From his first hits in 1966 to the early 80s, Neil Diamond was one of the biggest names in the industry along the likes Elton John and Rod Stewart.

One of the most successful songwriter of all-time, he is now past 150 million equivalent album sales, with hit albums spanning nearly 50 years. Retired since he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2018, we review in numbers his incredible career.

Looking at the big picture: Neil Diamond

A talent and a dream (1941-1965)

Neil Leslie Diamond, born January 24, 1941 in New York City, grew up in Brooklyn from a modest family. As a teenager, he participated in his high school choral, along with classmate Barbra Streisand.

At 16, he was gifted his first guitar, and then started to write his own songs after seeing Pete Seeger live in a summer camp. Part of his university's NCAA men's championship fencing team, he dropped out of college when he got a 16-weeks contract to write songs for a local music publishing company. Several of his songs got recorded by other artists in 1962/1963, but these attempts remained mostly unsuccessful, except Pat Boone's Ten Lonely Guys #45 hit.

He continued writing and selling songs for the next years, hardly enough to make a living out of it. His love for songwriting made him persist, working on new songs tirelessly.

Married to his high-school love Jayne Posner in 1963 and soon becoming a father, picking up a standard job would have been an easier way, but it wasn't Diamond's choice. His efforts started to pay off in late 1965, when he found the perfect balance between carefully crafted storytellings, and easy sing along choruses.

The most on-demand American songwriter (1965-1968)

His first top 20 hit came with Jay & the Americans' Sunday and Me, which peaked at 18 during 1965's christmas season. Signed himself by Bang Records at that point, Neil Diamond landed at #55 with Solitary Man, a song that got covered countless times, including by Johnny Cash.

Cherry, Cherry confirmed his skills as both a songwriter and a singer, becoming his first US top 10 hit at #6. I Got The Feelin' (Oh No No) ended a busy 1966 release schedule for him, making the top 20.

Before the end of the year, another song penned by Diamond was going to be released. The Monkees, widely touted as an American response to the Beatles, managed to justify the hype thanks to the phenomenal hit I'm A Believer. The song was #1 from the US to the UK to Australia to South Africa to Germany. It enjoyed a revival after its use on Shrek in 2001, with a new version by Smash Mouth.

Neil Diamond also wrote The Monkees' next single, A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, another easy million seller for them.

At this point, the New York City native was on a roll, and heavily requested by every popular artist. Hits kept coming out at a fast pace. Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon made the top 10 for the singer, while Kentucky Woman made charts for both Diamond himself and British rock band Deep Purple.

Even some songs that weren't big in the first place, like 1968's Red Red Wine, became big later on thanks to popular renditions, in this case UB40's #1 1988 hit.

Neil Diamond becomes an industry household name (1968-1981)

With the desire to write more sophisticated songs, but also smoother tunes, Neil Diamond moved from Bang Records to Uni Records in mid-1968. The following year saw him release back to back hits, Sweet Caroline (#4) and Holly Holy (#6).

These songs, especially the former, raised his profile as a top music star. Solitary Man was reissued in 1970, going to #21, quickly followed by Cracklin' Rosie, his first #1 solo hit. Both albums Gold and Tap Root Manuscript shipped a million in the US alone.

This would become his new norm for the following ten years. More hits were released, like I Am... I Said (1971, #4 in both the US and the UK), Song Sung Blue (1972, #1 in the US), or Longfellow Serenade (1974, #5).

As his stature was more established, his sales went down on singles, but up in albums. From 1972's Moods, he released a string of 9 consecutive top 10 studio albums, including smash soundtracks Jonathan Livingston Seagull in 1973 and The Jazz Singer in 1980.

His success was massive in the anglosphere, even more so in Oceania. His reputation as a huge live act was also great. This led to super sales of live recordings, most notably Gold (1970, US #10), Hot August Night (1972, #5 in the US, 29 weeks #1 in Australia), and Love at the Greek (1977, US #9).

After his song You Don't Bring Me Flowers was covered by his former classmate Barbra Streisand, the pair decided to record a proper duet as mash-ups were already airing. The duet did wonders, flying to #1 in the US and Canada.

The Jazz Singer era came as the apotheosis of his golden years. The soundtrack sold in the millions in the US and abroad, supported by a trio of hit singles: Love on the Rocks (#2), Hello Again (US #6), and America (#8). Just like it happened with Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the success of the soundtrack far exceeded the one of the movie, where Neil Diamond starred as Jess Robin.

The singer songwriter pop star turns beloved crooner (1981-2004)

By the end of 1980, Neil Diamond was up to 15 studio albums, 3 major live sets and a dozen of compilations since his 1966 debut. The Jazz Singer's singles flooded airwaves while the star was now also on theaters. This led the general public to a saturation point.

Starting from 1981's On the Way to the Sky, his chart performances vanished. Singles On the Way to the Sky (1982), I'm Alive (1983) and Turn Around (1984) were all #4 Adult Contemporary hits, yet their peaks in the main US chart, the Hot 100, were lower and lower at #27, #35 and #62. This small chart fact is very telling, revealing that Neil Diamond was falling out of mainstream.

While all his albums used to spend months in the top 10, for the next 20 years only 1982's Heartlight and 1992's Christmas Album managed to get brief stints in the top tier, peaking at #9 and #8, respectively. The former did so thanks to the title track, a #5 hit, the last top 10 single of the icon's career.

The fact that his top performing album was a Christmas effort was representative of an artist who had mostly become a crooner. From his six 1990s studio albums, four were made of covers. It was pretty successful at it still as when 2001's Three Cord Opera came out, Neil Diamond was up to 24 consecutive gold albums in his homeland, a streak started all the way back in 1969.

The perfect exit (2005-now)

When former hyped stars can't help but release covers and christmas material, they often sell well to a female audience, while getting a backlash from the male audience. Unless your songs are widely popular sing alongs at husbands' favorite sporting events.

Neil Diamond somehow managed to avoid that uncool tag. As he got older, Sweet Caroline became more and more popular. Countless sports teams around the world use it as an anthem, from the baseball Boston Red Sox to the England's national football team - expect the song to reenter UK charts as the Euro 2024 kicks and the Three Lions play.

The detailed narratives of his 60s/70s materials also make them perfect throwback songs. They make you travel back to your teenage years, and relive the innocence of this era, instantly stirring sweet memories. On top of all, Neil Diamond has always acted and been recognized as a real class act.

That coolness factor enabled him to make a flashy comeback on charts with 2005's 12 Songs. Produced by legendary mastermind Rick Rubin, it was his first album to chart in the top 5 of both the US and the UK since 1980's The Jazz Singer.

Its US performance was damaged by the Sony BMG Extended Copy Protection scandal. That software, supposedly used to prevent copying the CD, installed a spyware on computers on top of huge security leaks. Sony recalled nearly 5 million CDs on November 11, 2005 following the public outcry, including all 12 Songs' copies, barely 3 days after its initial release.

Nevermind, Neil Diamond was finally rewarded with his first ever #1 album (!) in the US with 2008's Home Before Dark, which also smashed UK charts. Another Rick Rubin production, the album made Diamond, 67, the oldest artist ever to hit #1 in both countries. The revival peaked when the singer appeared in front of more than 100,000 at Glastonbury Festival, England, on June 29, 2008.

The following year, triumphant Madison Square Garden shows came out as the CD-DVD set Hot August Night NYC, which peaked at #2 in the US. During this era, Neil Diamond also met Katie McNeil, his new manager and the executive producer of this DVD.

The pair began dating and then got married in 2011, after another album for the singer with 2010's Dreams. Diamond described his new wife as the main inspiration to his last record of new songs to date, Melody Road, from 2014. Both successes, these 2010s efforts made his return to grace last even longer.

All along these years, the artist remained a strong force in the touring scene. In January 2018, in the midst of his 50 Year Anniversary World Tour, Neil Diamond was forced to cancel his New Zealand and Australian leg following his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.

A wave of support came in response to this announcement. Except for very specific events, the singer has been discreet ever since. His songwriting catalog was sold to Universal Music Group in 2022, and a Broadway musical dedicated to him, A Beautiful Noise, started that same year.

Today, we will review this one of a kind career in numbers, from the very first Neil Diamond record to the most recent streams, to value his outstanding catalog.

Neil Diamond album sales

Updated studio album sales & comments

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Thanks to the growing impact of his singles, each of Neil Diamond's first 6 albums outsold their immediate predecessor. He got into the million territory from Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show, home of Sweet Caroline, and multi-million sales starting with Tap Root Manuscript, powered by Cracklin' Rosie.

It's worth noting that both The Feel of Neil Diamond and Just for You never took over. In fact, they were deleted over 50 years ago due to the dispute with Bang Records when he moved to Uni. This explains why countless compilations got released very early in his career.

Stones sold over 2 million, helped by I Am... I Said. To put things into context, selling a million in the US, far and away the largest market in early 70s, was still rare enough that Platinum albums had yet to be invented by the RIAA. Moods raised the bar even more, topping 3 million global sales to date.

This became Neil Diamond's standard, as each of his 7 subsequent albums sold at least as much. Jonathan Livingston Seagul shifted over 6.6 million units, in good part thanks to its strong success in continental Europe. Serenade, Beautiful Noise, I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, You Don't Bring Me Flowers and September Morn completed the 70s in amazing fashion, routinely selling about 4 million copies.

The Jazz Singer broke his glass ceiling thanks to its massive North American success. It sold nearly 7 million copies in the US alone while becoming his lone million seller in the UK, en route to 11.3 million global sales.

Later years weren't as good although the iconic singer maintained his streaks a little longer. His multi-million sales continued up to Heartlight (12 albums in a row at 2m+), his million sellers reached Headed for the Future (16 in a row), and his half a million sellers streak remained alive up to Melody Road included (29 albums).

Neil Diamond moved over 70 million pure album sales with studio sets alone.

Want to compare the act's albums with others?

Neil Diamond songs sales

Below, we list down results from the artist through physical sales, digital sales and streaming.

Please be aware that when the artist is regarded as the lead act, they are rewarded with 100% of these units. However, featured acts share a 50% piece of the total.

Physical singles

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While they haven't got there on their original form, multiple reissues both in the US and abroad pushed early Bang Records tracks Solitary Man and Cherry, Cherry over a million physical singles sales. Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon came very close too.

His top sellers are super hits Sweet Caroline and Crackin' Rosie with a whopping 2.7 million sales apiece. Throughout the 70s many more million sellers pulled in. First was Holly Holy in 1969, a 1.4 million seller, and then came I Am... I Said at 1.7 million, and Song Sung Blue at 1.9 million in 1972

The pace of 7 digits sellers slightly went down, but Neil Diamond was still very well capable of dropping bit hits. Longfellow Serenade did 1.1 million sales in 1974, Desirée cracked a million in 1977, Barbra Streisand duet You Don't Bring Me Flowers did over 2.5 million in 1978, Forever In Blue Jeans 1.1 million in 1979, and Love On the Rocks 1.5 million in 1980.

Hello Again, America and Heartlight combine for 2.5 million. They were the last real hits of the artist. No single sold more than 150,000 units after 1982.

In any case the work was done already with a healthy career total in this format of 37 million units.

Digital songs

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Expectedly, Sweet Caroline emerges as the best selling download of Neil Diamond's catalog. The evergreen ballad stands at 5.8 million sales of downloads and ringtones, making it one of the best selling 60s song in digital format.

Its sales are so high that even great performers seem kinda weak in comparison, like America and I Am... I Said. Both songs sold about a million each, with the former booming every 4th of July.

Most of the usual suspects are in 6 digits. Hello Again and Forever in Blue Jeans complete the top 5, closely followed by Cracklin' Rosie.

Some of his biggest hits haven't faced the test of time as well, most notably Love on the Rocks which is out of the top 10.

The discography total is closing in 18 million digital sales.

Streaming

Audio Streams
– South Korea: Genie streams * 2.20 (consistent with Gaon streaming numbers)
– Japan: AWA streams * 100 / 4 (AWA has 4% of the Japanese streaming market)
– Arabic world: Anghami streams
– Sub-Saharan Africa: Boomplay + Audiomack streams
– Elsewhere: Spotify streams * Spotify market shares based on artists' market distribution

Video Streams
– China* : QQ video streams * 50 if the song is available for audio stream, QQ video streams * 5 elseway (scale built based on known figures for several major artists)
– Elsewhere : Youtube views increased by 10% to account for various local platforms

*since Chinese streaming platforms are mostly video streaming platforms, their streams are weighted on par with YouTube streams.

Audio Stream value – 1,500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream value – 6,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = ( Spotify * ArtistRatio + Genie * 2.20 + AWA * 100 / 4 + Anghami + Boomplay + Audiomack ) / 1500 + ( QQ views* 50(or 5) + YouTube * 1.1 ) / 6750

Top hits

On streaming platforms, Sweet Caroline reigns supreme. The classic tune leads Neil Diamond's catalog on all platforms, audio or video, all around the world. It has over 700 million streams on Spotify while it is closing in 400 million on YouTube. This is quite something for a 1969 song with no music video.

Cracklin' Rosie, Forever in Blue Jeans and I Am... I Said are great performers as well, each over 100,000 equivalent album sales from streams. Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon is not too far behind, ranking 5th.

Most of his former hits are stacked with total results between 28,000 and 61,000 equivalent album sales. These include Song Sung Blue, Cherry Cherry, You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Beautiful Noise, or Solitary Man.

Surprisingly, songs from The Jazz Singer are a pretty modest showing. The trio of hits America, Hello Again, and Love on the Rocks rank at 10, 13, and 14, respectively.

Just outside of his personal top 20 are both Red Red Wine and I'm a Believer, his two widely popular songs made famous by other artists.

Desirée stands out as the most forgotten hit from his 70s heydays, all the way down at 34 in this list, with just 6 million streams on Spotify.

Full catalog breakdown

If you are familiar with the artist's catalog and want to check details of each and every song, you can access to all of them right here.

Our website provides you a fantastic tool which fetches updated Spotify streams as you request them, use it to watch these results grow day after day!

Keep yourself up to date

Neil Diamond compilations sales

Assigning compilation sales to original studio albums

How do you understand this table? For example, if we check the His 12 Greatest Hits line, these figures mean it sold 7,905,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included in this package add for 1,353,420 equivalent album sales from streams across all formats.

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 in the overall package.

Therefore, the streaming figures convey that songs from Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show equate to 68% of His 12 Greatest Hits' tracklist attractiveness. Meaning, it generated 5,373,000 of its 7,905,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

Raw compilations sales

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Neil Diamond has been regarded as a strong performer very early on, which prompted the release and great sales of a lot of live sets. The multiple changes of label he went through also implied many compilations getting released, from distinct eras, until the most recent career-spanning packages.

This creates a discography with 194 compilations, boxes and live releases, 54 EPs, and 8 music videos. Many of these sold large amounts through the years.

The prime example is 12 Greatest Hits, an early compilation - issued in 1974 - which sold very well while he was riding his golden years in the 70s. This album is now over 5 million sales in the US alone, and nearly 8 million globally. 12 Greatest Hits Vol II, from 1982, sold almost 6 million on its own. Released shortly afterwards, Classics The Early Years shifted 3 million copies. Over 2 million sales were topped by 1978's 20 Golden Greats too.

The CD era brought the career-spanning compilation The Greatest Hits 1966-1992, which stands at 4 million. The absence of a huge 10+ million seller is easily understandable, as we can see that these compilations were quickly replaced by new packages. It's what happens with artists who manage to get more hits later on, after the arrival of the first best of sets.

Many more continued to flood the market, no less than 3 The Best Of Neil Diamond albums, issued in 1994, 1996 and 1999, sold about 1 million each. The Ultimate Collection from 1996 did so as well, The Essential from 2001 topped 2 million, while more million sellers appeared even after the collapse of the album sales market. These are 2011's The Very Best Of and 2014's All-Time Greatest Hits.

With that, we haven't even mention the live albums. The iconic Hot August Night is one of the top selling live albums ever at 7.5 million. His 1970's Gold did wonders too at 4.2 million, just like Love at the Greek at 4 million. Hot August Night II did 2.4 million, making Neil Diamond one of the rare artists with 4 live releases in the multi-million sales area.

In total, his live albums plus a few videos combine for a whopping 21 million sales, while compilations and box sets add for 50 million.

Re-assigned compilation sales – Results & comments

These numbers highlight very well how key it is to dig into compilation sales to understand the real value of a studio album. Neil Diamond's early albums, quickly deleted, sold next to nothing. But their content powered millions of sales of compilations and live sets.

Both The Feel of and Just for You top 5 million, a similar amount as Tap Root Manuscript or Stones. These albums generated much more activity on shelves over the years than 1976-1980 albums, which were stronger sellers in first place, but didn't impact as much catalog sales. Each of these are responsible for over a million sales of compilations still.

The elephant in the room, obviously, is Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show. The album is home to the title track, which has been covered by notable artists like Peggy Lee, Dolly Parton and Sonny & Cher, and And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind, a Top 50 hit for Mark Lindsay and also covered by Elvis Presley.

Of course, the bulk of that monster total of 33 million sales have been fueled by the unstoppable Sweet Caroline. People just can't stop to enjoy this definitive feel good track, which brings us back to our first love days. Good times never seemed so good.

Bonus: Top selling compilations' breakdowns

Bonus: Total album (all types) sales per country

Please note country-specific numbers may miss sales of a few minor releases, although totals are complete.

Neil Diamond: career results (CSPC)

Albums results (CSPC)

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It may be difficult at times to really gauge the most valuable material of artists when their discography has been restructured again and again. Our intuitive perception can end up proving accurate in these situations.

In fact, even if Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show ranks as the 19th top selling studio album from Neil Diamond, it's indeed comfortably its most valuable output with a terrific total of 37 million equivalent album sales generated.

The Jazz Singer is a distant but very solid runner up with 15 million sales in total.

Behind these top two, many albums are on a virtual tie. There are 9 albums ranging from 6.6 million to 8.7 million sales each. Leaders amond them are Tap Root Manuscript, Stones, Just for You, and Moods, all albums released in the early part of his career.

Around 4.5 million sales, Touching You, Touching Me, Serenade and September Morn seem so-so performers, while in absolute terms these are very good results. The fact that 14 out of the first 15 albums stand over 4.5 million is pretty insane.

Starting from On the Way to the Sky, numbers are naturally lower. This second half of the discography still registers an average of 1.3 million sales over 17 releases. Neil Diamond really pushed the expiration date of his popularity to the limit. His span of million sellers tops 40 years.

The career total of Neil Diamond is a magnificent 158 million equivalent album sales, putting him among the 25 most successful musical acts of all-time. If we think about the millions of records sold by other artists thanks to his songwriting skills too, his impact in the music industry has been immense.

Singles results (CSPC)

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Want to compare the act's songs with other top hits?

Discography results (ASR)

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Records & achievements

• At 34,730,000 EAS, Sweet Caroline is the most successful song of the 60s.
• At 6,350,000 pure album sales, Neil Diamond is the best selling foreign solo artist of all-time in Australia.
• At 37,058,000 EAS, Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show is the 4th biggest album of the 60s.
• At 37,058,000 EAS, Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show is the 2nd biggest album from 1969.
• At 15,270,000 EAS, The Jazz Singer is the 9th biggest album from 1980.
• At 67 years and 3 months old, Neil Diamond became the oldest artist to top the US and UK charts with new material (beaten by Bob Dylan afterwards).
• At 25, Neil Diamond is the 8th artist with the most million selling studio albums.

Dynamic Spotify key performance indicators

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

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs, Billboard.

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