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OMG... 6th biggest pure sales week ever:
Adele - 25 3.4m
Nsync - No Strings Attached 2.4m
Nsync - Celebrity 1.9m
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 1.8m
Backstreet Boys - Black & Blue 1.6m
Taylor Swift - 1989 TV 1.4m
She didn't even do signed copies which was a big sales driver for her last albums. Just a random reissue of a 9-year old album is now her biggest sales week ever... It's actually funny at this point.
MJ's biggest calendar year is 1983, during which Thriller sold 20m. His EAS total during that year would be 30m or so.
I read somewhere thriller sold like 32 million albums by nov 1983. Now the physical singles, videos and catalog should be converted. Even with that it is maximum 40 million tops in 1983
I swear I never thought she will become that massive. I thought no one will ever touch big four let alone becoming best selling female artist in future. Like she has chance to double adele's career sales by next year. Who would've thought that in 2019!
She is expected to sell 40 to 45 million units this year. Last year she sold 23 million units and only 8 million was in USA. She is selling massively outside America in this phase of her career and on way to have nine figure career sales without America!
Chartmasters has an article about it:
10 million by Jun 21, 1983.
12 million by Sep 17, 1983.
13 million by Nov 11, 1983.
14 million by Dec 4, 1983.
21 million by Dec 20, 1983.
23 million by Jan 27, 1984.
25 million by Feb 7, 1984.
27 million by Feb 26, 1984.
30,9 million by Mar 17, 1984.
33 million by May 2, 1984.
35 million by Jul 7, 1984.
37 million by Dec 15, 1984.
And please change your username, it's like you're asking to get banned or something...
Republic uses the formula that helped this Chinese singer climb into the IFPI global recording artist 2022 list.
Might include the 800k or so of pre-release, it wasnt digitally released in China
Wow thriller music videos kept it selling in 1984. Really music videos revolution helped sales in 80s. It helped madonna too. Now in todays time, having releases year after year is the way to become best seller. Like Taylor and drake.
Without digging into exact details (most notably video sales, Motown material etc), his biggest year is most likely 2009 over 1983.
@Donchano it's really not that easy to know which years are the biggest ones for an artist, we tend to compare today's EAS to previous album sales of stand-alone albums, but these are different topics. Once you consider all albums (inc. catalog), physical singles, album sales on clubs, music videos, etc, it would be worth looking for many artists to come up with a real answer. Off the top of my head, Celine in 98, Backstreet Boys in 99, Adele in 2011, Garth Brooks in 92 (even if he is limited to the US), Eminem in 2002, etc, all these years would be 20m+ easily, some 30m+. Now I'm quite safe that Taylor is doing way more than 32m this year, but that's another story!
Adele in 2011. 21-18.1 million, 19- 3 million. DVD must have sold 2 million in 2011 alone. Teas and seas. I don't know about that as songs kept selling in 2012. We assume she sold like 40 millio downloads and another 2 million from seas. Adele 2011 must be around 30 million as well
"Without digging into exact details (most notably video sales, Motown material etc), his biggest year is most likely 2009 over 1983."
I assumed around 25m albums in 2009, + 2m EAS of digital singles. I always forget the CSPC method includes videos, with these he's likely over 30m indeed although "The Making Of Thriller" must have sold a lot in 1983 also...
What about Taylor's recent success with The Eras Tour movie btw? Do you think there's a way to include box office grosses in EAS totals? Because just including home video sales and not box office grosses doesn't seem logical to me.
She has sold 4.5 million in pure album sales in the US this year according to Billboard.She could sell 7 million a year all over the world.
Hi btoafy and Janetisterribleflop!
It's not like you can't buy physical albums in China, it's just that very few people do it these days. Her physical album sales there (which are fully counted into her Asian album sales total already) are more like 500k, not millions. Although this doesn't sound like too much is it utter massive for a western act there in this day and age. None of her contemporaries are even close to half of this number.
1989 (TV) is her first album since (ironically) 1989 (the original) to not be available for digital purchases in China. As of now is it only available to stream for paid subscribers there .
I wonder if Lover and 1989 TV will sneak into the Top 10 Album Chart of the IFPI
While 1989 TV beat the first week of Britney's OIDIA Fearless also just passed it in total sales (25m). It will likely pass the Eagles' debut album (27m) to become the 3rd biggest country album oat.
1989 itself has a good shot at becoming the biggest synthpop album ever (currently Madonna's Like A Virgin at 40m).
Who has the record for most ten million sellers? Ts11 will reach there too. Anyways even without rerecordings her albums were assured to be ten million sellers. The consistent success is remarkable. People can point out European singles chart to cheery pick, but charting multiple albums in European countries is way more impressive. As point of song is to sell album and her whole catalog is getting consumed. People can keep their faves quick lil singles. Whereas Taylor will have the overall eas record! And 150 date stadium tour record.
Hi Gdhdhdgddlunddo!
This comes from a database query grouping by artist name, so artists who scored 10m sellers through collabs or so may have some albums missing. Anyway, these are the results:
12 - The Beatles
11 - Queen
9 - Madonna, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones
8 - Metallica
7 - AC/DC, Billy Joel, Elton John, Eminem, Led Zeppelin, Mariah Carey, Pink Floyd, U2
6 - ABBA, BTS, Celine Dion, Coldplay, Frank Sinatra, Garth Brooks, Rod Stewart
Digital sales were fairly higher, IIRC he did like 12-13 million downloads in the US alone during 2009, about double worldwide, and his ringtones did even better relatively speaking, he was surely over 5m from that metric. Then there are also boxes, The Collection (which includes his 5 1-CD studio albums) sold most of its 900k during that year too. A then YouTube views were crazy too. If we really get into the details, I would expect 36-40m overall.
Actually we count home music video sales but not video sales. For example, Spice Girls' Spice World isn't counted. One reflects the music industry, the other the movie industry. Just like the touring industry, these are different subjects. It would still be very interesting, and that would reflect "the most successful entertainer", but then we would need to just throw in actors as well, while our lists are aimed at reflecting the most successful music artists ever. In terms of nature, radio airplay would need to be added before we add anything which is outside the music industry in itself.
I think 4th :
Eagles - Hotel California , 72 million EAS
Shania Twain - Come on over , 47 million EAS
Garth Brooks - No fences , 34 million EAS .
Eagles started as a country rock band but by the time of Hotel California they were just pop rock basically. Wikipedia calls the album "rock" for example, even Chartmasters said Come On Over was the biggest country album ever.
