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I understand it's too early fo MJD to update and it won't change the big picture. But this article serves as a source for a chart in Russian Wikipedia Madonna article. I'm not sure traffic from here is big but generally it's a significant SEO factor. Without update the link to this analysis is likely to disappear because wiki has a strong policy towards articles with "good" status. It's just not relevant without 440k of Madame X results.
MJD, I worked with Warner Music Portugal in the 90's and the shipments in reality are sales from labels to stores. Returns are always taken down on the system and are rarely big so if awards were issued it means it did sold that to stores and the record label does what it takes to guarantee it won't have a lower number because of returns. And I know Warner from inside and most of the time they would not ask for awards certifications, would wait a bit to ask later and just pay once (everytime they ask they pay...). That was an international police, not just for Portugal.
The numbers you have for any record before 1999 (Madonna or any other artist) are very difficult to be precise - especially in US for any release before 1991 when soundscan was not even in use. Vogue was released on 1990 and if it was 2 platinum in US it means Warner did sold 2 million singles or maxi-singles equivalents from the song on the physical format to stores and that stores did sold them eventually (singles had no returns - just albums!). Even after mid 1991 when it began soundscan only covered about 70% of the US sales (according to Billboard Magazine at the time small independent shops and club sales were not counted).
Most maxi-singles had from 3 to 10 tracks and were sold from $7 to $11 each while singles had 2 tracks and cost $2 to $3 (sometimes even less - Mariah Carey sparked some controversy in the 90's for selling singles at $1 and even $0,50 to get the songs to #01 on Billboard). It's unfair for maxi-singles to be counted as the same (especially for dance artists from 80's, 90's and early 00's). I understand that you may not have a way to get real data on that, especially from outside US but singles costed 1/3 of what maxi-singles cost and have less than half the tracks. It's quite a difference, especially on acts that are successful on the dance floor.
Madonna , as you certainly know, is one of the best selling maxi-single artists in History (due to remixes success on the clubs) having sold ten's of millions of the format in vinyl and CD. In US she was the #01 maxi-single sales artists for the 80's, 90's and 00's. Angel/Into The Groove maxi-single was the best selling maxi-single on the 80's in US with sales of almost 900k (as stated on Billboard decade end special issue for each of those 3 decades).
Today every remix if sold on iTunes are counted as 1 digital single. Yet a physical single counts 3 times more with your method but a maxi-single easily have (especially in 90's and 00's) 6 to 10 tracks. In same cases after early 90's was easier to get it (in some cases maxi-singles were issues as "SONG NAME remixes" but not always). How do you count the digital single sales from remixes song collections (the so called EP's with multiple tracks/remixes that are equivalent to maxi-singles and chart now on the iTunes album chart - some are still issued on physical format, vinyl or CD in limited editions).
Did maxi-singles counted the same for award certification in US? Maybe that's why "Vogue" has 2 platinum awards.
"Vogue" single was 2 tracks and "Vogue" maxi-single had 4 tracks in US.
Thanks for correction! Thought it was on December 1989 (like are most Billboard changes too).
I decided to take some time to sum up and make stats on streaming and found out that Madonna EAS from streaming would add about 1.5 million today to her total on the 2017 analysis. Her new album already sold over 400k pure sales already (which is not that bad for the times being) and her GHs albums have been on iTunes global TOP 200 charts for many days on this past 2 years. Her singles/song sales must be quite small but all summed up will certainly account for over 100k EAS in this 2 year period. With her album release retail stores also put her Warner catalog albums with promo-prices leading some of those albums to even chart in some countries official album charts. This November her first 4 albums will also be released on limited editions in clear vinyl for Record Store Day (at least in US and Europe). Not much added sales for sure but all summed up and , a few thousands here and there and we probably get over a million catalog albums from 2017 until 2020 (from all the 27 album releases together and tracks sales translated into EAS points - plus a few Record Store specials albums and maxi-singles/EPs ).
It's amazing how some songs jumped on streams. How 1987 "La Isla Bonita" was at 55.8 million and it is already over 325 millions on YouTube various videos summed up on Madonna channel, gaining over 360k views per day on average for the song videos total (even on Spotify this song jumped from 37.3 million to 86.5 million). Unfortunately all did not jump so much ("Vogue" was 103 million and now is close to 150 million only on YouTube). On Spotify songs like "Material Girl" had 48 million and are now over 126 million (even others less listened hit tracks like "Crazy For You" - was at 12 million and is now over 33 million already). Her songs from this decade are not so lucky having much lower percentage gains. Some old videos and some live videos that were uploaded in 2018 also contributed to a bigger increase on YouTube views (yet they still did not put all ever videos that played on MTV back in the day on YouTube). Strange that "Gambler", a 1985 Top 5 Hit in UK is still not available on Spotify and was just uploaded to YouTube last year!
Overall she more than doubled the streaming numbers for Spotify and You Tube since the 2017 update. This happened because her streaming numbers were already pretty low and are slowly rising. She is now gaining an average 1.5 million daily YouTube Streams and over 2 million daily Spotify streams (over 300k from the new album alone on Spotify and over 115k on YouTube). If she keeps up this pace during the next months it should be interesting to check after the world tour she is starting today where she landed.
I hope you update her stats by the end of her "Madame X" tour. It starts today and it's supposed to end during March 2020 (not sure as just yesterday 2 new shows were announced after the previous end date) as I believe that by then Madonna sales will be at least over 3 million EAS than when the last update was made (as now they are already over 2 million EAS higher).
I do also hope that the maxi-single sales for Madonna are adjusted as some estimated over 15% of her physical single sales were maxi-singles and not just singles (since the early 00's most of singles were even only sold as maxi-single CDs in some european countries and 2 or 3 tracks CDs were not even available). I believe that will also add a few million EAS as she is one of the best selling maxi-single/EP/Remixes acts in History (If I understood right they were not took into account when the 2017 update and counted as regular singles, am I right?).
Will Queen be ahead of Madonna? It's very possible as they just had a huge hit with their "Bohemian Rhapsody" OST but we will only know after both artists are updated. I'm very curious!
Nuno, Queen are probably way ahead of Madonna at this point due to their popularity on youtube and spotify. But Madonna will retain her position as the only female in the top 10 selling artists of all time (and maybe stay in the top 5).
I'd imagine so Nick. It's quite probable that Bohemian Rhapsody the track, has added more to its overall total and Queens, than Madonnas entire catalogue has to hers. To be be fair, it's probably added more, than quite a few artists entire catalogues!
Since Queens analysis in 2017, it has added around 800,000 EAS from Spotify and Youtube streaming. Don't Stop Me Now, around 300,000 from just Spotify.
Hi again Nuno!
Actually, I was answering on the formula used for Madonna's article, since then maxi-singles ratio has been changed to 0.5. Also, when a maxi-single has 10 tracks or so, we do not hesitate in counting it as an album. As for the RIAA, yes, they used to count 1 maxi single = 2 singles back when they were popular.
About returns, it really depends on the release. Most records sell their initial shipments, but Q4 releases from big names often come short!
Hi Nuno!
Not contradicting your numbers at all, but adding a point that is important: we refined a lot our formulas since we started CSPC articles. The most notable change for Madonna is that physical singles used to be over-estimated. The main reason was that extrapolations valid for albums were used, but less markets outside of the big ones had a single market during the 80s to the 00s. So while she undoubtedly added a few millions in real life, an update would also include possibly numbers reviewed in the low side. Obviously, same applies for Queen!
Thanks! I still don't understand pretty well your single estimations. I know it must be hard to do that without having access to any real data but as I've seen from the inside the numbers on Warner Music computers during the 90's and as I said before your estimations for Madonna already seem pretty low.
How you get the u.s. Sales for IMC at Nearly 12m? It has been twenty years since last certified. Did the soundscan gain 2m?
hi MJD
I wonder how many units Madonna moved in physical singles in the USA? What about Mariah Carey?
yes, it gained about 1.7-1.8 million, plus a few club sales and a few supermarket sales, you get that nearly 12 million figure.
Hello,mjd Could you post the u.s. physical single sales for Madonna. Somebody claimed that the figure on ukmix has been over estimated a lot.
how could the immaculate collection reach 12m in USA after getting certificated as diamond in 2001? has it nearly gained 2 millions sales from 2002 to 2017? according to billboard this album has only sold 220k from 2009(5.78m)to 2016(5.99m). how could it be possible to sale 1.7m from 2002 to 2009 if this album has really sold 12m in USA?? and bmg + ch club has be gone since 2002/2003, i really dont think it can get a massive sale from music clubs
