For more than a year now, we have been completing comprehensive career breakdowns of major artists. We have met divas, singer-songwriters, rappers, rock legends, bands, teen groups as well as pop stars. Will.i.am is different though. Most of the general public doesn't know of him. Some see him as a Black Eyed Peas member only. Others consider him as a producer. The very few people remaining may rate him as a singer.

How much does this impact his sales though? Up to 4 solo albums, he has been around for more than 15 years, issuing singles almost every year during that time frame, including plenty of popular features. Surely, such a discography amounts to something. His first two albums, Lost Change and Must B 21, sold such low amounts that they won't be listed inside this breakdown. Naturally, their singles will be listed as well as their streams.

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.

Songs About Girls (2007)

• America

  • US - 60,000
  • Canada - 15,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - 25,000
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 130,000

  • Japan - 90,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 70,000

  • UK - 30,000
  • France - 15,000
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherlands - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 350,000

#willpower (2013)

• America

  • US - 90,000
  • Canada - 25,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - 35,000
  • Mexico - 30,000

• Asia - 60,000

  • Japan - 40,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 20,000
  • New Zealand - 15,000

• Europe - 290,000

  • UK - 110,000
  • France - 65,000
  • Germany - 45,000
  • Italy - 5,000
  • Spain - 5,000
  • Sweden - 1,000
  • Netherlands - 5,000
  • Switzerland - 4,000
  • Austria - 4,000
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 600,000

Original Album Sales - Comments

2007 Songs About Girls - 350,000
2013 #willpower - 600,000

Well, the most ardent fan may say the trend of Will.i.am's albums sales is increasing.

This improvement occurred thanks to big singles, but let's be honest, it was made very easy by the disastrous numbers achieved by the first albums. Although some kind of a breakthrough, Songs About Girls still sold only 350,000 copies, which is a dreadful result. Fergie's The Dutchess sold nearly 20 times more a mere one year earlier, and the band's LPs Elephunk and Monkey Business performed even better.

At 600,000 sales, #willpower is hardly a smash. In spite of featuring singles by Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, it was never able to claim an audience.

Physical Singles Sales

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

The rarly songs of Will.i.am were mostly unsuccessful. Unable to benefit from the last days of the physical singles market. The only exception was his participation on Beep, the Pussycat Dolls hit from their debut album.

The overall total under 750,000 units is still nothing to be impressed by, highlighting immense troubles by the singer-producer to convince the public with material of his own.

Songs About Girls (2007) - 20,000 equivalent albums

Heartbreaker - 25,000
I Got It from My Mama - 40,000

#willpower (2013) - 6,000 equivalent albums

All Singles - 20,000

Orphan - 198,000 equivalent albums

Beep - 350,000
Hip Hop Is Dead - 10,000
Fergalicious - 75,000
I Love My Bitch - 20,000
Baby Love - 70,000
Girl Is Mine 2008 - 50,000
In the Ayer - 10,000
3 Words - 40,000
OMG - 10,000
Remaining Singles - 25,000

Digital Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between albums and digital singles.

At last, some relevant figures! Songs from #willpower alone add for 16 million units, more than half of which come from Scream & Shout.

It isn't the only monster hit in download sales the singer achieved. The Usher led song OMG sold a massive 8,8 million, The Script and Fergie's respective hits Hall of Fame and Fergalicious moved 6 million copies each. Combined, all Orphan songs sold a huge total of 35,5 million units.

Songs About Girls (2007) - 255,000 equivalent albums

Heartbreaker - 600,000
I Got It from My Mama - 900,000
One More Chance - 100,000
Remaining tracks - 100,000

#willpower (2013) - 2,415,000 equivalent albums

This Is Love - 1,800,000
Scream & Shout - 8,500,000
Feelin' Myself - 1,000,000
#thatPOWER - 2,600,000
Fall Down - 1,100,000
Bang Bang - 800,000
Remaining tracks - 300,000

Orphan - 5,325,000 equivalent albums

Boys & Girls - 200,000
It's My Birthday - 800,000
T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever) - 800,000
Check It Out - 1,400,000
Beep - 2,100,000
Hip Hop Is Dead - 400,000
Fergalicious - 6,000,000
I Love My Bitch - 700,000
Baby Love - 400,000
In the Ayer - 3,600,000
3 Words - 600,000
OMG - 8,800,000
Hall of Fame - 6,000,000
Crazy Kids - 700,000*
EW! - 100,000
Remaining tracks - 2,900,000

*Be aware this figure for Ke$ha's song is an estimate related only to the version of the song involving Will.i.am.

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

Thus...

Equivalent Albums Sales = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Part 1

Both Heartbreaker and I Got It From My Mama have 6 million Spotify streams, although only the first song has relevant YouTube views. Although low, this number isn't that bad considering they weren't hits in the first place.

#willpower contains 3 songs on 80-90 million Spotify streams and 230-270 million YouTube views. Scream & Shout is more than two times bigger. This isn't record-breaking considering this era was alive in 2013/2014 when streaming was already becoming a big deal although, those results are still very solid. They represent 721,000 equivalent album sales, more than it sold in the original album format.

Part 2

With as many as 13 songs outside of the original studio albums that top 10 million Spotify streams, this perfectly shows the producer-featuring act profile of the Black Eyed Peas' mastermind.

While respectable, hits from 10 to 70 million fell short of streams of Hall of Fame. This smash cracks 300 million in both audio and video plays. The comprehensive total of Orphan songs is up to 991,000 equivalent album sales.

Will.i.am Career CSPC Results

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

[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]

In the past, we have met various artists with very loyal fan bases like teen acts or rock legends. Those acts released plenty of compilations, live sets and music videos to maximize this advantage, pushing fans into buying several times the same songs. It is no coincidence if Will.i.am has no packages of these kinds as he literally has no fan base at all. The exact opposite happens as music purchasers interested by his music go by the cheapest way of consuming it, first downloads and now streams.

A final total of 10,9 million equivalent album sales for his entire career prove the singer is not a major star, especially since a relevant part of them were achieved thanks to features. The strength of Will.i.am shouldn't be diminished though. He may not have sold too well on his own, but he has been the man behind plenty of hits, both for him, for his group and for other artists. Producers able to create hits on their own are essential for the music industry and the Californian artist is one of them.

The following section lists his most successful songs.

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

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

BIGGEST TRACKS - Will.i.am

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 2013 - Scream & Shout [#willpower] - 1,790,000
2 2010 - OMG [Orphan] - 1,410,000
3 2012 - Hall of Fame [Orphan] - 1,290,000
4 2006 - Fergalicious [Orphan] - 990,000
5 2013 - #thatPOWER [#willpower] - 610,000

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