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So basically Michael is the biggest solo artist of al time right? I mean Elvis is pretty big too but his streams arent as big as Michael right? Michael has it all so im guessing he could be regarded as the biggest solo artist in history.
Jazmine,
Yeah you are correct. Its the same with Adele and Whitney. They took/take some 3-4 years between album releases. Whitney could have been much closer to Rihanna and Madonna's record sales as could Adele if they were as consistent as them.
or the public would have been oversaturated with them and they lose the aspect of anticipation and sell less
Did the video "This is it" really sell 12.3 million copies? That would be far and away the best selling music video of all time.................or did it sell 1.23 millioN copies? That just pops out as unusual to me
Hi Nathan!
There is no error, it actually outsold the top selling album of its year. The DVD/BluRay sold 3,6 million units in the US and 2,5 million in Japan, plus massive numbers virtually everywhere, including over half a million units in each the UK, France and Germany.
Can we get a breakdown of Asian sales and smaller EU countries? So many millions of album sales in those continents but we only have Japan for Asia and larger EU markets.
Both Dangerous and HIStory were recertified 8x platinum today meaning Dangerous has sold/shipped 8 million albums (I don't know if they counted streams and track downloads or not but there's a good chance they might not have). HIStory's recertification means it's sold possibly four million copies after years of being over 3.5m. Also 21 of MJ's singles have been certified or recertified by the RIAA this morning including virtually all of the singles on Thriller. I imagine they may audit for Thriller again bringing it either closer to the Eagles in the U.S. or possibly over it.
Hi Timothy!
I don't think Thriller is eligible for new certifications. Number Ones, The Essential, Off the Wall, and Bad for sure are but not Thriller which already got its SEA and TEA units last year. Dangerous / HIStory pure sales are high enough / their SEA + TEA points low enough to not be safe on whether or not SEA and TEA have been added. It looks like Sony are still awaiting to see how to dispatch these SEA/TEA units apart from the Thriller songs. They may wait to see which album (Dangerous, Ones, Essential) goes Diamond the fastest if granted with these units.
Hi XSWL!
Data for China is always sparse. What we know is that Thriller was one of the first international albums to be legally released in China along with blockbusters from Billy Joel and Lionel Richie, although no figure ever leaked for it. Bad was issued during the summer of 1988 there, it was quickly reported it had shipped 250,000 legal copies, you can find multiple references to it online. Dangerous was then reported to outperform it. Both are respectively the most owned 80s LP and 90s CD on Discogs right now. Then the leader of Sony Music China reported at Billboard during the smash of the Titanic that it was the first time it saw an international album break 500k. Since all major sellers there (Mariah, MJ, Joel, among others) were Sony artists, it sets the high limit for their sales. To finish, in the Billboard issue following the passing of MJ, Sony reported 300,000 albums since 2002 to 2009 there, so basically exclusively catalog sales with studio albums/compilations, since he released nothing new during that period.
Apparently he's someone who would re-do re-do anything that already sounds perfect till he's fully satisfied LOL people who worked with him said so. I believe it's the reason why he took so long to throw a new album.
He actually did outsell them based on studio albums only. It’s impressive considering he had so few albums. But it’s amazing how many albums the Beatles still sell considering their music is more than 50 years old.
I think you have to put his singles and albums in context. Usually big album sellers aren’t big singles sellers. Madonna is similar in that regard, but they both still saw good singles success. Adele is one of the few who has strong album and singles sales. Conversely, Beyonce, Rihanna, and Drake tend to sell more singles than albums. MJ and Madonna have similar physical singles numbers partially because Madonna has released more singles over the years.
I read an article from a few years ago that said he sold 13 million albums since he died.
History was certified 9xP in Taiwan.1xP for international artists before 1996/1998 is 20.000, so it equals to 180.000 sales. I doubt it sold 600.000 to date.
Hi djdj!
From their creation to 2002, Gold / Platinum awards levels for international artists were 25,000 / 50,000 in Taiwan.
Hi MJD!
I know you've been busy, I see you posted a few new articles this week. Great work as always. So, you probably haven't had time to respond to the email I sent furthering our discussion on how to create more profits for the site. Take your time and get to it when you have a chance. 🙂
I just have a quick question though, for use on the project I'm putting together -- For HIStory are your pure sales numbers based on the double album? Or is that the single disc count? I know the RIAA does doubling of its numbers for double albums. So, reading through this article, I wasn't sure if you had done the same. Please let me know when you get a moment... Thank you!
Why is this hitpiece posted here? This was written by Bill Wyman, a notorious MJ hater and his extremely subjective and twisted opinion, not to mention factual errors, have nothing to do with the hard data regarding sales and streams which is what this site is all about.
Hi! That is from 1996 to 2002 when RIT started to track sales. Before RIT started, Platinum was 20k for international artists. History certified 4xP+G by RIT by October 1996, which equal to 225k sales
Hi,MJD
You shold really correct your Taiwan figures.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=zh-CN&id=Gw8EAAAAMBAJ&dq=thailand+platinum&q=platinum#v=snippet&q=platinum&f=false
By 1996/02/17, Hisotry was 9xP in Taiwan.RIT was created in August 1996, So that was before RIT era. It was 1xP=20k for international artists before RIT era in Taiwan,so History was 180k by that time.
http://web.archive.org/web/19980530075007fw_/http://www.ifpi.org.tw:80/chart/gold/1996.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/19970403060227/http://www.ifpi.org.tw/chart/certify.htm
By 1996/10/14, History was officially certified 4xP+G for 239,365 copies. The total estimation should be at 300k, which was half of the figure you overestimated.
That looks correct Dhhd, tricky case with an album promoted and selling well just when awards changed. Thanks for that, it will be fixed once the article gets updated. Be reassured your links aren't being useless, when I update articles I always review all comments and do the adjustments when needed!
Well, just to name one of many reasons: Paul McCartney has 32 number one singles on Billboard 100 (career)...untouchable
MJD,I want to ask your one question,how did you get MJ Thriller selling in Zimbabwe?what is the source?It's amazing,can you get another Africa country ?
