotion of Enjoy Yourself which generated more than 2 million sales. Singles from Rhythm of Love top 1 million units combined.

Kylie (1988) - 1,872,000 equivalent albums

I Should Be So Lucky - 2,170,000
The Loco-Motion - 2,150,000
Je ne sais pas pourquoi - 720,000
Got to Be Certain - 870,000
It's No Secret - 250,000
Turn It into Love - 80,000

Enjoy Yourself (1989) - 633,000 equivalent albums

Hand on Your Heart - 810,000
Wouldn't Change a Thing - 550,000
Never Too Late - 320,000
Tears on My Pillow - 430,000

Rhythm of Love (1990) - 327,000 equivalent albums

Better the Devil You Know - 480,000
Step Back in Time - 270,000
What Do I Have to Do - 200,000
Shocked - 140,000

1991-98

As years passed, Kylie Minogue's success became more and more UK-centric. Singles from Let's Get to It sold more than 75% of their copies in this market. Confide in Me has been the only single to reverse a bit the negative trend for the diva, hitting #1 in Australia and Top 10 in France.

Let's Get to It (1991) - 147,000 equivalent albums

Word Is Out - 80,000
Give Me Just a Little More Time - 200,000
Finer Feelings - 70,000
If You Were with Me Now - 140,000

Kylie Minogue (1994) - 183,000 equivalent albums

Confide in Me - 430,000
Where Is the Feeling? - 40,000
Put Yourself in My Place - 140,000

Impossible Princess (1998) - 61,000 equivalent albums

Cowboy Style - 2,000
Some Kind of Bliss - 50,000
Did It Again - 100,000
Breathe - 50,000

2000-03

A full decade after her last #1 UK single, Minogue made it again with Spinning Around. The whole era Light Years was a great return to form in the UK and in Australia for the artist. Its singles broke the million mark combined.

This comeback in her main markets was soon spread everywhere thanks to the album Fever. The lead single Can't Get You Out of My Head was a one-of-a-kind hitting #1 in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia and many more countries. It peaked at #7 in the US in spite of the absence of a physical single and an airplay component dominated by urban music. The hit went on to sell 3,4 million units, a tremendous total for a single from the 00s.

Slow killed this momentum, selling a mere 310,000 units and failing to convince consumers into buying the album.

Light Years (2000) - 312,000 equivalent albums

Spinning Around - 410,000
On a Night Like This - 260,000
Kids - 300,000
Your Disco Needs You - 30,000
Please Stay - 40,000

Fever (2001) - 1,287,000 equivalent albums

Love at First Sight - 360,000
Can't Get You Out of My Head - 3,390,000
Come Into My World - 160,000
In Your Eyes - 380,000

Body Language (2003) - 186,000 equivalent albums

Slow - 310,000
Red Blooded Woman - 210,000
Chocolate - 100,000

2007 onwards

From X, the digital era had kicked already. Minogue maintained consistent physical sales up to this day though thanks to her dedicated fan-base completing their collection.

X (2007) - 57,000 equivalent albums

2 Hearts - 80,000
In My Arms - 70,000
Wow - 40,000

Aphrodite (2010) - 26,000 equivalent albums

All the Lovers - 50,000
Get Outta My Way - 25,000
Better than Today - 10,000

Kiss Me Once (2014) - 3,000 equivalent albums

All Singles - 10,000

Kylie Christmas (2015) - 3,000 equivalent albums

All Singles - 10,000

Golden (2018) - 1,000 equivalent albums

All Singles - 3,000

Orphan songs

During her career, the singer issued various stand-alone hits. The main one is the 1988 Christmas smash Especially For You, a duet with Jason Donovan. In total, Kylie Minogue sold a solid 19,7 million physical singles during her career.

Orphan - 819,000 equivalent albums

Especially For You - 1,710,000
What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before) - 70,000
Celebration - 80,000
Where The Wild Roses Grow - 420,000
I Believe In You - 260,000
Giving You Up - 70,000
Keep on Pumpin' It - 10,000
GBI - 10,000
Higher - 70,000
Remaining Singles - 30,000

Kylie Minogue digital singles sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

1988-94

I would lie if I tell that Minogue's early singles continue to sell well in downloads. Their sales are fairly weak, with her former big hits struggling to sell a quarter of a million.

Kylie (1988) - 69,000 equivalent albums

I Should Be So Lucky - 170,000
The Loco-Motion - 250,000
Remaining tracks - 40,000

Enjoy Yourself (1989) - 27,000 equivalent albums

Hand on Your Heart - 90,000
Never Too Late - 70,000
Remaining tracks - 20,000

Rhythm of Love (1990) - 18,000 equivalent albums

Better the Devil You Know - 80,000
Remaining tracks - 40,000

Let's Get to It (1991) - 6,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 40,000

Kylie Minogue (1994) - 20,000 equivalent albums

Confide in Me - 110,000
Remaining tracks - 20,000

1998-2003

Although they aren't digital forces, her post-2000 singles are stronger on downloads. Spinning Around tops all songs issued prior itself at 320,000 units, a tally multiplied by more than 5 by Can't Get You Out of My Head. At 1,7 million units, this song is easily her highest selling among catalog tunes.

Impossible Princess (1998) - 9,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 60,000

Light Years (2000) - 126,000 equivalent albums

Spinning Around - 320,000
On a Night Like This - 200,000
Your Disco Needs You - 140,000
Kids - 170,000
Remaining tracks - 10,000

Fever (2001) - 392,000 equivalent albums

Love at First Sight - 440,000
Can't Get You Out of My Head - 1,730,000
Come Into My World - 170,000
In Your Eyes - 220,000
Remaining tracks - 50,000

Body Language (2003) - 72,000 equivalent albums

Slow - 250,000
Red Blooded Woman - 110,000
Chocolate - 100,000
Remaining tracks - 20,000

2007-18

Three singles from X are around 400,000 downloads and ringtones each. It is a fairly low number by 2007 standards. All the Lovers does better at 1 million digital units, although it isn't big for a 2010 single. Subsequent singles all did poorly.

X (2007) - 216,000 equivalent albums

2 Hearts - 430,000
In My Arms - 400,000
The One - 100,000
Wow - 440,000
Remaining tracks - 70,000

Aphrodite (2010) - 239,000 equivalent albums

All the Lovers - 1,010,000
Get Outta My Way - 390,000
Remaining tracks - 190,000

Kiss Me Once (2014) - 54,000 equivalent albums

Into the Blue - 180,000
Remaining tracks - 180,000

Kylie Christmas (2015) - 48,000 equivalent albums

Santa Baby - 220,000
Remaining tracks - 100,000

Golden (2018) - 15,000 equivalent albums

Dancing - 70,000
Stop Me from Falling - 20,000
Remaining tracks - 10,000

Orphan songs

Although a relatively low seller by his personal standards, Taio Cruz' Higher is far and away the top selling song on which Minogue participated with 2,5 million sales. It accounts for more than 20% of her 12 million digital sales.

Orphan - 512,000 equivalent albums

Especially For You - 70,000
Where The Wild Roses Grow - 110,000
I Believe In You - 150,000
Timebomb - 250,000
Higher - 2,530,000
Remaining tracks - 300,000

Kylie Minogue streaming sales

Streaming is made up of two families - audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main sources of data for each avenue are respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 132 million of the 212 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:

Audio Stream - 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream - 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Streaming Part 1

The singer's early hit singles barely register a few million streams on Spotify while her album tracks are completely ignored. These 3 albums combined have under 30,000 Equivalent Album Sales (EAS) from streams.

Streaming Part 2

More of the same with songs from 1991 to 1998. None of them reaches even 3 million EAS.

Streaming Part 3

Albums Light Years and Fever contain various songs ranging from 5 to 10 million streams on Spotify but the story is all about Can't Get You Out of My Head which stands at 72 million streams on Spotify and 103 million on YouTube.

While in comparison to the remaining of Minogue tracks, this looks impressive, the figure is rather disappointing. It is below other 2001 songs like It's Been A While by Staind, U Remind Me by Usher, Family Affair by Mary J Blige, Hero by Enrique Iglesias and many more which were nowhere near as big as Minogue's smash in first place.

Nevermind, Fever records a decent 126,000 EAS from streams.

Streaming Part 4

Both Body Language and X were released and done years before the streaming era. Their songs do not make waves there, all well below 10 million on Spotify.

Aphrodite lived the very early days of Spotify. Its two leading tracks are close to 20 million streams there and around the same number on YouTube. In total, the album has 62,000 EAS, a sub-par performance for a 2010 album.

Streaming Part 5

Minogue still doesn't have her streaming hit. As the ultimate evidence of a lack of appeal to the younger generation, the singer's recent singles do not reach even 20 million on Spotify. The highest from her last 3 albums is Santa Baby, a Christmas tune first released in 1997.

Streaming Part 6

Kylie Minogue full length related record sales

It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era - studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams - to get the full picture of an album's popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.

All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.

How to understand this table? If you check this example of Ultimate Kylie those figures mean it sold 2,250,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 227,678 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.

The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album plus the share it represents on the overall package streams. Thus, streaming figures tell us Fever songs are responsible for 53% of the Ultimate Kylie tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 1,190,000 of its 2,250,000 album sales. We will now apply this concept to all compilations, live albums, music videos and EPs.

Part 1 - Compilations 1992-2004

There are two kinds of compilations from Kylie Minogue: with or without Can't Get You Out Of My Head. This single is so strong inside her discography that when it belongs to a compilation, the impact is massive. In fact, more than half of sales from Ultimate Kylie are powered by Fever's singles.

As far as her earlier compilations are concerned, the main strength provider is easily Kylie.

Part 2 - Compilations 2007-2012

More of the same with these additional compilations. We start to notice the standard discography of an artist with a highly dedicated fanbase and a limited wider appeal: his catalog is milked over and over again in order to sell the same songs to the same fans various times.

Part 3 - Remix albums

The heavy exploitation of Minogue's catalog also includes tons of remix albums. Their sales are low but regular, the trademark of a fanbase purchasing a producted dedicated to them.

Part 4 - Live Albums

Live albums of Minogue have exactly the same role as remix albums: milking her fans. Since it works, why would they stop?

Part 5 - Music Videos 1988-2003

In the same range of ideas, every record, live, studio or compilation, is accompanied with a music video. The sales distribution is always the same with a strong impact from Kylie for all pre-Fever releases.

Part 6 - Music Videos 2004-2008

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

As we guessed, Fever dominates the list. It fueled sales of various compilations since 15 years, but also multiple music videos. Kylie is a solid second while the remaining albums haven't much appeal to exploit.

BONUS: Compilation Album Sales

Ultimate Kylie (2004)

• America

  • US - 75,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - 9,000
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 150,000

  • Japan - 60,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 330,000
  • New Zealand - 5,000

• Europe - 1,580,000

  • UK - 1,050,000
  • France - 40,000
  • Germany - 200,000
  • Italy - 20,000
  • Spain - 50,000
  • Sweden - 15,000
  • Netherlands - 20,000
  • Switzerland - 15,000
  • Austria - 20,000
  • Finland - 5,000

• World - 2,250,000

BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

• America

  • US - 2,395,000
  • Canada - 455,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 2,465,000

  • Japan - 1,330,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 2,540,000
  • New Zealand - 175,000

• Europe - 15,890,000

  • UK - 9,895,000
  • France - 1,245,000
  • Germany - 1,385,000
  • Italy - 270,000
  • Spain - 480,000
  • Sweden - 140,000
  • Netherlands - 205,000
  • Switzerland - 240,000
  • Austria - 115,000
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 25,330,000

Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.

Kylie Minogue Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Kylie Minogue achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!

[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]

Fever breaks 10 million equivalent album sales with all formats and further releases exploiting its songs combined. If the figure isn't record-breaking, an era worth 8 digits is still rather impressive. Kylie is logically second with 8,4 million EAS in total.

The remaining albums are much lower. Enjoy Yourself is third with over 3,5 million while Light Years is on 2,2 million. The remaining 9 albums are all below the 2 million mark. Basically, Minogue's popularity is fairly average, although she had a pair of successful records which crossed over the main audience.

All told, the pop star sold 35,76 million equivalent albums.

Thanks to our new ASR (Artist Success Rating) concept, we can also see that the exploitation of her discography has been poorly handled. Indeed, her Equivalent Discography Sales (EDS) stand on 9,5 million. Added to her CSPC units, this implies an ASR score of 105. This puts her much lower than the likes Avril Lavigne and Christina Aguilera and barely ahead of Miley Cyrus.

The following sections list her most successful songs as well as her records and achievements.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs, Chartmasters.org.

BIGGEST TRACKS - Kylie Minogue

The list of most successful songs is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each of them. It includes the song's own physical singles sales with a 0,3 weighting, its download and streaming sales, and with appropriate weighting too, plus its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

1. 2001 - Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out of My Head [Fever] - 7,300,000
2. 1987 - Kylie Minogue - The Loco-Motion [Kylie] - 4,000,000
3. 1987 - Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky [Kylie] - 3,150,000
4. 1989 - Kylie Minogue - Never Too Late [Enjoy Yourself] - 1,430,000
5. 1989 - Kylie Minogue - Hand on Your Heart [Enjoy Yourself] - 1,330,000
6. 2001 - Kylie Minogue - Love at First Sight [Fever] - 1,230,000
7. 2001 - Kylie Minogue - In Your Eyes [Fever] - 1,070,000
8. 1990 - Kylie Minogue - Better the Devil You Know [Rhythm of Love] - 970,000
9. 2000 - Kylie Minogue - Spinning Around [Light Years] - 840,000
10. 2003 - Kylie Minogue - Slow [Body Language] - 830,000

Records & Achievements

• At 2,112,000 physical singles sales, Kylie Minogue was the highest selling single act in the UK of 1988.
• Kylie Minogue is one of the two female artists with at least 6 chart toppers on both singles and albums charts in the UK.
• At 11, Kylie Minogue is the 3rd act with the most #2s in the UK Singles chart.
• At 35, Kylie Minogue is 2nd among females for most UK Top 10 Singles.
• At 10, Kylie Minogue is the 4th act with the most #1s in the Australian Singles chart.
• In 1988, Got to Be Certain was only the 2nd single ever to debut at #1 in Australia.
• Kylie Minogue is one of the 3 female artists who has scored a #1 album in the UK in four distinct decades (80s, 90s, 00s and 10s).

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