Forum
MJD, do you really think its a wise decision to make teen pop star sounded more mature and looking more mature barely a few year into their career. If you look at Madonna back in the early 90s, she rely's on sex image even more than when she started and immediately her fame started dropping. It wasn't until she released frozen that she managed some rebound. The same could be said for Britney when she started exploring a little bit element of sex for her third album, her album sales started dropping massively. However, if you look at Taylor Swift. She never changed her music by that much for a very2 long time, and as a result she managed to retain her fans for a really2 long time. I feel like record labels as well as artists, pushed themselves to sound and look more mature too quickly most of the time it happens and their music and image kind of outgrew their fans. What do you think?
Hi Michael!
Results of switch from teen pop to more mature look / sound are often not that good, but the real question is how would it have gone without the switch? Indeed, the life of teen stars rarely last more than 2 to 3 years. Even when the peak is insane like the Backstreet Boys, they disappear quickly. All acts who tried to stay teen acts for long were even more backlashed than those who matured with years. To be honest, I can't think of a teen act who ever made it to their 5th year. At the end of the day, it looks kind of normal since teenage years do not last longer!
You are complete wrong. First of all you put all the number combinated as a continental number but don't include all countries. There are a lot more countries in America or Asia, even in Europe. Also there is no numbers from Africa, they were huge in South Africa, for example.
I am from Brazil and Forever sold 100.000 copies here and got Gold certification, Forever was so big here that Spice and Spice World got back to the charts, Holler was incredible insane here.
I really don't agree with you.
Hi Roberto!
Well, if I'm wrong, then SG's label is too since all figures fit with official data 😉
You mention that "there are a lot more countries", if you care to add values displayed you will notice that totals aren't barely the sum of listed countries but takes into account all markets instead. As for Forever in Brazil, it got shipped upon release at 100k, which is very different from selling them. It is fully documented that the album was strongly overshipped which necessarily concluded on returns even if certs were requested in-between. Statistics from Brazil show that Holler was no bigger there than elsewhere, or at best just a bit less weak. Then, as for 'going back on charts', there was no official charts in Brazil by then, only a completely made up "hot100brazil" website that was also claiming that In The Zone was Diamond there. Feel free to read previous comments with references to official EMI reports and official sales of the group.
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=7QkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA104&dq=spice+girls&hl=zh-CN&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQivaEyJrfAhXHs48KHUNdC0QQ6AEIKzAE#v=onepage&q=spice%20girls&f=false
Spice is 4xP in Japan by November 1997,which equals to 800.000 sales.
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=fA8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68&dq=spice+girls+spice+platinum+philippines&hl=zh-CN&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhxtKYgJzfAhUDw7wKHTtUAHMQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=spice%20girls%20spice%20platinum%20philippines&f=false
Spice sold 2.000.000 by May 1997 in Japan and Southeast Asia.I think it is impossible that it only add 100.000 catolug sales.
Hi Djddj!
While these links are often useful, it's key to truly understand what they stand for. Here, it is an ad of EMI music listing sales of Spice Girls' Spice and the video One Hour of Girl Power. That's why they speak about "over 19 million sales", while the album on its side was at 9.5 million shipped by end March 1997 and 19.5 million shipped by end March 1998, making it impossible to be at over 19 million by November 1997.
In fact, all 'awards' listed aren't official ones but instead combined sales of both products expressed on par with awards criterias. The official award of Spice in Japan is 2xPlatinum, where it sold 491,000 units through 33 weeks charted at retail.
Hi Djddj!
Again it's very important to be very precise with these articles. It does not tell that Spice sold 2 million by May 1997, instead that it is "approaching" 2 million sales, which is a completely different story. Billboard includes tons of articles of managers / labels commenting on how much an album is going to sell, many times way before it is reached. "Approaching" 2 million sales can be anything over 1 million with an ongoing pace of shipments high enough to expect the album to reach 2 million by the end of the promotional campaign. Also, these figures provided by labels are shipments, which is strongly different from retail sales for an album that is still hot.
But I know it is in-house awards, not official awards, but it didn't make it false.It still can tell that In Japan Spice sold 800.000
In-house awards are often very useful, the point is to make sure they refer to what you would expect. Here, it isn't related to sales of Spice, but instead to sales of Spice and the VHS, combined, that's quite a different story!
So you mean Spice(Album) sold nothing since Nov.1997 while you estimated it at 750.000?Did the VHS topped 100.000 mark in Japan?
EMI confirmed Spice sold 18m by Nov. 1997, so 1m sold/shipped for the VHS. 4xP=800.000/19*18≈750.000.
The question djddj isn't how much it sold but how much it shipped from November 1997. When an album reaches the end of its promotional campaign (remember Spice came out in Japan even before than in the UK, in 09/96), there is way more copies on shelves than necessary. For pop albums there is often more returns than new shipments in the 18 months following the end of the promotion. That's (in part) why the OCC reported recently 2.98 million units sold for this album while it had shipped 3 million by August 1997. Then, Spice is a very low catalog seller. It added a tiny percentage to its sales since it moved to catalog status.
About the VHS, I don't think I saw a leaked number for it in Japan, but thanks to EMI financial reports we know that while by 03/31/1998 Spice had shipped over 19.5 million units, the VHS was close to 2 million. That's an average of 10% in each market. In great VHS markets it did better (like in the UK, 650k against 3m), in weak VHS markets much less (in the US 150/200k against 7m). Japan has always been a very good market for video sales so I wouldn't be surprised at all if it sold over 100k there!
In any case, whatever we look at the album or the video, what matters is to build figures that are consistent with official data (19.5m/1.9m) independently on how they are distributed into each market.
Since you said that 1xP=50k in Thailand back in 90s, then Spice was 4xP=200k while you estimated it at 185k. I think Thailand is a weak VHS markets that VHS sold close to nothing lol.
You would be surprised! Markets fans of teen pop are markets with a few casual buyers / a lot of hard fans. In them, artists sell a lot with various random releases, including videos. That's true in both Brazil in Southeast Asia. In the latter, they bought a lot of VCDs during the 90s and Spice Girls' movie has 4% of its owners on Discogs for the version of Thailand!
To be honest, I'm not sure Spice was available at Britannia Music Club. Then there is issues between OCC's DUS figures (restricted to some panel) for records from 1994-1996 (the problem was mostly sorted by 1996, but still not completely), that's in part why the current total remains below 3 million. In any case, had it been a good catalog seller, this issue of sales outside panel during the first months would have been compensated for long!
PS: you should create an account / user, that way your messages won't need to go to moderation first anymore!
Hi!the VHS shipped 500k by June 1997, and the album shipped 3m by August 1997. It is impossible to equal to 10xP in UK by November 1997.
It was available through Britannia, here are the shipments I have for Spice between release and 2006.
YEAR --- RETAIL --- CLUB --- TOTAL
1996 --- 1,530,655 --- 2,749 --- 1,533,404
1997 --- 1,518,676 --- 154,094 --- 1,672,770
1998 --- 66,282 --- 41,636 --- 107,918
1999 --- 7,921 --- 8,844 --- 16,765
2000 --- 14,263 --- 1,431 --- 15,694
2001 --- 962 --- 679 --- 1,641
2002 --- 802 --- 203 --- 1,005
2003 --- 0 --- 81 --- 81
2004 --- 2,292 --- 128 --- 2,420
2005 --- 3,584 --- 39 --- 3,623
2006 --- 889 --- 5 --- 894
TOTAL --- 3,146,326 --- 209,889 --- 3,356,215
Great data Martin as always! The figure for the UK is then about 75k short! Would you happen to have Spiceworld too?
