Forum
You should add these two facts to her records and achievements, which really speak of her longevity in the business:
1. She has scored a #1 album in the UK in four consecutive decades (80s, 90s, 00s and 10s)
2. She has also had at least one top 10 hit in the UK across the same four decades.
Hi again Vince!
Trying to answer on all questions (tell me if I miss some):
- Spinning Around is set on 250k physical sales in the UK. It scanned 245k in 2000 and left the Top 200 on the final week of that year (btw, it is also set on near 70k downloads). Physical singles were given up by majors much earlier in small markets than in the big ones. By 2000, the 6 main markets (US, JP, UK, GE, FR, Oz) were responsible for 346,5 million of the global sales of 370 million on that format. Basically, these countries represented 94% of global sales. Spinning Around was not released in 2 of them (US/JP) and performed nowhere near as well as in UK/Oz in France and Germany, missing the Top 20 on both. Its sales there are 40k and 15k respectively. The 7th and 8th biggest markets were NL / IT, responsible for 36% of missing sales. There, Spinning Around has a combined estimate of 5k. The remaining countries are calculated by formulas and bring the tally to 400k (rounded to closest 10k automatically). I added an extra 10k manually (we have a FIX column which adds to the formula) because the song was issued in Single on both Canada and Taiwan, 2 countries were international singles aren't released usually.
- big Oops on Please Stay, not sure why its UK cell is empty. It sold across 2 years, missing the YEC on both years for that reason I suppose that's why we overlooked it although we went through all charts runs and the OCC list. That will be fixed!
- OANLT sold 122k in the UK in 2000 and only a few thousands in 2001. It did sell 180k in the UK but that includes an estimated 50k DLs!
- I suppose you also have physical UK figures that are too high for these early 00s singles. The UK+Oz represents "only" 80% of Kids' sales, 55% of IYE and 56% of LAFS. They sold respectively 200k / 150k / 160k in the UK. They are all in the 35-45k range for DLs in that country.
- Rythm of Love is when her career started to struggle elsewhere, by Shocked her singles weren't released anymore in most countries. They still sold a few in France (165k combined) and less in Germany, the UK/Oz duo amounts for 66% of their sales.
- GMJALMT's figure of 325k in the UK is one of the numerous errors by the OCC. It's important to keep in mind that the OCC works with scanned DUS units since 1994, prior that date most of the time they ask Alan Jones to compile lists for them, who does a lot of mistakes. There is 2 big ones concerning Kylie: Especially For You, which is nowhere near to the million sales claimed (given at 983k physical sales, it sold "only" 844k), and GMJALMT, claimed at 325k in 2014, while in reality it sold 161k to be #50 of 1992. It sold poorly elsewhere, most notably it wasn't released in France and Italy while peaking at #51 in Germany.
As for her totals:
- UK - 7855k
- Oz - 1600k
- FR - 3092k
- GE - 2823k
There is basically no single market in Spain for many years. By early 90s it was already under 1m singles sold per year!
when Kylie was promoting the single "confide in me" in 1994 her OFFICIAL sales reported was 14 million singles and 12.5 million albums.. this was for "Kylie" "enjoy yourself" "rhythm of love" "let's get to it" + "greatest hits" ...
it's not possible that this figure has only gone up to 25m (another 12.5m albums)..
"fever" did indeed sell well over 6 million
"light years" (the previous album) also sold lots more after the "fever" success and it re-entered the UK charts for MANY weeks around xmas 2001.. it was official (by EMI) as having sold over 1.5 million sales after that!
they also reported official sales of 1.8 million for "body language" worldwide..
this means she sold something like 9.5 million of those 3 albums!
"Ultimate Kylie" sold 1 million in the UK and 3 million worldwide as also officially reported.. this is already the 12.5 million album sales to take it to 25m total by THEN!
"X" did indeed sell 1 million approx
"Aphrodite" indeed about 800k
the in-between side project albums were the re- release of "greatest hits" with another 300k sales
"abbey road sessions" (190k UK ONLY).. around 250k worldwide
then the underperforming "kiss me once".. indeed about 230k (at a respectable 85k UK now!)
and.. "KYLIE Christmas" which is indeed around the 270k mark..
these without "boombox" remix album, "hits+" AND a few charting live concert albums is way over another 3 MILLION albums to the total since 2007s "X"
she has sold something like 28 million ALBUMS and about the same amount of singles.. her singles sales was officially at 14.1m after leaving PWL.. she sold over 4 million singles of "... out of my head" alone!
80 million i always thought was inflated for promo like they do with everyone.. it's really around 55-60million RECORDS not albums
Hi MJ!
Not sure I've understood all of your message and I'm sorry in advance for being a bit off-topic lol but Michael Jackson's #1's sold 79,041 units to sit at #52 on the YEC with the following breakdown:
24/11/2003: 9,955 (#8)
01/12/2003: 13,313 (#7)
08/12/2003: 14,104 (#6)
15/12/2003: 16,208 (#6)
22/12/2003: 25,461 (#8)
Unfortunately I can't even recall the source as I got these figures more than ten years ago. I found them truly reliable though and in line with figures leaked by Undercover for more or less the same positions in December 2003 and 2004. Those 79,041 units are hard sales though as, as of 22/12/2003, #1's was already double platinum. That's why I think that this YEC are based on hard sales, rather than shipments.
Moreover, the following article: https://web.archive.org/web/20040414174149/http://www.undercover.com.au:80/news/2004/mar04/20040329_petemurray.html
states that Body Language was on 108,067 copies sold by March 29th. The album spent a further 10 weeks in the Top 100, for probably around a further 8,000 copies sold.
In regards to the 4x Platinum award, it comes from the 1989 list of albums accreditations posted by Bulion on australiancharts.com.au: http://www.australian-charts.com/forum.asp?todo=viewthread&id=31703&pages=4
You can find it at the bottom of the page.
Hope it helps!
exactly. she may not have been a Celine Dion but she hasnt done bad when it comes to longevity on the charts
Hi William!
Sadly, a lot of the numbers we read being claimed as "official" aren't official at all. The true official figures can be found on EMI Annual Reports, below is the information available for Kylie's early 00s releases:
04/2000 to 03/2001
All albums over 1 million are listed, Light Years isn't there yet. It was 4xP in 03/2001 in Australia and Plat in 02/2001 in the UK, meaning it had shipped at least 600k on both countries combined by the end of EMI's fiscal year. In other words, it had shipped under 400k elsewhere and the UK/Oz represent at least 60% of its sales. If you check its sales' evolution on these countries, you will see that rules out in full 1,5m to date, let alone by 2001!
04/2001 to 03/2002
Fever ships 3,6 million units.
04/2002 to 03/2003
Fever ships 1,6 million units. Total to date of 5,2 million.
04/2003 to 03/2004
Body Language ships 1,6 million units. As previously mentioned, the album was overshipped upon release, so its to date tally is under that mark.
04/2004 to 03/2005
Although this issue doesn't include figures, artists with million selling albums are pictured on the report. Kylie isn't one of them though.
As you can see, true official figures aren't the same ones as the ones spread on some Medias. Also, if you compare their UK / Oz sales to these global figures, you will see their share on Kylie's global sales!
Hi IE!
It definitely helps, you never disappoint! I fully rely on Bulion, I had never notice that link before, I'll add 1989 right now to my file, thanks a lot for that!
I used to read Undercover many, many years ago but at the time I wasn't keeping track of links / figures, so nice to see some of them! I was underestimating 2003's YEC sales by about 10%, I'll add that to the updates, thanks again!
Except that Cher had several more comebacks than Kylie, and is considered a legend worldwide. She's had a comeback in the early 70s, late 80s, and late 90s, and each time sold from 20-30 million records, totalling to more than a 100 million, which is all the general public needs to know about a celebrity - a total of sales, net worth and awards, only 'stans' go into so much detail and comparisons. Plus, Cher's a way more accomplished actress and TV star than Kylie, who's already 50 and will unlikely see a comeback as big as the one with Fever.
Well, you may be right, but as a matter of fact Kylie's much more popular and well-known in Europe than Cher's ever been (except for the Believe era, of course). And I'm a huge Cher fan but, as a European I must say that's the truth. Of course Cher's carreer is much more impressive.
Anyway, I'll stop here with the comparison.
MJD, how do you explain that she has nearly 0 sale in South America whereas 2 of the 5 cities where she's the most listened to on Spotify are Mexico City (more than 110k listeners) and Santiago (almost 50k listeners). How did they ever find out about Kylie if she never sold a thing in their countries ? I'm just wondering. 🙂
She also has 46k listeners in Istanbul. I know the market's low over there but maybe she's had some success in the Near East.
I'm European too and can say that Cher is definitely much more well known and successful in Europe than Kylie (apart from UK of course, but Cher's stats in the UK are quite great too). Anyway, the difference in of album sales in these countries is enough of a proof:
Kylie:
Germany – 1,385,000
Italy – 270,000
Spain – 480,000
Sweden – 140,000
Netherlands – 205,000
Switzerland – 240,000
Austria – 115,000
Cher:
Germany – 3,400,000
Italy – 900,000
Spain – 1,000,000
Sweden – 1,000,000
Netherlands – 500,000
Switzerland – 500,000
Austria – 450,000
Cher's 'The Shoop Shoop Song' from the early 90s is way more popular and well-known in Europe than any of Kylie's early hits. Just sayin...
Hi Rell!
First of all, it is key to highlight that YouTube is massive in Latin America. Mexico and Brazil are almost always the #2/3 markets in the World for YouTube views of global artists, just behind the US and often with figures nearly as big. For example, the RHCP's top 5 YT markets are 1) US, 2) Brazil, 3) Mexico, 4) Argentina, 5) Chile, countries like the UK, France or Italy come behind. They have more views on Colombia and Peru than in Canada, while they obviously sold an awful lot less in the former markets.
Then about Kylie's SA sales, they are definitely not that bad in comparison to other markets. In total, she has over 900,000 album sales in the region. The first element of course is certifications, although only Fever got some for her. Then Brazilian codes, annual rankings from Mexico (all from 2005 to date are available) and weekly rankings. Aphrodite went #22 in Mexico, showing she definitely has a fanbase there.
YouTube insights is also really useful. In the UK, Dancing has 6 times more views this month than CGYOOMH. In Mexico, CGYOOMH is ahead by 4:1. It proves she has a fanbase, but that her penetration into the general public is nearly null in this country by now, unlike in the UK where she still has it. Her 80s hits are also completely absent from her top 20 tracks unlike in countries where she got big in 88. These elements help you to build her curve of popularity through the years, then with the known data it draws a realistic sales line. I may write an article about how to use YT Insights to know which albums sold in which markets!
Hi guys!
Following updates have been applied:
- australian sales of Kylie and Body Language have been adjusted to 300k and 120k respectively
- the breakdown of Ultimate Kylie has been added
- her 4 decades with a #1 album in the UK have been added to the records part
If I missed something please tell me!
NB: Anthony is off for the week-end the Data Collector will be adjusted accordingly on Monday 🙂
Her career is not impressive at all, like 80% of her albums are huge flops! Even Fever doing 6,4 million in 2002 was nothing to brag about. Rihanna, Gaga and many other artists who debuted in the digital era outsold her with 2xless albums. Not to mention that Loud or Born This Way sold more than any of her albums despite being released 100 years ago when everyone and their mother was doing 10 million worldwide. And people dare to call Rihanna a singles artist. I am sure than even J.LO sold more albums than this overrated woman whose fans try to make her some kind of a global force (she is far from it actually). Can you do J.LO next please? Out of big pop girls she is the only one missing! Do her next, please!
