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First of all I respect that you take time to answer all our queries.
As far as Kylie is concerned I'm not trying to boost her success status, but I do not agree on limiting her appeal to two countries.
According to wikipedia "The [European singles] chart was based on national singles sales charts in seventeen European countries: Austria, Belgium (separately for Flanders and Wallonia), Denmark, Finland, France, West Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. This chart was accumulated by taking the chart positions in each country combined with the national sales percentage of records in that particular country."
As I understand, each country is taken into account equally, without taking into consideration that a country may have ten times the population of another or that in one country the singles sold may be ten times more than in another. But I don't think it's UK/IR driven or any country driven for that matter.
For example I remember songs popular only in UK (at least in the first week of their release, when they reached no1 in UK, as Robson & Jerome singles) were nowhere to be found in the European chart. Or songs reaching no1 in the European chart had not yet charted in UK (as Alors on danse).
So I believe Kylie reaching the placements I've mentioned shows that she was quite successful all over Europe. Especially if one takes into consideration that Mariah Carey's placements in that chart, who is no doubt much more successful than Kylie all over the world, are really lower than Kylie's (VOL 14, LTT 75, Som 75, Emo 32, CnLG 69, MIH 44, IlBT 8, Dre 15, Her 19, WY 1, AYNAF 19, EL 7, AIWFCIY 4, Fan 4, OSD 6, OA 39, ABMB 19, Hon 16, But 61, MA 9, Swe 63, WYB 2, ISB 30, Hea 4, TGIFY 17, AAD 3, Lov 28, TTR 1, IKWYW 1, BINY 44, IsLT 8, WBT 4, SIO 31, GYN 31, DnFAU 38, SS 60, TMB 3, BB 84, Obs 28, IWTKWLI 16, 2 no1 - Kylie 4, 9 top5 - Kylie 11, 14 top10 - Kylie 21, 23 top20 - Kylie 32, and 31 Top40 - Kylie 36).
Also according to Wikipedia Tears on my pillow reached 9 in Belgium, 5 in Finland, 19 in Netherlands, 14 in Spain, 2 in Ireland, 1 in UK and 31 in West Germany.
Spinning around reached 2 in Croatia, 4 in Czech Republic, 20 in Denmark, 1 in Hungary, 7 in Iceland, 4 in Ireland, 1 in UK, and lower top 50 placements in 5 more countries.
Anyway much too much said. Looking forward to your new surveys. Thanks for your work.
Hi again Dimitris!
2 strong points to consider:
- the European chart was massively UK-driven, without the need of a special weighting. The addition of Ireland already 'doubles' the points, and then what you need to consider is that hits from Germany, France, Greece, etc, weren't charting elsewhere. Since it was a pretty flat point system, English songs doing well in the UK were automatically taking over the top 10 spots in Europe as floating around the top 50 in a few more countries was enough to off-set all the local hits from the remaining countries.
- Wikipedia lists equally sales charts with random airplay (at times of 1 station only) and foreign-only charts, you should be very careful when looking at these tables as they compare apples with oranges.
Using our concrete examples, you can instantly forget about charts from Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary. These were cheap airplay lists with no detailed methodology whatsoever. When we see the songs that chart high on the Czech list for example, mainly British pop music in a market massively dominated by local music, it's easy to see how unreflective it is of real hits there. These 'charts' weren't used for the European listings by the way.
The same is true for Spain, while the chart you refer to is based on sales, by the 90s they had got rid of buying singles there, so the list is basically the top selling Dance Maxi singles, a chart similar to that famous Billboard Dance chart where Madonna or Kylie are #1 every week. Finland and Iceland too have not been buying singles for very, very long.
Out of the markets you list, not much is left. Spinning Around went to 20 in Denmark (my bad I overlooked that one as online archives of danishcharts start in 2001), and then outside of the top 20 everywhere else. Tears went to 9 in Belgium, 19 in NL and outside of the top 30 elsewhere. As I said to know if a song was a European hit you need to check charts from real sales markets, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, etc.
From Especially for you / Hand on your heart to CGYOOMH, when she issued 30 singles, in France + Germany + Italy + Switzerland, she got a total of 1 top 10 hit (Confide In Me #10 in France). In Sweden/Norway and the Netherlands, the Nick Cave duet made the top 10 and that's it. In the same years, she got 25 top 10 hits in UK + Ireland. It's very clear that she was nowhere near as popular in Europe as she has been in the UK (and Australia of course). We are left with this conclusion that she had 2 eras where she broke over the main audience everywhere (her debut and with Fever), and then she had modest showings the remaining years/eras outside of her two strong places.
I think Kylie Minogue can be compared to Linda Ronstadt, a diva who was extremely popular in the USA but only occasionally was able to cross over in other countries. However I can agree that the introduction seems a bit too harsh on her. She's nowhere near other historical divas but, among australian divas I think that only Olivia Newton John tops her. So being the second most popular female singer of your own country is already a huge achievement even if she was able to obtain global popularity only a couple of times. Everything depends on the angle you see things
Hi Johnny be Good!
Actually, it's an interesting case / observation. I started ChartMasters because I was bored to read nonsense / lies online. I wanted a place where anyone can get accurate data easily - and accurate data isn't only copy/pasting what we see here and there.
From this starting point, my angle when writing the articles was to balance out what we were used to read elsewhere. The phrasing can be seen as an answer to the usual media storytelling. As Kylie is very often presented like a superstar, while she's not on that top / prime league of female singers, it feels like the tone puts her down. There have been other comments about other articles with similar observations, like Christina's article which was written with that Christina vs Britney media perspective, where I said that the comparison isn't too good when looking at the numbers.
I can't tell the trigger of the change, but I haven't got this angle in mind for quite some time. Maybe it's because ChartMasters.org is well installed now, or because I got kids, which changes our views on so many things, no idea but what's safe is that now I portray what an artist did, without caring of what's usually said about him. And the truth is that I, personally, consider all artists that we ever treated as immensely successful in absolute terms. Millions of people would dream to be in their shoes, yet there are like 500 artists tops who did it, artists from a near 100 years history from all around the globe. As I already said, we won't be calling Jeff Bezos a flop just because Elon Musk has a larger net worth.
Wow terrible stats for someone who is called big celebrity in non american markets. She is Australian selena gomez without us market. And her sales in europe as a whole are average at best.
Kylie Minogue sold over 80 million albums worldwide.
Yet you get to the number 25 million?
This site is a big CON.
Really?
I can't believe that Kylie is so popular in UK, but her sales are very average
Well, it looks like Kylie is mounting an unexpected comeback with "Padam Padam" on track to become a sleeper hit
Would it be possible for Tension to be added as a streaming auto update row?
If Kylie Minogue 1994 had my success if I did it it in 1994 would’ve been 1.365 Million international the same as Bangerz and 1.375 Million so 2.74 Million international for the album total
Thanks again for your answer. I really appreciate your work, your time spent for answering and your kindness while doing so. Keep on with your work while enjoying it as well. Your data archive is priceless.
Even though the numbers are far from astronomical, I find it amazing that she managed to revive her career, i.e. to achieve more album sales than those achieved during the previous era, five times (Kylie Minogue comparing to Let's Get To It. Light Years to Impossible Princess, Fever to Light Years, Christmas to Kiss Me Once, Golden to Christmas, and maybe two more times with Disco and Tension).
And 2 years later
Can’t Get You Out Of My Head - 545.4M
Family Affair - 521.2M
U Remind Me - 376.3M
Hero - 352.5M
It’s Been A While - 327.8M
Can’t Get You Out Of My Head successfully overthrown all mentioned songs. The only song that putting up a fight is Mary J Blige's Family Affair. The rest of mentioned 2001 songs already fall so far behind.
Your comment was so funny when i read it back in 2018 and it keeps getting funnier with years go on. You really underestimated how huge is the song.
