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At the turn of the millennium, Eminem was dominating the rap music scene and Robbie Williams the Pop stage. The biggest male singer from the R&B World was Usher. His fame has reached unseen heights in 2004 with the release of the album Confessions. He was so big that when Justin Bieber first emerged, the name of his mentor Usher was largely used to promoted the Canadian kid. Times change.
That LP is well known for producing 4 consecutive US #1 hits which together held the throne for 28 weeks. They were led by the monster smash Yeah!. By 2004, he wasn't a beginner though as You Make Me Wanna..., Nice & Slow, My Way, U Remind Me, U Got It Bad and more had all been big US hits previously, even if they faced mixed fortunes elsewhere.
This being said, Usher doesn't seem to be making much waves anymore. His recent outputs have hardly impacted radio's playlists. Is his public still buying his records though? How been really was Confessions? Has the R&B star been able to sell well outside of the US? What about My Way and 8701' results?
Original Albums Sales
NB: N/A means no specific number is available. Sales from the country are still accounted for in the Worldwide estimate by using figure patterns of both the artist and the country market. Countries not displayed in this fixed panel are also factored in.
Usher (1994)
- America
- US - 400,000
- Canada - N/A
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - N/A
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - N/A
- Japan - N/A
- Oceania
- Australia - N/A
- New Zealand - N/A
- Europe - N/A
- UK - N/A
- France - N/A
- Germany - N/A
- Italy - N/A
- Spain - N/A
- Sweden - N/A
- Netherland - N/A
- Switzerland - N/A
- Austria - N/A
- Finland - N/A
- World - 500,000
My Way (1997)
- America
- US - 6,400,000
- Canada - 350,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - N/A
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - N/A
- Japan - N/A
- Oceania
- Australia - 50,000
- New Zealand - 10,000
- Europe - 460,000
- UK - 200,000
- France - 50,000
- Germany - 70,000
- Italy - N/A
- Spain - N/A
- Sweden - 5,000
- Netherland - 50,000
- Switzerland - 10,000
- Austria - 2,500
- Finland - N/A
- World - 7,450,000
8701 (2001)
- America
- US - 5,000,000
- Canada - 350,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - N/A
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 260,000
- Japan - 150,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 155,000
- New Zealand - 25,000
- Europe - 1,490,000
- UK - 700,000
- France - 185,000
- Germany - 230,000
- Italy - 35,000
- Spain - N/A
- Sweden - 15,000
- Netherland - 80,000
- Switzerland - 25,000
- Austria - 7,500
- Finland - N/A
- World - 7,400,000
Confessions (2004)
- America
- US - 10,750,000
- Canada - 680,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 25,000
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 690,000
- Japan - 450,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 280,000
- New Zealand - 55,000
- Europe - 2,770,000
- UK - 1,520,000
- France - 315,000
- Germany - 275,000
- Italy - 50,000
- Spain - 25,000
- Sweden - 30,000
- Netherland - 140,000
- Switzerland - 50,000
- Austria - 10,000
- Finland - 10,000
- World - 15,500,000
Here I Stand (2008)
- America
- US - 1,400,000
- Canada - 70,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 7,000
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 170,000
- Japan - 115,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 55,000
- New Zealand - 5,000
- Europe - 430,000
- UK - 235,000
- France - 40,000
- Germany - 60,000
- Italy - 10,000
- Spain - N/A
- Sweden - 4,000
- Netherland - 20,000
- Switzerland - 7,500
- Austria - 2,500
- Finland - N/A
- World - 2,200,000
Raymond v. Raymond (2010)
- America
- US - 1,400,000
- Canada - 85,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 3,000
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 105,000
- Japan - 70,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 110,000
- New Zealand - 8,000
- Europe - 360,000
- UK - 265,000
- France - 40,000
- Germany - 15,000
- Italy - 3,000
- Spain - N/A
- Sweden - N/A
- Netherland - 7,500
- Switzerland - 2,500
- Austria - 1,000
- Finland - N/A
- World - 2,100,000
Looking 4 Myself (2012)
- America
- US - 550,000
- Canada - 35,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 3,000
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 60,000
- Japan - 40,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 20,000
- New Zealand - 3,000
- Europe - 170,000
- UK - 105,000
- France - 15,000
- Germany - 25,000
- Italy - 1,000
- Spain - 1,000
- Sweden - N/A
- Netherland - 6,000
- Switzerland - 4,000
- Austria - 1,000
- Finland - N/A
- World - 850,000
Hard II Love (2016)
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- America
- US - 120,000
- Canada - 5,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - N/A
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - N/A
- Japan - N/A
- Oceania
- Australia - 5,000
- New Zealand - N/A
- Europe - 20,000
- UK - 10,000
- France - 2,000
- Germany - 3,000
- Italy - N/A
- Spain - N/A
- Sweden - N/A
- Netherland - 1,000
- Switzerland - 500
- Austria - N/A
- Finland - N/A
- World - 160,000
Original Album Sales - Comments
Born in late 1978, at the age of 25 Usher was already the lucky owner of three smash albums. His self-titled album from his teenage years wasn't successful, but My Way, 8701 and Confessions all smashed, especially considering they were R&B albums which are always difficult to sell outside of the US plus a few favorable countries like the Netherlands.
Those series of hits came to an abrupt end when Here I Stand sold less than 15% of its predecessor. Raymond v. Raymond hasn't recover but at least it was able to maintain the same level of success. The last two albums, especially the 2016 effort Hard II Love, failed to sell well, starting slowly and dropping fast.
All in all, Usher sold more than 36 million albums with the help of eight records. They contributed very distinctively though. Obviously, album sales were still great by 2004 while the market collapsed during the following years. It raises the question about the origin of that decrease of sales from Usher's albums, was his popularity dropping or is it only due to a transfer of sales into other formats like digital singles?
1994 Usher - 500,000
1997 My Way - 7,450,000
2001 8701 - 7,400,000
2004 Confessions - 15,500,000
2008 Here I Stand - 2,200,000
2010 Raymond v. Raymond - 2,100,000
2012 Looking 4 Myself - 850,000
2016 Hard II Love - 160,000
Physical Singles Sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
Part 1
Failing to succeed on his first attempt, Usher hasn't miss it twice. You Make Me Wanna… was a tremendous seller in the US, moving an impressive 2,3 million units. Nice & Slow and My Way sold near 3 million combined there. One of the rare albums that saw its singles sell more than 5 million units in physical format in the US alone, My Way hits were that big in remaining markets though.
Ironically, while 8701 sold similar amounts as My Way - both near 7,5 million units - its singles sold way less. By 2001 the norm was to hold the release of physical singles in the US in order to boost sales of the parent album. U Remind Me was still issued on that format, helping the song to jump from #21 to #1, sales were already low. As Usher was nowhere near as big elsewhere than in the US, the disappearance of the physical singles market on that country concluded on a much lower selling era post-1998.
Usher (1994) - 101,000 equivalent albums
Can U Get Wit It - 140,000
Think Of You - 170,000
The Many Ways - 25,000
My Way (1997) - 1,920,000 equivalent albums
You Make Me Wanna… - 3,100,000
Nice & Slow - 1,710,000
My Way - 1,590,000
8701 (2001) - 411,000 equivalent albums
U Remind Me - 920,000
U Got It Bad - 330,000
U Don't Have to Call - 20,000
U-Turn - 100,000
Part 2
The era of Confessions was bigger with the song Yeah! being way more global than anything ever released by Usher previously. Thus, in spite of near-no US sales, that song sold 1,2 million units Worldwide. Burn and My Boo were great hits too.
During the following eras, that market went downhill. A few Orphan songs released earlier like The Party Continues and I Need A Girl sold decently.
In total, Usher amassed 12 million sales of physical singles.
Confessions (2004) - 669,000 equivalent albums
Yeah! - 1,200,000
Confessions Part II - 40,000
Burn - 470,000
Caught Up - 130,000
My Boo - 390,000
Here I Stand (2008) - 38,000 equivalent albums
Love In This Club - 90,000
Moving Mountains - 15,000
Remaining Singles - 20,000
Raymond v. Raymond (2010) - 24,000 equivalent albums
OMG - 10,000
More - 10,000
DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love - 50,000
Remaining Singles - 10,000
Orphan - 456,000 equivalent albums
Call Me A Mack - 25,000
Comin' For X-Mas - 25,000
The Party Continues - 540,000
Pop Ya Collar - 290,000
I Need A Girl - 490,000
Lovers and Friends - 70,000
Same Girl - 20,000
Without You - 40,000
Dirty Dancer - 20,000
Digital Singles Sales
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between albums and digital singles.
Part 1
Although the Billboard started compiling a list of best selling downloads as early as in 2003, sales were awfully low when Confessions came out. In the US, a mere 141 million downloads were sold during 2004, way less than the billion plus sales reached every year during the 2008-2014 period.
This background highlights the extraordinary sales of Yeah!. One of the biggest catalog hits of the 00s along with Lose Yourself by Eminem, this track went on to sell 7,6 million units. This stunning catalog appeal isn't limited to this unique single. In fact, all Usher hits perform truly well. Burn, My Boo, Confessions Part II, U Got It Bad, U Remind Me and You Make Me Wanna... all sold from 1,5 to 3,5 million units. Songs from Confessions sold a huge 17,5 million units, worth 2,6 million equivalent album sales.
Usher (1994) - 15,000 equivalent albums
All tracks - 100,000
My Way (1997) - 398,000 equivalent albums
You Make Me Wanna… - 1,500,000
Nice & Slow - 750,000
My Way - 250,000
Remaining tracks - 150,000
8701 (2001) - 855,000 equivalent albums
U Remind Me - 2,500,000
U Got It Bad - 2,300,000
U Don't Have to Call - 400,000
Remaining tracks - 500,000
Confessions (2004) - 2,633,000 equivalent albums
Yeah! - 7,600,000
Confessions Part II - 1,800,000
Burn - 3,550,000
Caught Up - 650,000
My Boo - 1,950,000
Remaining tracks - 2,000,000
Part 2
Here I Stand failed to sell as well as Confessions, Love In This Club was still a sizable hit with 7,6 million sales. The song enjoyed both, great ringtones sales and a great success in Asia. Those elements also supported hits like OMG and DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love, two 8+ million sellers.
With an impressive 27 million singles sold, Raymond v. Raymond appears to be much stronger in this avenue than in original album sales. If songs of Looking 4 Myself performed not too bad, those of Hard II Love had disastrous results.
Up to 93,6 million downloads and ringtones sold, Usher will need one more hit or several years of catalog sales before reaching the magical 100-million plateau.
Here I Stand (2008) - 1,905,000 equivalent albums
Love In This Club - 7,600,000
Trading Places - 1,300,000
Moving Mountains - 1,100,000
Love In This Club, Pt. II - 1,600,000
Remaining tracks - 1,100,000
Raymond v. Raymond (2010) - 4,095,000 equivalent albums
Hey Daddy - 1,600,000
There Goes My Baby - 1,400,000
Lil Freak - 900,000
Papers - 1,100,000
OMG - 8,800,000
More - 3,100,000
DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love - 8,200,000
Remaining tracks - 2,200,000
Looking 4 Myself (2012) - 1,155,000 equivalent albums
Scream - 3,500,000
Climax - 2,100,000
Lemme See - 400,000
Numb - 500,000
Remaining tracks - 1,200,000
Hard II Love (2016) - 90,000 equivalent albums
No Limit - 300,000
Remaining tracks - 300,000
Orphan - 2,895,000 equivalent albums
I Don't Mind - 1,400,000
She Came II Give It II U - 400,000
Good Kisser - 350,000
Party - 300,000
The Matrimony - 350,000
Rest Of My Life - 600,000
Don't Look Down - 500,000
Body Language - 500,000
New Flame - 1,200,000
Without You - 4,000,000
Promise - 400,000
First Dance - 500,000
Somebody To Love - 2,000,000
The Christmas Song - 300,000
Dirty Dancer - 2,000,000
Spotlight - 500,000
I Need A Girl - 500,000
Lovers and Friends - 800,000
Remaining tracks - 2,700,000
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 132 million of the 212 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 = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750
Streaming Part 1
Usher was young when his debut LP came out. With a limited artistic input from him, this album isn't rated anywhere as high as his later records, concluding on fairly low streams. They represent 5,000 equivalent album sales.
My Way is 28 times bigger. You Make Me Wanna... is the strongest hit from it with nearly 70 million Spotify streams. Nice & Slow remains popular at 30 million. On its side, My Way decelerated a lot with less than 10 million audio streams through the Swedish platform.
Streaming Part 2
At 60-65 million streams each on Spotify, U Remind Me and U Got It Bad boost strongly the album 8701 which enjoys 194,000 equivalent album sales from streams. The video of U Got It Bad, up to 183 million YouTube views, helps too.
Yeah! outperforms with ease those already strong hits. It is now up to 191 million streams from Spotify and over 200 million views on YouTube. Focusing on Spotify alone, My Boo is on 94 million, Burn and Confessions Part II combine for 100 million, Caught Up, Confessions and Bad Girl are all inside the 15-25 million range while album tracks average over 3 million plays. All those impressive figures conclude on nearly 600,000 equivalent album sales from streams.
Streaming Part 3
Love In This Club was a #1 hit upon release. It isn't holding as well as other #1 songs from the singer with 41 million and 129 million streams from Spotify and YouTube. It still does much better than all other tracks from Here I Stand which ends on 154,000 equivalent album sales from streams only.
Raymond v Raymond, which received the help of the Versus EP, is made of 21 songs all of which top 1 million streams. DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love is the leading tune at 109 million streams on Spotify and 297 million on YouTube. OMG is strong too. The album combines for 361,000 equivalent album sales.
Streaming Part 4
Scream and Climax weren't that big on first place but retained a nice appeal since their release. They both generate near 100,000 equivalent album sales from the total of 274,000 of the album Looking 4 Myself.
Hard II Love is a very distinct case as this 2016 album came out when streams were huge. Taking into account this context, its numbers are awful. Its 168,000 equivalent album sales from streams are still more than its sales in pure album format.
Streaming Part 5
Usher contributed in a lot of successful songs from other artists. Don't Look Down, New Flame, Without You, Back To Sleep, Somebody to Love, Dirty Dancer, Party and I Don't Mind all top 100 million streams on at least one platform, Spotify or YouTube.
This extensive list of hits combine for billions of streams and almost 1,6 million equivalent album sales.
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 for example the OMG Tour Live From London music video line, those figures mean it sold 125,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 872,000 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.
The second part on the right of the table shows how many equivalent streams are coming from each original album, plus the share it represents on the overall package. Thus, streaming figures tell us songs from Confessions are responsible for 39% of the OMG Tour Live From London track list attractiveness. This means it generated 49,000 of its 125,000 album sales and so forth for the other records.
The first 3 live products issued from 1999 to 2002 are logically dominated by tracks from My Way, 8701 and then Confessions songs take over part of the attractiveness of those packages in later years. The Versus EP is a great addition to Raymond v Raymond.
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.
BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country
- America
- US - 26,870,000
- Canada - 1,640,000
- Argentina - N/A
- Brazil - 60,000
- Mexico - N/A
- Asia - 1,425,000
- Japan - 925,000
- Oceania
- Australia - 680,000
- New Zealand - 105,000
- Europe - 5,800,000
- UK - 3,050,000
- France - 670,000
- Germany - 705,000
- Italy - 105,000
- Spain - 40,000
- Sweden - 60,000
- Netherland - 315,000
- Switzerland - 105,000
- Austria - 25,000
- Finland - 20,000
- World - 37,160,000
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.
Usher Career CSPC Results
So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each Usher album achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!
[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]
Unsurprisingly, Confessions leads the pack of Usher's albums. Closing in 20 million equivalent album sales, it is a force in every format. Its songs are still heavily streamed as shown by the more than half a million sales from this avenue, which means the 20 million barrier will be soon broken. Among all the albums studied so far, only four released afterwards sold more, 21 and 25 by Adele, The Fame by Lady Gaga and American Idiot by Green Day.
20 million is also the combined total of My Way and 8701. Both albums are very strong, just over and just under 10 million respectively. While Here I Stand is a true drop from Confessions, the drop is slightly less drastic is CSPC terms. It sold less than 15% of its predecessors in pure album sales, but the overall tally of sales generated is up to 22%.
The most unexpected result is the one of Raymond v Raymond. Widely regarded as a real flop just like every post-Confessions album released by the R&B star, the huge digital success of its songs push it up to nearly 7 million sales. Incredibly enough, it isn't that much less successful than 8701 and continues to grow faster.
Looking 4 Myself flopped, but nothing close to the massive bomb that has been Hard II Love. No matter how we look at it, this album failed to attract consumers in every front with pathetic results from the start to the end.
A small word on Orphan Album tracks. Those non-studio albums songs encapsulated together represent the strong total of 5 million.
The final indicator of value of Usher's catalog is its total of 59,5 million equivalent album sales. Beyoncé, who has been successful for a longer period, is under 62 million, which proves the strong selling power of Usher still. As his past tracks retain a high pace on streaming platforms, a positive comeback for him isn't out of question.
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, Chartmasters.org.
BIGGEST TRACKS - Usher
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 2004 - Yeah! [Confessions] - 7,660,000
2 1997 - You Make Me Wanna… [My Way] - 6,080,000
3 2001 - U Got It Bad [8701] - 3,880,000
4 2004 - My Boo [Confessions] - 3,430,000
5 2001 - U Remind Me [8701] - 3,340,000
6 1997 - Nice & Slow [My Way] - 2,930,000
7 2004 - Burn [Confessions] - 2,710,000
8 2010 - DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love [Raymond v. Raymond] - 2,530,000
9 2008 - Love In This Club [Here I Stand] - 2,010,000
10 2010 - OMG [Raymond v. Raymond] - 1,980,000
11 2004 - Confessions Part II [Confessions] - 1,880,000
12 1997 - My Way [My Way] - 1,180,000
13 2004 - Caught Up [Confessions] - 920,000
14 2012 - Scream [Looking 4 Myself] - 900,000
15 2001 - U Don't Have to Call [8701] - 780,000
Records & Achievements
- With 19,8 million equivalent album sales, Confessions is the fifth most successful album released since 2004.
- With 191 million streams on Spotify, Yeah! is among the Top 50 most streamed tracks released before the creation of the platform in 2006.
- Usher is the only R&B artist to ever release 3 consecutive 5-million selling albums in the US.
- Confessions is the most recent male album to hit Diamond - 10 million sales - in the US. Since the introduction of Soundscan to register US sales in 1991, Eminem is the only other male singer to break the mark with a studio album, he did it twice with The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.
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His sales remind me of Janet's: impressive in the USA in his heydays but extremely local to the USA. I can't believe none of his 90s releases sold over 10 million copies. At least, unlike Janet, he managed to sell over 15 million with one album.
Hi babyshowers!
Demographics are very important in records sales. Usher and Janet Jackson are part of the black culture. Black music doesn't sell a thing in Latin America, Latin Europe or in Eastern Europe to name a few, quite simply because their culture is very distant from that one. In the same way that we can't expect a Latin singer to sell a high number of records in the US or the UK, we can't expect R&B stars to move a significant number of discs in countries were there is no real black community. Both Janet and Usher already did very fine elsewhere in comparison to acts like Luther Vandross, Common or DMX.
You included More into the Raymond V Raymond era for digital sales but not for streaming (it is mentionned in the orphan category).
Is it a mistake or done on purpose?
Interesting article.
A couple of points which seem wrong. "With 191 million streams on Spotify, Yeah! is among the Top 20 most streamed tracks released before the creation of the platform in 2006"
Spotify started in October 2008 not 2006 and I can see at least around 30 tracks (there are probably more), that were released prior to Spotifys creation, that have more streams than Yeah!, the majority of them were actually released even prior to 2006.
Bo Rhap, Californication, Wonderwall, Under The Bridge, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Mr Brightside, Sweet Child of Mine, All I Want For Xmas, Billie Jean, The Scientist, Yellow, Fix You, Seven Nation Army, Sweet Home Alabama, Hotel California, Hey Ya, Crazy In Love, Hips Don't Lie, Golddigger, You're Beautiful, Numb/Encore, Iris, Lose Yourself, Mockingbird, Till I Collapse, Without Me, Stronger (Kayne) & Snow (Hey Ho) are all higher than 191m and The Real Slim Shady & In Da Club are also on 191m but may (may not) be higher, if there are additional versions to the main ones.
Hi MJD, what an amazing site.
I manage the official Mel & Kim website and I have been trying to track down official worldwide sales statistics on the girls' releases for our website and an upcoming book we have planned. Could you advise on where I can seek this information or help in any way? I have included my email address. Thank you so much. Iain.
Great article! Usher has had a great career, even if the past few years haven't been good at all for him. To be honest I was expecting Confessions to be a bit closer to 20 million, but 15.5 million is still an amazing number! His last album was a massive bomb. I can't believe he went from 15.5 million to 160k. His streaming numbers are actually pretty good! Confessions having nearly half a billion streams on Spotify and nearly 600k album equivalents is pretty amazing.
I'd suggest doing P!nk at some point, as she's definitely one of the biggest acts of the past 20 years, plus she's releasing her new album next month and her new single is doing great in Europe and Oceania! P!nk + Justin Timberlake/NSYNC + Avril Lavigne would complete the biggest solo acts from the 2000s decade since we already have Britney, Beyonce/Destiny's Child, Usher, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, etc. Again, great job as usual!
I'd also add Jennifer Lopez, apparently she's releasing a new studio album this year (in Spanish)!
Whe we will have another "Next CSPC Artists " to vote?! I think its time to Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand fans fight to get that!
Hi Martin!
Spotify was created in April 2006. The date of October 2008 is its launch to public access, but as songs from 2006-2007 were still very young then, I prefer focusing on pre-2006 tunes when mentioning 'catalog' songs on Spotify spectrum.
You are right about Yeah! failing the top 20 though! I had streams from distinct dates for most of the songs you mention and I haven't realized a bunch of them climbed that much lately. I can add a couple of them like How To Save A Life, Chasing Cars, Is This Love, Still DRE and The Next Episode. I'll change it to top 50 😉
Hi Marcus!
There is 2 solo male artists, 2 solo females and 2 groups already scheduled after High School Musical, so I'll wait a bit before doing a new poll. I can only say that some of you will be pleased with the ones to come 😉
Don't leave us hanging...........who's coming up?
Can't wait for some huge acts from the 70's like Elton,Rod,Phil Collins/Genesis, Eagles, .............seeing some more with 100+ million in sales!
Hi MJD!
Sorry for the late response😅 This analysis is one of my most anticipated ones, and again you did an amazing job!
Some comments to make:
-Regarding My Way's sales in the US, is it true it moved around 2m sales in the US through club sales? Because I remember its last Soundscan sales was reported at 4,4m.
-My Way's singles did amazingly well in the US. You had U Make Me Wanna at 2,3m in the US alone, but 1997 Soundscan YEC stated its sales at 2m. Is it due to the Soundscan-Shipment gap we discussed before?
-I did not expect 8701 single sales to be so low, or how Confessions would be so high! For the former album, are you sure that U Don't Have To Call sold 100K? That's a lot for a single only popular in the US. I'm also quite ambivalent towards U Got It Bad's sales being so low. It was, after all, a bigger success outside the States than U Remind Me. As for Confessions, Yeah is such a great seller! Where did the majority of its sales come from? And how does it rank among songs from 2004-now?
-Confessions at 10,75m in the US was totally out of my expectations! I thought it's Soundscan sales were at 10,3m as of now. Where does the additional 450K come from, considering clubs were non-existen during that time.
-I'm also quite shocked by how well Confessions did in Asia. While nothing groundbreaking, it's truly great for a R&B album. However, I wanna ask why you lowered its European sales? You had it before at 2,8m+, with 1,45m coming from the UK alone. I thought by now its sales should be above 3m by now.
-It's such a shame Usher didn't release any supporting records to capitalize on Confessions' success aside from 1 music video. Had he release something like an EP or a remix album, Confessions would be the biggest album released in 2004. But according to your analysis, that distinction goes to American Idiot by Green Day. I suppose because the latter has the edge of a wider international appeal.
-I did not expect his Orpan album to do so well. He truly contributed to several hits of other artists!
-How successful were Love In This Club, DJ and OMG were in ringtones and Asian sales, because those totals are outstanding, especially for the former as it sold only over 3m downloads in the US?
-Out of his outstanding 93,6m digital downloads and rigtones, how many originate from the US? I remember Soundscan reporting him to have sold around 40m downloads a few years back.
-If we were to calculate CSPC sales in the States alone, how much would Usher's be? And how high he would rank among most successful acts in the US of his generation? I expect only Eminem, Britney, Linkin Park and perhaps Beyonce to be higher than him. He was truly a force in the States, particularly from 1997-2004.
-I also am very astonished by how well he performed in the streaming world. How high he would rank among his generation in terms of streaming.
-Speaking of streaming, I'm aware that Confessions (album) has 2 versions on Spotify. Some tracks have different streams for each version. Did you include streams from both versions? If not, then Confessions can get a slight boost.
Anyway, thank you for this analysis MJD! Looking forward for the next one!
Another thing i wanna ask: how does Usher rank among the most successful R&B male artists of all time? Top 10 undoubtedly ! The only male R&B artist I can think of above him are Michael Jackson (if you don't classify him as pop), Prince, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and perhaps (though unsure) Luther Vandross and Little Richard.
Hi Raffi!
It depends who you wanna put on that folder! Does James Brown enter on it, or Ray Charles? One omission from your list is Barry White. He sold some relevant number of records! The first 4 you mention are out of touch but then Usher comes in the second group of R&B stars ranking 5-10, him, Luther, Barry, Ray, James etc should all be fairly close. Someone like Al Green shouldn't be that much lower although I admit that I never studied him in details!
Hi Raffi!
1) My Way was a great seller on Clubs, it was released at the best moment for it plus enjoyed a few more sales from the success of 8701. It went 6xP already in 2000! 1997/1998 is the last period of albums to have sold great amounts in both Columbia & BMG, after that most LPs were exclusives to one or the other. My Way did 796k on BMG and was heavily present on Columbia from very early with the catalog number 224246.
2) You Make Me Wanna scanned 2m during the calendar year 1997 but it was still going strong in early 1998! The number of 2,3 million refers to its Soundscan sales only, check the last message of this page.
3) U Don't Have to Call is on 20k only! It's U-Turn that is on 100k 🙂
Yeah should rank rather low among post-2004 singles quite simply due to the heavy number of Japanese singles that sold 1,5m or more! Then there is tons of one hit wonders. For example, Un Monde Parfait by Ilona Mitrecey sold more in France alone in 2005 than Yeah! globally!
4) Clubs were very low but not non-existent! While a few %s do not change much for most albums in recent years, for a 10-million seller that's a notable difference. In most, the blockbusters are those on which Clubs relied during the last 15 years. An album like All The Right Reasons sold huge numbers on Clubs. They were up to 4,4% of the business in 2004, which is 450k for a 10,3m seller. It isn't how the 10,75m figure was set though. Confessions went Diamond in November 2008, a full 4 years before reaching 10m at Soundscan. At that point, it was crossing 9,6m SS sales. As a catalog album on a digital-axed market, there is virtually no retail sales to shipment gap. By now, it is on 10,35m SS sales, e.g. 10,35m + 0,4m = 10,75m!
5) The formula for Europe has been adjusted after all the details coming out during the Coldplay study. The main markets missing in Europe are Northen markets (Norway, Denmark) and eastern countries (Poland, Czech Republic etc), countries were R&B artists sell mostly poorly. Same for Portugal. Also a few countries were adjusted with more information (France, Switzerland, Sweden), with the usage of Year end charts, which resulted in slightly lower numbers.
6) He did amazing on both ringtones and in Asian downloads. Love In This Club sold barely more than 2m at Soundscan during its year of release while it appeared at 5,6m inside the IFPI Global Top 10 for the same period. It was Platinum for ringtones with about 1,1m sales for that year (IFPI year, e.g. dec to nov) and sold relatively low numbers in known markets, which imply more than 1 million downloads in Asia, most likely in South Korea!
7) He has indeed over 40m sales from the US - I have a total 40,8m for the 38 songs with a fixed estimate to date for the US - plus likely close to 10m ringtones as I have set estimates of 21 songs up to 7,25m. In total that's nearly 60% of sales coming from the US alone!
8) Doing a quick check, there is about 41m of EAS from the US. That puts him a few millions ahead of Beyonce (solo only) and Nickelback, indeed under the big 3 you mention. Of course, later acts topped him, I'm thinking especially to Taylor Swift. Drake is on about 38m as impressive as it seems.
9) For streams, Anthony does an amazing job collecting streams for each and every version of songs existing on Spotify. He always combines all YouTube views with relevant numbers, at times several dozens of videos are merged together for a unique song!
Speaking of demographics, how about Asia? Do they embrace black culture and R&B music? From Usher and Janet, they performed quite well in Japan, as well as other R&B artists like Beyonce. Mariah and Michael, however, are huge stars there, though some would classify them as pop artists than R&B.
Speaking of club sales, why are 8701 club sales so low? I thought it was around 4,8-4,9m on Soundscan sales alone. Its club sales are even lower than Confessions, but wasn't 8701 released when Club Sales were much healthier. Is it because 8701 wasn't a blockbuster like Confessions?
Hi Raffi!
Japan as well as South Korea have been quite opened to black artists. Acts like Stevie Wonder always sold well there. It isn't true in all regions through, China was closed for long, countries like India and Indonesia are more oriented around Latin music, not kind on urban songs. The Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore are strong places for pure pop music. As you can see, they aren't all in the same line!
Hi again Raffi!
2001 is the year that saw most clubs crash in the US. If you look at BMG list, both first albums by Eminem and Britney all moved 1m+ there, yet there respective third albums from 2001 failed to reach 300k. Madonna's Music failed to reach 100k. Janet's All For You had a special offer limited to 100k units. The market went from 7,6% in 2000 to 4,0% in 2002. In 2004, it was on 4,4%, so as you can see from 8701 era to Confessions era, Clubs were stable, so considering the latter one sold more than two times more, it is kind of logical to see it ahead on Clubs as well!
That's interesting to know MJD! However, I saw that Alicia Keys was an exception to that rule. In fact, she sold relatively low amount of albums in Southeast Asia, with modest sales in Japan. Yet, her success was very impressive in Europe, with her album sales surpassing her R&B peers there. Is there any explanation to this?
Also, does Alicia, Usher and Beyonce own the Top 5 biggest selling R&B albums of the 2000s? According to your estimations:
1. Songs In A Minor 3,390,000
2. Confessions 2,770,000
3. Dangerously in Love 2,730,000
4. I Am Sasha Fierce 2,710,000
5. Diary of Alicia Keys 2,200,000
Are there any other R&B albums that sold more than those in Europe? Those 3 were truly the biggest R&B acts of the 2000s, yet each of them are more dominant than the other in certain markets. In the US, it's Usher>Beyonce>Alicia. In Europe, it's Alicia>Beyonce>Usher. In Asia, it's Beyonce>Usher>Alicia.
Anyway, MJD, are you currently working on the CSPC analysis on Michael Jackson, since you've been working on his US sales now? If so, can't wait for it!
Hi Raffi!
DC's Survivor sold 2,88 million in Europe. MJ's Invincible did 2+ million, as an album produced by Jerkins I suppose it may be considered, although it would be out of the Top 5 when including Survivor. I don't think you missed albums - except if you count the Black Eyed Peas, but I guess not, same for compilations.
By the way MJD, I forgot one successful R&B legend, R.Kelly! Is he more successful than Usher? I also hope you do an analysis on him as well!
How good are Usher’s catalogue sales of Confessions? Considering that it shipped 12m in 2004, is 3.5m in the next 14 years decent or poor? It would be very interesting to have an article about catalogue sales, although I imagine it would be more difficult to find the data than it is to find total sales.
