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Great work! Such HUGE numbers! Truly the King of POP!
One question though.
On page 33 you suggest that the four albums Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad and Dangerous combined created 100% of the 18.625.000 album sales of History. But is this true? Surely the new songs/disc 2 must hace created some of those sales.
Regards,
Thomas
Hi again dear!
On page 33 it refers to the CD1 of the package! The CD2 is counted too but as a studio album. The CSPC methodology distinguish albums as they were first released, so this LP is regarded as two distinct pieces, one studio album and one compilation, rather than a single double-album. In the same range of idea, box sets that put together distinct albums are re-allocated in full into sales of all studio albums included.
Hi MJD
Yes, I actually realized that myself after I wrote that. It's like adding 500,000 to each of the individual albums included in Led Zeppelin's Complete Recordings Boxsets.
In this case it rises a few questions.
a) Would the History compilation have sold more as a stand alone album in 1995 because the casual fan didn't want to pay for the new songs?
b) Would the History studio album have sold less without the old hits to fuel sales?
c) Would the History studio album have sold more as a stand alone album, because some fans wouldn't pay for the old hits already in their collection?
d) Would the Hitstory compilation have sold less without the new songs to intrigue fans?
Ranked as a) the most likely and d) the least likely.
My guess is the hits collection would have sold more and the studio album a bit less.
Hi Thomas!
We are lucky enough to have various factual evidences to answer those questions!
1) Sales of the studio album
In 1995, 432 million physical singles were sold in the World. This is a solid figure, but this still falls short of the related market in every year from 1970 to 1985. Nevermind, Earth Song became MJ's first million selling single in the UK. Germany is a market with strong tradition of both singles sales and albums sales which leads very distinct acts to perform well on each side. For example, Queen never got a #1 single there but sold more albums than the Beatles. Their only Top 3 hits (Flash / Radio Ga Ga) were arguably from albums that haven't performed *that* well. MJ too never got a #1 single from 1979 to 1994, but he easily sold over 2 million units of each Bad and Dangerous. Then Earth Song and They Don't Care About Us both shot to #1 for a combined 9 weeks, they lasted 29 weeks inside the Top 10.
Why do I mention those statistics? As you know, older an artist gets, the most established he is. He gains credit and moves from selling singles to selling albums. It's not normal to see an artist 25 years into his super-successful career get career highs singles-wise. These doped singles results are a clear indication of casual buyers ignoring the album History due to its price (more than $30 at the time), cherry-picking singles instead. While it's worthier to go by albums when the price is about 2,5 times higher than singles, it isn't anymore with a 7 to 1 gap.
Have old hits fueled the interest and as such its sales though? Well, no. The issue is that MJ's albums had sold insane numbers which means casual buyers already owned pretty much his entire discography. Paying for the CD1 was equal to give money away, hence the huge results of its singles. This is also why Sony packaged it together, to milk an additional $20 from people who already owned all his songs.
Its music club sales are also a solid indicator. It sold nearly half of its SS total through Clubs, a very high ratio. The demand was much higher once the price difference was offset as it was the case on Clubs, where double albums were counted as two, but it was much less painful to "pay" 2 units in a "12 for 1" offer than $30 from your own money.
In terms of catalog sales, History has really been lagging behind the previous albums. One may though it isn't as popular, but the gap is again not natural. It has been selling routinely 10 times less than OTW in the US while its songs are downloaded/streamed "only" 3 times less there. I can compare it with every other album to similar results. Once again it shows that the price has left out not only consumers, but also retailers which often stopped stocking it after its initial promotion.
2) Sales of the compilation album
As the first major compilation by an A-League artist, we should compare it with the likes The Immaculate Collection, All The Way, #1s (Mariah), Cross Road, U2's Best Of 1980-1990, but also Gold, One, GHII (Queen) which were the first major CD compilations of their respective artists. All those albums sold almost as much / more than HIStory. Similar 90s best of albums from the likes Sade, Enya, Phil Collins, Lionel Richie, Lenny Kravitz, Tina Turner, Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Sting, etc, all sold more than 10 million units. Those singers are all popular but not close to MJ. HIStory (CD1) would have most likely sold less than the 2CD package during the first 18 months, but ultimately it would have gone much higher thanks to catalog sales.
This is the big flaw of this release. The studio album clearly suffered from its price while the compilation failed to become a perrenial seller because of the weird package. HIStory went quickly down to 10,000 annual sales in the US which shows it wasn't regarded as a compilation at all by the general public / retailers.
3) Sales of remaining albums
Something which needs to be said is that History truncated MJ's catalog sales but also sales of subsequent compilations. As you should know, the likes OTW, Thriller, Bad sold way more in 92/94 than after 1995 because of this release. On its side, Number Ones was received with little fanfare because of History too.
All in all, had the studio album been released alone, MJ would have gained from 5 to 10 million units 3 times, from History (I would guess a good 25m units on that scenario), from his catalog studio albums (1m to 2m units more each from 1995 to 2002) and from Number Ones (likely close to 20m by now rather than over 12m). With the CSPC, this exploitation specificity is erased as both CDs count distinctively!
Great insight! I didn't realise the History singles was that massive upon release! Thanks again
The Way You Make Me Feel has just passed 100m plays on Spotify. This means Bad joins the elite field of pre- 2000 albums with 3 x 100m songs!
The other 7 albums being:
GnR Appetite, Dr. Dre 2001, RHCP Californication, Nirvana Nevermind, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Bob Marley Exodus and of course MJ's own Thriller.
With the song Bad at 64m there's also a chance Bad is gonna be one of the first albums with 4 x 100m songs. Thriller is likely to be the very first (P.Y.T is now at 93,5m)
In the future the two albums could race each other for 5 x 100m songs 🙂 Dirty Diana is only 0,75m plays behind Wanna Be Starting Something, both at around 51m.
Dr. Dre is leading this race though with his 2001 album. Xxplosive is at 57m.
I follow your articles and evaluations now for a long time. Truly an incredible job you are doing here.
I have a question. Surely you heard from the Quincy Jones interview where he claims MJ stole Billie Jean. It really annoys me how the media takes everything negative so unchecked when it comes to Michael. It has been a strategy of Quincy Jones for years now to tarnish him as a artist and portray himself as the true maker(architect of Michael Jackson. In fact, the media are only too happy to portray it as if MJ was made by others and he has the lowest of all shares in its own success. I think it is not a surprise he took his signature song because it gives the most damage. Do you think this Jones attack to portray Michael as the thief of Billie Jean harms him in the long run.
I think more interviews from him will come around his 85 birthday (Oprah is obviously one of the next).
I'm always amazed how MJ after all these attacks not only his personal life but also the attacks to him as a artist he continues to have this success.
Hi Marlene!
To be honest, I don't think many people care about Quincy's rants for many years. The ones giving him credit are the same ones outside of the black culture, mostly rock fans on their 60s+, which anyway never liked MJ since it broke various Beatles' records and never played instruments live. Basically, Quincy comments will only convinced people who already convinced themselves!
Hi MJD,
thank you for your prompt reply. It's just that main stream media (not limited to tabloids) spreads it, so you think people who hear it casually just take it as a real news and it will be cemented in their head.
But yes, in the end I think and hope that you are right.
P.Y.T. has passed 100 million plays on Spotify. It is the 4th song from Thriller reach this milestone after Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller.
Thriller is the first pre-2000 album to ever accomplish this. Truly magnificent!
Here is the top pre-2000 ALBUMS ranked by biggest 4th track:
MJ Thriller: 340.1m/210.2m/157.0m/101.2m
Dr. Dre 2001: 266.2m/250.6m/167.5m/89.2m
Pearl Jam Ten: 120.1m/109.1m/100.0m/75.2m
MJ Bad: 137.1m/111.2m/107.7m/68.9m
Nirvana Nevermind: 376.7m/243.7m/136.3m/67.3m
Metallica Black Album: 234.0m/211.0m/103.2m/62.4m
AC/DC BIB: 228.7m/150.3m/62.5m/61.7m
Bob Marley Exodus: 215.2m/135.2m/115.9m/58.9m
He would have caught up already had the glorious American justice system and media not done their best to ruin his reputation. From the moment he started to break white records and became the first black person to trigger mass hysteria by whites, blacks, browns, yellows alike many in the white US and UK media considered him a threat. Once he bought the ATV catalog, with Beatles songs and all, the character assassination started in full force. By the time Evan Chandler teamed up with that pedophile Victor Gutierrez to concoct the molestation story Jordan Chandler was coached to memorize MJ's media coverage escalated to a point that you could say anything about the guy , no matter how irrational, obscene, bizarre, absurd it was the public just believed it. No question asked.
It would be great to see where MJ's sales would be without the Chandlers and Gutierrez starting to brand him as a monster.
Splitting up was their decision it was not an injustice it was not a bunch of lies it did not hurt them.
You can't compare that to massive injustice that was inflicted upon MJ. A hell of a lot of people wanted him to fall, including some pedophiles like Victor Gutierrez who started the whole witch hunt in the 1980s
One thing is sure Thriller's sales would not be at this level without those three music videos and Motown 25 and those three videos and Motown 25 wouldn't have had the impact without the outfits, the choreographies and MJ's dancing.
Yes the tabloid media will try to tear anyone down, but Britney was ridiculed for things she actually did do, nobody was accusing her of horrible crimes he did not commit. Lennon was killed by one crazy. He was not relentlessly persecuted, bullied by law enforcement and the global media like MJ was. And let's not forget MJ is the only black person whom the white media branded with the name of an ape: Jacko. That is no coincidence. It's blatant racism (no it's not just an innocent nickname for Jackson , context matters) especially since they are still calling him that after he virtually begged in 1997 that the press should stop calling him an animal.
