If we were to compile The Beach Boys' career into a piece of visual media, it would require a multiple-season TV series rather than a 2 hour long feature film to cover all of the content in detail. That's how much content they created over their career. Since their debut over 60 years ago, they have certainly gone through a lot!

We dove deep into the discography of one of the most significant music acts among American popular culture, finally revealing at last how successful they have really been. You won't want to miss this!

Looking at the big picture: The Beach Boys' career

Many US groups that debuted in the 50s - 60s began as family affairs, with The Beach Boys being no different. It all started with the father, Murry Wilson.

He wrote various songs in late 40s/early 50s, and managed to record some of them. However, it wasn't enough to secure a living off his passion for music.

He then passed his love for the art to his three sons, Brian, Dennis and Carl. By the late 50s, as teenagers, they were making music themselves, along with cousin Mike Love and high school friend Al Jardine.

While searching for a name and overall style, Dennis, the only surfer of the group, sought to explore a 'beachy' artistic direction. This exploration was motivated by their native Californian surf culture as this particular zeitgeist captured what was popular at the time.

Older brother Brian wrote Surfin' and Surfin' Safari, granting them a record contract, soon followed by their first Hot 100 entries. The former was printed with The Beach Boys on it, and just like that, their journey to stardom began.

Surfin' Safari was already a solid #14 hit in the US, but it was Surfin' U.S.A. that made them into real stars. It climbed to #3 as the parent album went up to #2 on the charts.

During 1963, they ended up releasing 3 top 10 albums and as many top 10 singles.

1964 was a pivotal year for The Beach Boys as the British Invasion saw artists like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones seemingly come out of nowhere to dominate the US charts.

Suddenly, many American artists from the former generation were seen as old-fashioned, even ones who had barely gotten started. The Beach Boys were an exception as one of the rare artists who managed to stay relevant, even increasing their success.

In fact, they got their first chart topper that year with I Get Around, while their Concert album was the first ever live LP to hit #1 on US charts.

Unfortunately, to the end of 1964 Brian Wilson started facing mental health issues. The pressure was too high for the young leader of the popular band. Keep in mind, that they had released 7 studio albums and one live album in their first 2 years! That's a lot of content in such a short time!

These burgeoning struggles signalled the beginning of Brian's ongoing challenges with mental illness and substance abuse. Something he would go on to battle throughout his entire life. This led him to show distain for and step out of live performances, focusing on studio inputs instead.

This created a unique situation in pop history. The band was simultaneously touring with a backup singer, while their mastermind leader was recording new material with session musicians.

This increased Brain's artistic freedom too, who was impressed by the art form of the album in itself and pursued that direction creatively. By March 1965, The Beach Boys Today! was released. It heralded a real departure from the surf sound the band had previously embraced. The album was the first of a string of new albums have received wide acclaim today.

After two more albums were released that year, Pet Sounds arrived in 1966. It was seen their response to the Beatles' Rubber Soul, and an inspiration for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Ironically, as the band moved further away from their popular California sound, loved by young Americans, Pet Sounds was arguably one of their least successful albums to date in the US, peaking at only #10. Across the Atlantic, however, they managed to commercially breakthrough in the UK, peaking at #2 behind The Sound of Music soundtrack.

Their US label was convinced that the album would fail commercially that barely 8 weeks after its release they dropped their first major compilation to the market.

The band's credibility remained at an all-time high though, and their next album Smile was heavily anticipated. Its lead single, Good Vibrations, took months to record and became the most expensive single ever. Upon release, it was a monumental smash both critically and commercially, topping charts in both the US and the UK.

At that point Brian Wilson had plenty of creative projects in mind, many of which weren't in line at all with the demand from the market. The clash with Capitol Records, the band's label, was inevitable. The conflict went to court when the band members realised they were owed substantial money in unpaid royalties.

While the Beach Boys stood out thanks to their outstanding vocal harmonies, internally it was chaos.

They were in a legal dispute with their label, Brian was falling further into his seclusive state, Dennis and Carl Wilson were clashing more frequently with Mike Love and Al Jardine. Bruce Johnston, who was Brian's live replacement, was in and out the group.

This all led to Smile being never completed. It remains the most notorious unreleased album ever, and also the biggest "what if?" of their career. It was allegedly poised to impact the Beatles' later works.

In 1968, things worsened when Dennis became friends with cult leader Charles Manson. He luckily moved away from Manson and his Family just in time. Months later the cult was found responsible for the murder of 9 members. Separately, Brian Wilson was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The band's contract with Capitol ran out and their problematic father sold their publishing rights. The 60s came to an abrupt end for the highest selling American band of the decade.

They then signed with Reprise Records in 1970. Brian Wilson's mental health was of such a concern that they had to contractually stipulate how little he was to be involved.

Somehow, the band managed to continue publishing albums. Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends and 20/20 were released before their switching of label in 1967-69. Sunflower, Surf's Up, Carl and the Passions and Holland then followed in 1970-73.

None of the releases made the top 20 in the US, with some missing the top 100 altogether. However, most gained critical recognition in subsequent decades.

In 1973, the passing of former manager and father Murry Wilson, fractured the band further. Brian Wilson wasn't in the right condition to record for a couple of years.

The 1974 compilation Endless Summer was a shocking return to form, topping Billboard charts despite a market saturated with Beach Boys products.

It wasn't enough to solve all their problems. Brian Wilson got a personal psychologist who stayed with him 24/7 to make him operational again. The band released one album per year from 1976 to 1980, to mild success.

Then, tensions between Dennis Wilson and Mike Love escalated to the point where each got a restraining order against the other. The former ultimately drowned aged 39, while Brian Wilson's therapist removed him from the band to recover.

Incredibly, while participating here and there with stand-alone songs during the 80s, the Beach Boys claimed one of the most unexpected comebacks ever, hitting #1 with Kokomo in 1988.

Time went by and due to the others struggles, Mike Love took the helm of the band and its name. It got granted the right to tour with the band name after Carl Wilson's passing in 1997. Occurring despite his multiple lawsuits for defamation and royalty issues against his band mate.

In the end, the band had 3 distinct eras. Their 1961 to 1964 surf era, their 1965 to 1966 pop avant-garde era and then a whole lot of confusion speckled with the occasional good moment from 1967 to date.

Despite all these struggles, it still only takes a few seconds to feel on vacation with a drink in your hand as soon their music begins to play.

Today, more than 60 years after their debut, the band's catalog continues to go strong. Several of their songs enjoy success, being perfect fits for TV ads, feel-good playlists or party favourites.

We will now dive into the numbers of this band. They are incredible in so many ways! The Beach Boys remain one of the most culturally significant American artists of all-time.

The Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept (CSPC)

As usual, I'll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge their results. This concept will not only bring you sales information for all The Beach Boys' albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. In fact, it will also determine their true popularity.

If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, below is a nice and short video of explaining the concept. I recommend watching it before going on the view the sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to skip the video and go straight to the numbers!

There are two ways to understand this revolutionary concept. The first is the Scribe video posted below. If you are unaware of the CSPC method, you will get the full idea within a few minutes.

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If you are a mathematical person, and want to know the full method as well as formulas, you can read the full introduction article.

Now let's get into the artist's detailed sales figures in order to apply this concept and define the act's true popularity!

The Beach Boys Album Sales

Updated Studio Album Sales & Comments

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At first glance, sales of The Beach Boys studio albums don't look that impressive.

Obviously, they came from an era where overall album sales were still quite low. Singles were dominating the market at the time. Notably, they are a part of a group of artists who had their discography repackaged into countless compilations from early on, career-wise.

Furthermore, a number of their LPs had no CD stand-alone reissue at first, as they were quite short. They were released as 2-in-1 products, which appear under the compilation section too.

Lastly, during The Beach Boys' heyday 2 - 3 albums were released per year. These releases were not promoted for long and received a generally short promotional cycle.

Keeping this in mind, out of the first 12 albums, the worst still sold almost a million units which is very impressive.

The Christmas set stands at 3 million units. It didn't get reissues on its own, although some got different titles. They are merged together as this is the exact same album.

The top performer of the catalog is Pet Sounds with close to 7 million pure sales. Quite amazing all things considered.

While their success during the 70s was weaker in the beginning, better catalog sales and international success pushed albums like Wild Honey or Sunflower to quite respectable totals.

Even the weakest records still reach 300,000 units. Summer in Paradise is the exception as the only album not to feature Brian Wilson at all.

Both 15 Big Ones and Still Cruisin' also managed to surpass a million units fairly deep into their career.

The overall volume is good too with over 33 million combined sales. Of course, compilations are listed lower down and will impact the totals substantially...

Want to compare The Beach Boys' albums with others?

The Beach Boys 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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As a reminder, the weighting is a 10 to 3 ratio between albums and physical singles.

There aren't as many artists who can claim as many million selling singles as The Beach Boys. They have 10 from their original versions alone.

The first was Surfin' U.S.A. while Surfin' Safari and Surfer Girl, respectively released before/after, came close too.

This set very high standards for the band. Moderate hits like Be True to Your School or Dance, Dance, Dance sold about half a million units. Meanwhile, big releases came close to a million units or more.

The next million seller was I Get Around. It was their first US #1 and UK top 10.

Released in 1965, Help Me, Rhonda (another US #1), California Girls and Barbara Ann made it to 7 digits each. The latter due to strong sales in Europe.

Their large catalog continued its rollout in 1966. This year has 3 million sellers. The singles, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B, and Good Vibrations came close to 3 million units across all versions.

Most of their late 60s releases recorded 200,000 to 600,000 units. Do It Again however, was a great performer thanks to its transatlantic success in the UK (#1) and Germany (#4).

During the 70s, they had some unexpected returns to form. Most notably from Rock and Roll Music and Here Comes the Night, , topping 500,000 units.

Kokomo is known to be an incredible revival, having nearly 2 million sales. It isn't their only good seller of the 80s though, as Wipeout topped a million and their 1981 Medley came close too.

In all, we are looking at 33 million career sales in physical single formats, the same total as their studio albums.

Digital Songs

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As a reminder, the weighting is calculated using a 10 to 1.5 ratio between albums and digital singles.

For downloads, the leader swaps as Kokomo outdoes Good Vibrations with 2.2 million sales. It's ironic, considering how this song is often present on worst-ever lists, unlike the earlier material. A Brian Wilson-less song, even the fans love to dismiss it.

Often used as a meme song these days, in truth Kokomo simply remains ridiculously popular.

The trio of 1966 bonafide hits Good Vibrations, Wouldn't It Be Nice, and God Only Knows follow with very similar numbers at around 1.5 million each. Completing the top 5 is Surfin' U.S.A. close behind at 1.2 million.

The top 10 is also consistent with all tracks at over 700,000 units. Moreover, their catalog is deep with 20 songs over 360,000 units. There are no less than 41 songs reaching 6 digit totals.

Their career total of downloads and ringtones stands at 23 million. This total is among the highest for the format amongst acts that debuted before the British invasion.

Streaming

Streaming is made up of both audio and video streams. Our CSPC methodology includes both formats to better reflect the real popularity of each track.

The main source of data for each avenue is Spotify and YouTube, respectively. To factor in the growing impact of multiple Asian countries where these platforms aren't always the go-to site for music streaming, more sources have been added.

In order to account for their real popularity in each relevant country, the below sources have been used along with the mentioned ratios that reflect the market share of each area.

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

With few quality videos available, The Beach Boys do perform poorly on the video format. Their audio streams however are solid.

Though Good Vibrations and Kokomo led physical singles and digital sales, respectively, Wouldn't It Be Nice is the overall leader for streaming.

With over 100 million views on YouTube and vying for 500 million on Spotify, Wouldn't It Be Nice has amassed almost 700,000 equivalent album sales.

The gap is small between Wouldn't It Be Nice and runner up Good Vibrations. The latter is close to 600,000 EAS due to similar numbers on both Spotify and YouTube.

Slightly lower, but in the same range, is Surfin' U.S.A., followed by God Only Knows and Kokomo in a virtual tie.

The catalog is solid in this range. There is no significant drop between the tracks.

The biggest disappointment perhaps is Help Me, Rhonda. The former #1 hit is only in 14th place on their personal list, receiving almost 50,000 EAS from streams. Conversely, both Don't Worry Baby and God Only Knows perform strongly, despite beginning as B-Sides to singles I Get Around and Wouldn't It Be Nice, respectively.

Pet Sounds leads among the albums with over 1.3 million EAS. Although, tracks from 8 distinct albums fulfil the top 10.

Overall, they are approaching 5 million EAS.

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.

Keep yourself up to date

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!

Want to compare The Beach Boys' songs with other top hits?

The Beach Boys compilations 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 generate sales over 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 with each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP when such compilations are issued.

Thus, to accurately 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:

The distribution process

How do you understand this table? For example, check the Endless Summer line, these figures mean it sold 6,110,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included in this package add for 1,318,716 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 Surfin' U.S.A. equate to 33% of Endless Summer's tracklist attractiveness. Meaning, it generated 1,999,000 of its 6,110,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

Compilations sales figures listing

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The Beach Boys catalog is spread over many different compilations. At first it, it seems their sales aren't that strong.

The biggest greatest hits album, Endless Summer, stands at 6.1 million. It's good, but not extraordinarily successful. Upon closer inspection of the details, we see that it includes none of their post-1965 singles. It wasn't released everywhere and 20 Golden Greats replaced it in the rest of world, except in North America.

It also was not their first 'best of' album. In fact Best of The Beach Boys vol 1, released in 1966 focused on the same period and sold 4.7 million units under its American form. Meanwhile, the adjusted European version is a million seller. Both versions of the Vol 2 'best of' combine for more than 3 million sales.

As aforementioned, 20 Golden Greats sold nearly 3 million units in Europe alone. We are starting to understand how impressive the jigsaw of their catalog is, especially as we only mentioned their main compilations from 1966 to 1976. During that period alone, 94 various compilations came out and sold a massive total of 33 million units.

Among them were 2 in 1 releases which did wonders commercially. This started in early as 1965, when Beach Boys Concert was released along with All Summer Long. The same occurred with the pair Shut Down, Volume 2 / Little Deuce Coupe.

The early compilations were smaller sellers, but they did get larger. The 1971 releases, Fun, Fun, Fun / Dance, Dance, Dance and California Girls / All Summer Long sold half a million units combined. This never stopped, with these studio albums boxed together ended up selling a stunning 5.5 million copies.

Apart from the flashy compilations, many smaller ones ended up licensed by budget labels like Pickwick, selling a lot of copies later on. Same for Music For Pleasure releases in Europe. Not allowed to chart due to their price, rarely listed on their discographies online, these albums sold 1.5 million copies in the UK alone.

Obviously, this madness hasn't ended in 1976, instead it kept going for decades as shown by pictured albums (see below) like Made In U.S.A., 20 Good Vibrations - The Greatest Hits and Sounds of Summer - The Very Best Of. These albums which have been successively the main compilation in the US since 1986 to date, sold over 10 million copies in their homeland.

No need to say they would have had no issue selling 15, 20 or even 25 million copies with a unique career-spanning compilation if it had been available worldwide for long enough.

In fact, all combined, these compilations, lives, boxes represent an incredible total of 94 million units.

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales across all versions that were generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

These numbers are obtained by applying the method from the section The distribution process to all packages listed under Compilation sales figures listing category.

For many artists, this process concludes that from 1 to 3 albums powered sales of most compilations that have ever been released.

It is not the case for The Beach Boys. Their catalog is so dense that 10 different albums are responsible for more than 3 million compilations sales each!

They sold countless units through boxes, often close or over a million. Meanwhile Surfin' U.S.A., Shut Down Volume 2, All Summer Long, Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile go through the roof thanks to their big hits. They claim 8-17 million sales each.

Bonus: Top selling compilations' breakdowns

Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

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

The Beach Boys Career CSPC Results

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

Albums CSPC results

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What a total! Pet Sounds is well over 27 million equivalent album sales. It simply is the biggest album from 1966, beating out stiff competition from Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence and The Beatles' Revolver.

A much less expected runner up is Smiley Smile. This is due to Good Vibrations being linked to Smile rather than Smiley Smile in popular culture. That was its parent album though, something observable through its mid-long run sales as well with the critical acclaim it got in later years.

At 15 million, Surfin' U.S.A. closes a superb top 3. The top 5 is looks great too with both All Summer Long and Shut Down Volume 2 at over 10 million units.

There are virtually no misses in their early years. 11 out of their first 12 albums come close to 5 million units. They also register 17 consecutive million sellers. There are also 3 later ones, most notably 1989's Still Cruisin' at 5 million.

Career-wise, they score an immense total of 146 million equivalent album sales. They remain the top selling pre-Beatles band, and belong to the top 5 most successful American bands of all-time.

Singles CSPC results

The list is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each song. Therefore, these figures are not merged units of singles formats. Instead, it includes weighted sales of the song's physical single, download, ringtone and streaming as well as its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

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Discography results

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Records & Achievements

• At 27,564,000 EAS, Pet Sounds is the most successful album from 1966.
• At 127,195,735 EAS, The Beach Boys are the 3rd biggest act from the 60s behind The Beatles and Elvis Presley.
• At 24 years and 124 days, The Beach Boys have the second longest gap between No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 (I Get Around to Kokomo), only a few months' shy of Cher's record.
• At 35, The Beach Boys still own the record for most Hot 100 top 40 hits by an American band.

NB: EAS means Equivalent Album Sales.

Dynamic Spotify Key Performance Indicators

Please note that numbers below are retrieved automatically, so they will evolve day by day unlike previously listed data which is valid as of the publication date of the article.

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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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