Simon & Garfunkel's mastermind Paul Simon is one of the most successful singer-songwriter of all-time. Exaggeration? No, not according to the data. He started very young. His father was a professional musician and he started singing with Art Garfunkel at the age of 13. Two years later in 1957, he wrote and issued his first recording with his duet partner, Hey Schoolgirl, which went top 50 in the US. For the next 8 years, Simon struggled getting hits, either solo or with Garfunkel. At the time, even their name wasn't settled, they recorded songs under aliases like Tom & Jerry or Jerry Darcey and True Taylor for his solo material.

https://flic.kr/p/pnmWzG

Then came the single The Sound of Silence. It first bombed, but when re-worked by producer Tom Wilson a couple of years later, it suddenly became a #1 smash in the US. From 1966 to 1970, the duet was unstoppable. Tensions separated the old friends though. In 1972, Simon arrived with his first major solo album, a self-titled LP.

This article focuses on his solo career while a stand-alone piece of work is also available for Simon & Garfunkel data.

Paul Simon's original albums sales

Paul Simon (1972)

There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)

One-Trick Pony (1980)

Hearts and Bones (1983)

Graceland (1986)

The Rhythm of the Saints (1990)

Songs from The Capeman (1997)

You're the One (2000)

Surprise (2006)

• America

  • US - 315,000
  • Canada - 35,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 15,000

  • Japan - 10,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 10,000
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 250,000

  • UK - 150,000
  • France - 12,500
  • Germany - 25,000
  • Italy - 5,000
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - 7,500
  • Netherlands - 10,000
  • Switzerland - 2,500
  • Austria - 1,500
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 650,000

So Beautiful or So What (2011)

• America

  • US - 325,000
  • Canada - 30,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 10,000

  • Japan - 7,500

• Oceania

  • Australia - 10,000
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 150,000

  • UK - 65,000
  • France - 7,500
  • Germany - 30,000
  • Italy - 2,500
  • Spain - 1,500
  • Sweden - 5,000
  • Netherlands - 10,000
  • Switzerland - 3,000
  • Austria - 2,500
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 540,000

Stranger to Stranger (2016)

Original Album Sales - Comments

1972 Paul Simon - 3,150,000
1973 There Goes Rhymin' Simon - 2,770,000
1975 Still Crazy After All These Years - 3,270,000
1980 One-Trick Pony - 1,430,000
1983 Hearts and Bones - 1,010,000
1986 Graceland - 14,570,000
1990 The Rhythm of the Saints - 5,170,000
1997 Songs from The Capeman - 640,000
2000 You're the One - 870,000
2006 Surprise - 650,000
2011 So Beautiful or So What - 540,000
2016 Stranger to Stranger - 320,000

Selling 34,39 million units across 12 studio albums, Simon proved he was a force by himself. The best illustration is the African-sounding Graceland, a stunning comeback album which sold 14,57 million copies. The artist was already 45 when he dropped this record, defying ageism like no one else.

The Rhythm of the Saints managed to sell over 5 million thanks to the hype initiated by its predecessor. Songs from the Capeman completely killed the momentum though. After this release, Simon returned to patterns more in line with his age and career, selling steady numbers thanks to a solid fanbase but without impacting the general public.

Physical Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.

It is often said that Simon failed to produce hits after splitting with Garfunkel, figures show this claim is untrue. Of course, it is tough to record smashes as gigantic as Sound of Silence, Mrs Robinson or Bridge Over Troubled Water, still each of his first 3 LPs produced more than 2 million sales of physical singles, a solid result. His early single Mother and Child Reunion remains his top seller at 1,64 million but he counts with 4 more million selling tunes, including You Can Call Me Al. Simon sold 12,8 million solo singles in physical format.

Paul Simon (1972) - 768,000 equivalent albums

Mother and Child Reunion - 1,640,000
Duncan - 240,000
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - 680,000

There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973) - 798,000 equivalent albums

Kodachrome - 1,040,000
Take Me to the Mardi Gras - 150,000
Something So Right - 40,000
Something So Right (with Annie Lennox) - 30,000
American Tune - 290,000
Loves Me Like a Rock - 1,110,000

Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) - 724,000 equivalent albums

Still Crazy After All These Years - 520,000 + 2,500 (live, 1991)
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover - 1,460,000
Gone at Last - 430,000

One-Trick Pony (1980) - 309,000 equivalent albums

Late in the Evening - 740,000
One-Trick Pony - 280,000
Oh, Marion - 10,000

Hearts and Bones (1983) - 75,000 equivalent albums

Allergies - 240,000
Think Too Much (a) - 10,000

Graceland (1986) - 492,000 equivalent albums

The Boy in the Bubble - 200,000
Graceland - 150,000
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - 60,000
You Can Call Me Al - 1,230,000

The Rhythm of the Saints (1990) - 78,000 equivalent albums

The Obvious Child - 240,000
Proof - 10,000
Born at the Right Time - 10,000

Songs from The Capeman (1997) - 0 equivalent albums

No single released

You're the One (2000) - 0 equivalent albums

No single released

Surprise (2006) - 4,000 equivalent albums

Father and Daughter - 10,000
Remaining Singles - 3,000

So Beautiful or So What (2011) - 0 equivalent albums

No single released

Stranger to Stranger (2016) - 0 equivalent albums

No single released

Orphan - 597,000 equivalent albums

Motorcycle - 80,000
Lone Teen Ranger - 80,000
Slip Slidin' Away - 900,000
Wonderful World - 470,000
The Blues - 240,000
Remaining singles - 220,000

Digital Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

Downloads and ringtones haven't been a positive sales avenue for Simon. Unsurprisingly, songs from Graceland lead the way with over 2 million units combined, more than half of his total. You Can Call Me Al is far and away his best remembered song with more than 1 million digital sales.

Paul Simon (1972) - 100,000 equivalent albums

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - 540,000
Remaining tracks - 125,000

There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973) - 31,000 equivalent albums

Kodachrome - 110,000
Remaining tracks - 95,000

Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) - 56,000 equivalent albums

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover - 280,000
Remaining tracks - 90,000

One-Trick Pony (1980) - 11,000 equivalent albums

Late in the Evening - 70,000
Remaining tracks - 5,000

Hearts and Bones (1983) - 5,000 equivalent albums

Hearts and Bones - 30,000
Remaining tracks - 5,000

Graceland (1986) - 302,000 equivalent albums

The Boy in the Bubble - 90,000
Graceland - 220,000
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - 280,000
You Can Call Me Al - 1,090,000
Remaining tracks - 335,000

The Rhythm of the Saints (1990) - 17,000 equivalent albums

The Obvious Child - 90,000
Remaining tracks - 25,000

Songs from The Capeman (1997) - 0 equivalent albums

All tracks -0

You're the One (2000) - 0 equivalent albums

All tracks - 0

Surprise (2006) - 18,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 120,000

So Beautiful or So What (2011) - 9,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 60,000

Stranger to Stranger (2016) - 7,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 45,000

Orphan - 5,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 35,000

Streaming Sales

Streaming is made up of two families - audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 157 million of the 272 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:

Audio Stream - 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream - 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 272/157 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Part 1

YouTube views are good to represent the hit appeal of a track. We can notice that no song from this table reaches even 10 million, showing the general public, including the youngest of us, doesn't run after Simon's music. The general public does like to listen to his songs time to time. In fact, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard registers a healthy 85 million streams on Spotify while 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover is strong too at 42 million. Songs formerly used as singles are all in the multi-million area although they haven't face the test of time as well as the two aforementioned hits.

In terms of equivalent album sales from streams, all 3 albums conclude on decent to good numbers. There Goes Rhymin' Simon stands at 41,000 units, Still Crazy After All These Years at 67,000 and Paul Simon at 122,000.

Part 2

Then came the light. With One-Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones, both at 26,000 EAS from streams combined, Simon was faced a hard time to keep the train of success running. Graceland was the savior. All its songs top 5 million streams on Spotify, which is already a strong achievement. The Boy in the Bubble and I Know What I Know are both over 10 million. Higher, the title track and Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes top 30 million. All healthy figures, they fell short of You Can Call Me Al which enjoyed 133 million streams so far on Spotify plus 54 million on YouTube. These superb performances add for 287,000 EAS.

Part 3

Then came the night. Lamps got turned off after Graceland. The Obvious Child benefited from a strong promotion as the lead single of the 1986's blockbuster follow up, but the hype went down and down which is perfectly visible with these numbers of streams.

Part 4

The increasing trend in EAS from Simon's last 3 albums is more a sign of a growing streaming market than a step up in popularity. In fact, for a 2016 album, streams of Stranger to Stranger at 15,000 remain fairly modest.

Part 5

Nothing noteworthy from his Orphan songs. Please note that songs like Slip Slidin' Away, released both as a solo tune and as a duet with Garfunkel, appear on the article about Simon & Garfunkel since they are the main drivers of their streams.

Full Length related record Sales

It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era - studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams - to get the full picture of an album's popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.

All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.

How to understand this table? If you check this example, those figures mean Greatest Hits, Etc sold 3,410,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 213,880 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.

The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album plus the share it represents on the overall package streams. Thus, streaming figures tell us Paul Simon songs are responsible for 52% of the Greatest Hits, Etc tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 1,760,000 of its 3,410,000 album sales. We will now apply this concept to all his compilations.

Part 1 – Compilations - Paul Simon

The only pre-1986 major compilation, Greatest Hits, Etc is dominated by songs from the eponymous debut album. The appeal of later compilations is massively powered by songs of Graceland instead, usually around 50%. The debut album comes next in the list of appeal providers, following by Still Crazy After All These Years.

Part 2 – Compilations - Paul Simon from a Songwriter view

Through the years, several Anthology-like compilations have been released. These packages focus on Paul Simon as a songwriter, meaning they include stuff from Simon & Garfunkel too. Since the duet has the most popular songs, they routinely fueled about 60% of these packages, which is why their percentages and sales displayed here do not add for 100%. The remaining sales will be assigned to Simon & Garfunkel's album.

Patterns of sales distribution remain identical to the previous table with Graceland leading the way, except that as mentioned numbers only total to about 40%.

Following sets are credited to Simon & Garfunkel or Art Garfunkel, but include at least one song which is prominently a Paul Simon song, most of the time the title concerned is My Little Town. As the song has a very minor spot into these compilations, its share is minimal.

Part 3 – Box Sets

Fans of classic rock acts love pricy / heavy box sets which include all albums of the artist. Several of them have been released with Simon's LPs. This table also includes the original debut album of Simon from 1965 which packaged mostly Simon & Garfunkel's songs.

Part 4 – Live Albums

Simon always performed songs he previously wrote for him and Garfunkel, so it is no surprise to see a sales distribution pattern similar to his Anthology albums for his live records. The cult Concert in Central Park of the duet always featured various solo songs from the singer-songwriter.

Part 5 – Music videos

More of the same in sales distribution patterns with music videos getting released along with their related live albums, thus containing similar / identical track lists.

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

The lead of Paul Simon may come as some kind of a shocker, but both the compilation Greatest Hits, Etc and Live Rhymin' were released before Graceland just like the Concert in Central Park.

BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

• America

  • US - 22,470,000
  • Canada - 2,640,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 1,780,000

  • Japan - 1,200,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 1,615,000
  • New Zealand - 395,000

• Europe - 14,340,000

  • UK - 5,935,000
  • France - 985,000
  • Germany - 1,960,000
  • Italy - 490,000
  • Spain - 540,000
  • Sweden - 535,000
  • Netherlands - 1,190,000
  • Switzerland - 245,000
  • Austria - 155,000
  • Finland - 135,000

• World - 44,880,000

Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.

Paul Simon Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Paul Simon achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!

[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]

When Simon went solo, it was near impossible to match the ground breaking success of his former duo. He hasn't even come close, but his numbers are still strong.

Graceland is naturally the leader with 18,7 million equivalent album sales across all formats. Released more than 20 years after the commercial breakthrough of the artist, this album is one of the most unexpected smashes of all-time.

If this album largely overshadows the rest of his discography, results of various additional albums are still very good. Paul Simon is a solid runner up at more than 8,6 million units while Still Crazy After All These Years, The Rhythm of the Saints and There Goes Rhymin' Simon are all in the 5-6 million range.

The remaining 7 albums average less than 1 million sales. Now in the last part of his career, Simon will not be looking at a flashy comeback with his upcoming releases. Still, at 51 million equivalent album sales on his own, his solo career is more than respectable.

Thanks to our new ASR (Artist Success Rating) concept, we can add that his ASR score is 182. This puts his solo career ahead of stars like P!nk, Nickelback and Michael Bublé.

The following sections list his most successful songs as well as his records and achievements.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs, Chartmasters.org.

Bonuses

BIGGEST TRACKS

The list of most successful songs is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each of them. It includes the song's own physical singles sales with a 0,3 weighting, its download and streaming sales, and with appropriate weighting too, plus its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

1. 1986 - Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al [Graceland] - 10,070,000
2. 1972 - Paul Simon - Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard [Paul Simon] - 6,740,000
3. 1975 - Paul Simon - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover [Still Crazy After All These Years] - 4,570,000
4. 1990 - Paul Simon - The Obvious Child [The Rhythm of the Saints] - 2,780,000
5. 1986 - Paul Simon - Graceland [Graceland] - 2,360,000
6. 1986 - Paul Simon - Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes [Graceland] - 2,290,000
7. 1973 - Paul Simon - Kodachrome [There Goes Rhymin' Simon] - 2,240,000
8. 1980 - Paul Simon - Late in the Evening [One-Trick Pony] - 1,650,000
9. 1972 - Paul Simon - Mother and Child Reunion [Paul Simon] - 1,230,000
10. 1975 - Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years [Still Crazy After All These Years] - 1,090,000

Records & Achievements

• At 18,744,000 equivalent album sales, Graceland is the 5th most successful album from 1986.
• At 10,070,000 equivalent album sales, You Can Call Me Al is one of the 10 most successful songs from 1986.
• At 18,744,000 equivalent album sales, Graceland is the 4th most successful album ever by an artist aged 45 or more.
• 18 different acts made the UK Top 50 single chart with a song written by Paul Simon.
• Paul Simon topped both the US single and album chart both as a solo and as a duo.

We have more for you...

... Simon & Garfunkel's full CSPC analysis

... checking out the upcoming artists or even voting for them!

... similar artists

... best-selling artists, albums, and singles