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I was just wondering if with a couple of official videos on youtube of Master of puppets or Sanitarium/Disposable heroes, The number of the beast could still have the upper hand.
Good day I wish. Can you please nicely fix physical singles from Iron Maiden?
Hi Meca76,
What do you want to see fixed? I may be overlooking something but I see no issue with their physical singles pic.
You have errors in physical singles. Do not fit the figures. TNOTB should have 260 000 not 301 000. This applies to all albums in the colonial of physical singles. Look at this please nicely. Thanks.
Hello and Happy New Year!
I do have a question about physical sales. Where did you find this information?
For example number of the beast (album) is seem here to have sold over 1m physical album records (UK) that means that is 3x platinum in the UK. However, according to BPI it's only 1x platinum (300k-599k). Same for the US sales, the same album is seen here having sold over 2m physical albums (meaning 2x platinum) but according to RIAA it's 1x platinum. How do you explain this inconsistencies?
To be honest I find your data more logical but still where is the proof? Cheers, Stavros
Hi Stavros,
I obtained figures, from my old work, that show TNOTB, in the UK, shipped 315,652 copies between July 1992 and December 2008. These figures were reported quarterly by EMI, for the purposes of royalty calculations.
I've never understood the November 2002 Platinum certification. IMO it had well passed 300,000 by 2002.
The Platinum cert in 2002 would intimate it passed 300,000 around then. but between 1992 and 2002, EMI shipped 197,000 copies, so I'd say it's impossible that between 1982 and 1992, when unarguably Maiden were at their height, it only shipped just over 100,000, especially when it shipped Gold (100,000) a month after it's release, in April 1982!
There are so many problems just basing things on certs. For instance labels might never have applied for a cert or applied for it many years after an album had actually shipped a certain level or simply never updated a previous cert.
The BPI might be the official organisation but (in most cases), due to labels laziness, not caring etc, it's not really painting an accurate, precise or up to date picture of what things have actually shipped.
Personally, I think 1m is perhaps a bit too high for TNOTB in the UK, but it's certainly closer to that than what the Platinum cert in 2002 would have you believe.
I'm not too sure about the reasoning or analysis for the US.
Hi Meca76!
The figures written in the article are the good ones. The ratio to weight physical single in EAS is 0.3. It is true in most case but sometimes, like in Iron Maiden article, some singles can be weighted differently with ratio of 0.35 (often here), or 0.5 if the single includes let's say a lot of remixes.
Hi Stavros!
As Martin mentions, certifications are just a starting point when compiling sales numbers, not the final result. The 1xP cert in the US for TNOTB doesn't say it sold 1 million copies. It says that by October 2, 1986 it had shipped a million, that's very different, there are 35 years missing. We need to combine this information with the others we have. Since retail sales scanning started there in 1991, it moved an additional 815,000 copies. Then 86-90 years need to be added as well, when the album started to sell on CD, moving an estimated 290,000 copies during this period.
It's still not done, since direct to consumer sales from music clubs were almost entirely excluded by the RIAA until 1994, so unaccounted for on its Platinum cert, and also not accounted for by Nielsen retail sales. According to Discogs, about 11% of the album's owner actually own versions from these music clubs, suggesting over 200k moved there. All in all it concludes on this estimate of 2.385 million sales to date.
This is just one example of how we build the numbers, we have over 1,000 different files with sales receipts from various periods / countries / artists, we've put a small part of these on our receipts database (available from the menu), but it takes a lot of time to format/translate everything so a lot isn't present there still.
Back to the certs, it would require their label to put together the paperwork and claim these awards (like 2xP in the US for TNOTB). It isn't always easy, for example these music clubs closed nearly 20 years ago, I'm working on 2Pac now and I can confirm these sales (which amount for millions) are excluded from his recent Diamond certifications for example. Not every label is as messy as Death Row was but still. In the case of Iron Maiden, their early albums came out through the budget like Fame in the 80s, and these sales haven't been added to the tally of the original albums, same for their 1998 remasters, so their certs aren't comprehensive either even when applied for. All this is pretty tricky and requires to look at every detail to understand how the catalog of the artist has been handled through the years.
Boa noite queria perguntar por quê aqui mostrar o the number of beast com 8.3 milhões de vendas físicas e na Wikipedia tá 14 milhões
Metallica did not shoot the first three albums no video clip ! Firts official video is One from 1988 to the album ...and justice for all. Official video on MOP came out on the soundtrack in 2013 to a concert film Through the Never.
Iron Maiden are one of the most successful bands of all time and most likely the biggest band of all time with very little support by maistream media even in their own country. I think they are very lucky in that way, lack of media exposure allowed them to live a normal life free of overwhelming distractions that come with celebrity.
According to Yougov, 88% of British people know about Iron Maiden, here's a list of acts more successful than them and less famous :
Simon & Garfunkel - 87%
Nirvana - 86%
R.E.M. - 83%
Metallica - 83%
Bryan Adams - 83%
Eagles - 82%
Dire Straits - 78%
Neil Young - 77%
Enya - 75%
The Doors - 73%
Drake - 71%
Van Halen - 71%
Deep Purple - 68%
Linkin Park - 67%
Creedence Clearwater Revival - 66%
Carlos Santana - 55% ("Santana" isn't listed)
Not to mention acts yet to be studied by Chartmasters (Neil Diamond...etc.).
