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Hi Michael!
Nope, Canada is also one of these markets that got ride of physical singles long before Europe and even the US. During the 90s, there was from half a million to a million singles sold per year, less than 10% of the Australian market.
More than the size of the market what's important to understand is the nature of sales. Figures were so low simply because CD singles weren't issued anymore. Thus, the few manufactured CDs remaining were one-off products, e.g. charity singles or promo CDs for radios. MHWGO is no exception, just like most hits from the time, it wasn't released in single format in Canada!
Hey MJD, can you explain why Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore was listed as the best selling single of all time in Canada by the Guinness Book in 2018?
Hey MJD,Are there some problems about Madonna's physical single sales which you posted last year?You said that it should decrease because of overestimation.
Hi MJD,
I'm referring only to the EAS of the Titanic's movie theme song/single My Heart Will Go On which is 29,310,000 million EAS. I would understand if the song is a duet/collaboration but MHWGO is not a duet so The EAS of the single should be credited to Celine and added to her total EAS as a music artist.
Unless you're telling me that you treat the same to other music artists who have movie theme songs, the EAS part sold through the movie has not been added yet like for example. The EAS of Can't Stop The Feeling from the movie has not been added to the total EAS of the same song to Justin Timberlake?
I feel (and this is just a suggestion) that you should seperate the lists of artists and soundtracks ("Titanic sold more than Lorde"........seems kind of silly)
and also add a list of artist totals that include work they did with bands or other projects.........for example the list with Eagles and Led Zeppelin, but a different list with say Don Henley + Eagles total and Robert PLant + Led Zeppelin total, MJ, Paul MCcartney, etc..................It could be a 1 page companion piece and would take you only a couple hours to put it together.
I think it would be fun, What do you think?
Hi François!
I haven't see that book, but some tips:
- it could be completely made up by a fan and not appear on it at all
- it could come from the online version of the GWB where everyone can add "records", even if they are fake
- it could be a airplay ranking or whatever from Quebec
- it could be the "best selling Canadian single" from its year, meaning Worldwide, that got confused with biggest in Canada (the same happened for various sales of Shakira vs Colombia, for example)
What's safe to say is that this came is absolutely fake since this single wasn't even released in Canada. Also, in 1994, there was 3 times less singles sold in Canada than what Candle in the Wind did on its own in Canada, making it easily the biggest seller ever there.
Hi XM!
Actually, no, Madonna was already updated in August 2017, a couple of month after the template fix, and her figures were then corrected.
Hi RLAAMJR!
It is treated the same for all artists, and duets or solo tracks doesn't change the picture. For example, there is no sales of Trolls added to Justin Timberlake, no sales of Despicable Me 2 added to Pharrell Williams ("Happy"), no sales of Armageddon added to Aerosmith ("I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"). Once again, you should wonder what the consumer went after. The case of My Heart Will Go On is very clear. People had 3 choices:
- buy Let's Talk About Love, a Celine Dion album
- buy My Heart Will Go On, a Celine Dion single
- buy the Titanic OST, a Soundtrack from James Horner
There were left with the choice of adding or more songs of Celine along with MHWGO or theme songs of the movie. If they decided to rather go by theme songs, there is no way we can consider that purchases of a Celine Dion product, they precisely elected the product that isn't from her. On top of that, we know most buyers of LTAL and Titanic were in reality the same ones, that liked Celine and go mad about the movie, counting them twice for Celine makes no sense.
Also, among this 29,31m EAS, there is 2,98m coming from singles formats, these ones are already counted into her total.
Hi Nathan!
We provide comparative ASR inside the article to give a rough idea of what these sales represent, but inside Data Collector's lists Soundtracks / Artists aren't mixed together, instead they are put together with albums!
As for total sales of band members and all, it would be interesting for sure but to be honest that would be way too much work. For almost every successful band, we can identify as many albums from their solo members, either solo or with additional projects. Working on Genesis for example would become as painful as treating Elvis. Also, while this is relevant for some acts (like Phil Collins), it isn't for others. For example, I haven't studied Art Garfunkel's solo discography while I did Paul Simon. He sold truly low numbers on its own, but still released many albums and compilations. I prefer investing the time it would have take to study his solo career into studying Van Halen or Def Leppard, just to give random examples!
Hi MJD,
I am sorry for bringing this up again. I am really ok with Titanic album sales not added to Celine cos it isn't a Celine Dion album.
Your explanation on your comment on this article is clear. But when I think about "The Bodyguard", isn't it because of the movie people bought the album? A movie soundtrack album is called a movie soundtrack album because it is for the movie, not for Whitney. It is to sell the movie, not to sell Whitney. The album was made for the movie, not for Whitney. As you have said , we should wonder what the consumer went after.
Whitney Houston's name may be on the bodyguard soundtrack album cover but isn't Kevin Costner's name on the cover too? And I know Whitney is the executive producer but she wasn't the only one. And because it's a movie soundtrack album, then it's not surprising that 6 songs are performed by other artists.
That's why I really think "the bodyguard" should not be considered a Whitney Houston album.
Just putting more emphasis on my opinion but it's ok if you don't agree.
Hi RLAAMJR!
I hope you aren't serious with that Kevin Costner argument 😉
In any case, with Anthony we agreed for several months that to avoid never ending and pointless debates, we will simply stick to a concrete rule: soundtracks are assigned to an artist as soon as the RIAA or lescharts family of sites assigns it to an artist. All articles since Phil Collins are consistent to this rule and following ones will continue to stick to it.
My heart will go has sold a bit more than 600,000 digital copies the last 22 months.
So,would Celine's total physical single sales look something like that -36,500,000/37,000,000?
I have seen that MHWGO has sold 600,000+ digital copies the last 22 months.This is a good result.
Hey MJD,
Do you know why MHWGO didn't go #1 in Japan? It wasn't released in New Zealand but how do you explain it in Japan? Thank you, your job is amazing.
