Forum
You might pass Queen and even if you don't it's ok. In 2017, Queen and the Rolling Stones are equal, with a difference of 1 million EAS. Bohemian Rhapsody worked wonders, but the Stones were relegated from the start.
Agree Marco...there are a number of older acts worth evaluating, albeit they will take quite a bit of work as many had long careers. As well as Bing I would think Louis Armstrong, Dean Martin, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Nat King Cole...the list could go on of course but these were quite substantial artists of their era.
When will Michael Jackson's sales be updated? You guys are still using outdated numbers for his albums from the mid 2000s.
Regarding the list, it is probably not planned right now. An update would make little sense at the moment, as the biopic as a potential booster has not yet been released yet. Perhaps at the earliest a year after the theatrical launch of Michael (2025), it would be interesting to determine the associated increase in sales.
It just seems fishy when The Beatles can somehow go up by 100 Million plus for their albums within a 5 year timeframe in the streaming age, but Jackson's sales remain lower than what was already reported decades ago. We have reliable media sources for all of his studio albums up to his death, with a additional 50 million pure copies of his solo albums sold within a timeframe of June 2009 - December 2013 alone <a href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Billboard (11/8/2013). Not accounting for album equivalent sales which are around <a href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener">5 million per year, and yet all of the albums remain cited lower. These numbers can't come from the media and they can't come from the record company since they both cite the same and also different figures than what Chartmasters has. Are these largely just independently estimated by editors based on the charts?
Good question. Thriller has been 70 million sales for over twenty years now, hasn't it?
It is obvious that the Beatles are the best band in the world and have always been and is a very popular band, and will always be so, with huge numbers of records sold. However, it is also obvious that the sales figures for their records calculated on this website are overly inflated and significantly exaggerated. In many cases, in certain territories or markets, numbers could only be guesses, because there is no real, objective data, and those guesses were made too optimistically and too large, and sometimes even out of thin air. I understand that this website, in order to achieve greater popularity, needed some kind of sensation, some unexpected, emotionally-provoking news, so it was decided to make another sensation, a myth out of the Beatles, because it is very safe - because in any case, they are the most popular band, they were and will remain in the first place, but it will not be such big news if you write 400 millions for them, but if you write over 500 million - it is a completely different picture and effect. However, with such fake numbers, this website only further reduces its credibility and expert value.
@sabazzz If you understand the approach used to list sales figures here, then you should know that these are always estimates. For all artists, especially those who had their greatest successes before SoundScan 1991, only estimates are presented, not the actual certifications. If this site only listed certifications, it would be sufficient to simply check the RIAA, BPI, etc., and then we wouldn't need ChartMasters.
But this is the only site that attempts to list artists' commercial successes with the most accurate estimates possible. OK, you don't like the results listed here. No problem.
But do you feel the same way about other artists' analysis here, or are you only complaining about this Beatles article?
Let's be honest you could have just said "I don't like your results, so I'm not accepting them".
No specific details of what you think is exaggerated, by how much or why.
@sabazzz The only thing I got from your comment is that 500m is too much for The Beatles, especially when compared to the previous estimate of 400m+. In that case, it should be noted that:
A. The Beatles move a significant amount of catalog units, and it should be expected that they should increase a fair amount between 2017 to 2024, in terms of pure sales and of course streams.
B. The methodology used to estimate sales units has evolved a lot over the years. One of them that I noticed is how comprehensive the comps section has been, where various smaller-scale releases has been counted (whereas before they were often neglected). While individually these packages don't sell much, together, they add for a rather significant amount, especially when your catalog is as vast and as exploited as The Beatles'
So yeah, while the jump is rather big, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Various updates in recent years (Mariah Carey's come to mind) saw a significant jump in EAS.
It's funny back then people have been complaining how conservative the estimates are, but now, the opposite is being said. I guess you can't win 'em all huh?
MJD has been doing artist sales research for twenty years, so I find it surprising that he has not previously noticed the almost one hundred million unit shortfall in the results. He did not even mention the suspicion. The Beatles' sales are perhaps the best publicized. This arouses my distrust of Chartmasters. Figures have been calculated and not calculated before, e.g. Eric Clapton, Neil Young. Since this is a business, outside interests are possible. Be that as it may, it is worth being healthily suspicious. Record companies' figures are usually exaggerated, but there is a certain consistency in them. For example, Sony Germany and Warner Germany do not get away with uncertain figures. Germany has always been a reliable country in business and invoicing, even in normal life. I have mentioned this before and my view still remains the same.
I love the creativity of these conspiracy theories! I can't say they make much sense, but at least they are funny. Just that you know, there are no "emotionally-provoking news" (lol) on ChartMasters, the site is not declared as a news outlet to start with, meaning it's not eligible to 'News' feeds like Google News. Near 100% of the trafic comes from SEO, and as far as I know people will type "Beatles sales" or "Madonna sales" in their searches rather than typing a number. In fact, the result isn't even written in the post's meta title. As for the 'business' part, not sure what you are expecting Mikko, do you really think that people is paying to inflate the numbers? I'm not getting a cent for CSPCs, and even in the ads end (where numbers do not matter), the CSPC articles are a tiny part of the site's worth, that comes mostly from streaming lists. If the purpose was to make as much money as possible, CSPC articles would have been stripped out of my pipeline entirely for many years. I continue doing them for the sake of information.
Anyway, rather than getting into silly conspiracies, why not reading the breakdown I posted in first page? See it below. Most of the bump was due to a change of perimeter (catalog sales, sales of Beatles' solo products, budget releases, Chinese downloads, new streams, newsstand series, minor releases, etc), rather than "optimistic" estimates. If we compare apples with apples, meaning sales of the same albums in the same markets for the same period, the increase was like 4-8%, and even then it was due to new information (like Australian's certification flows) and a higher degree of precision thanks to Discogs.
Hi all!
First of all thank you for your nice words, it was in fact a lot of work, hundreds of hours, but the final result is satisfying!
There are already many questions, and of course their huge increase compared to 2016's publication requires more insights, so here they are!
A) Ongoing sales
Naturally, I added their recent catalog sales. While pure sales are dreadful lately, an album like Abbey Road still sold 1.3 million pure in the US alone since 2017, and the band's catalog 5 million. About twice as much worldwide. No need to say they also have recurrent streams, pacing at 10,000 EAS per day.B) Untapped sales
1) Newsstands series
I uncovered these 'hidden' sales in a dedicated article a couple of years ago. Some countries have the tradition of series coming out on newsstands, with one album newly available every week. As a specific point of sale, these units are always ignored from official charts and certifications. It may impact even the most well known cases, like Abbey Road selling 60,000 LPs in 2016 in the UK in a completely unnoticed way. Their entire catalog was run 4 times between 2012 and 2019 in Italy alone, selling over 1.5 million copies - worth 25 platinum awards, albeit ignored in full. Overall, the Beatles sold over 5 million copies from these series.2) Budget releases
My belief was that the Beatles' albums were never cheap. In general that's true, but there have been exceptions. They are impactful, especially when the budget album is one that you though was out of print. A good example is A Collection of Beatles Oldies. It had a great run on UK charts in late 60s, but felt forgotten after Red & Blue compilations came out in 1973. In truth, it kept selling well into the 80s, getting re-released by budget label Fame in 1983. As a reminder, budget releases are not allowed to chart. Its former estimate of 250k UK sales has been revised at 650k thanks to Discogs data. Same story elsewhere, with its European total flying from 500k to 1.65 million.Another case are Rock 'n' Roll Music 1 & 2, released in 1980. They went Plat in the US and Canada, and sold well in Latin America, but as they didn't chart anywhere in Europe nor in Australia, I though they weren't released there. In truth, they came out through another budget label, Music For Pleasure. In Europe/Australia, it appears they sold 900k and 700k, respectively. The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl is also impacted, just like countless "Beatles' First" type releases.
3) Imports / Exports
It feels natural to set at 0 sales of records not released in a market. Not with the Beatles. Discogs, one more time, shed some light on this. It appears that the 'US' albums sold great volumes as exports globally, just like many 'European' albums (the early UK albums, 'Oldies', etc) sold well as imports in the US throughout the 70s and the 80s, before the arrival of the 1987 CD reissues which at last standardized their catalog globally. Meet The Beatles! for example, widely seen as a North American release, sold nearly a million elsewhere, 300k+ in Japan, 200k+ in Mexico (it was released there, albeit with a different name), and 150k in Europe, mostly through imports.There are also various cheap releases that got exported extensively, the wildest example is German's Greatest from 1965. It was estimated at 50k, due to its modest showing on German charts back then. In truth, it kept selling for many years, and in many countries, adding to 875,000 sales overall. 1970's Hey Jude also appeared to be a great seller in countries it never charted. It's hard to value how many sales these 'blank cells' (for unreleased material in the related country) have added now that they were filled in, but it should be something like 6-10 million.
4) Loopholes
These are releases regarded as unofficial from a foreigner perspective, often recycling bootlegs, but released as an official product in a specific country thanks to a 'hole' in the local copyrights rules. A prime example is Eternal Grooves which released 41 Beatles' albums in Japan, many of which charted. They sold over half a million units with these somewhat official albums in Japan alone.5) Minor releases
My former sheet, built with albums that charted in the main markets, had 88 albums listed. The new one, built thanks to Discogs, has 318, with some mergers (like the 41 Eternal Grooves albums listed as 1 entry).Of course, many of the smallest releases sold a few thousands only, but there are also dozens of the newly listed albums that sold in 6 digits. For example, 1979's 1st Live Recordings volume 1 and 2 sold over 230k each.
6) Local releases
An extension of the previous point are local releases from already identified albums. These are typically Eastern Europe releases of international products. During the USSR era, most international albums weren't released in Eastern Europe, and estimates are done accordingly. Some albums do get a release here and there though, often with awkward situations. In Germany, Red sold about 2.44m units, Blue 2.35m. Yet, while the former wasn't released in GDR, the latter was, selling an additional 275k. These GDR sales are ignored by official German certifications. They also got a 1965 best of from there, a 1983 best of while both A Collection of Beatles Oldies and Love Songs were released too.In USSR, none of their studio albums was released, none except A Hard Day's Night, which sold a whopping 700k. There have been also specific releases from Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, etc.
7) Chinese DLs
These do not add for much in the big picture, but the Beatles are one of the rare artists that got Chinese downloads from legacy releases. Overall their catalog sold 362k on this format.C) Adjustments / Fixes
1) Solo sales distributions
As already stated, we refined the CSPC method after the first publication of the Beatles to take into account former members of a band who continue to exploit the band catalog once they move solo. It's very visible with McCartney's live sets, or Harrison's 1976 best of which outsold McCartney's/Lennon's thanks to the Beatles songs on it. In total, 22 million sales are re-allocated to the Beatles, close to 14m coming from McCartney, over 4m from each Lennon and Harrison, and 400k from Starr.These sales explain in good part the special jump from Abbey Road, as both Harrison and Starr got 'their' biggest songs on it, so almost all their reassigned sales to the band go to Abbey Road.
2) German Horzu releases
The only time the Beatles' studio albums were certified in Germany was in 1993, their big two Pepper and Abbey Road went Plat (500k), while Rubber Soul and With the Beatles went Gold (250k). The absence of award for Revolver for example, capped the potential of Rubber Soul, estimated just ahead of 250k as both sold almost the same there as elsewhere.Again thanks to Discogs, it appears that 5 of their albums weren't released by EMI/Parlophone, but by Hor Zu magazine company. These are Pepper's (200k+ sales), PPM, Help!, Revolver, and MMT, with these four avering over 100k sales through this label. These sales weren't considered on certifcations, which led to wrong conclusions. Charts & catalog sales patterns suggest 400k+ sales for Rubber Soul up to 1993. I had to assume dysmal catalog sales to fit with the official certifications. In reality, it really was a 400k+ seller rather than just over 250k, as 'Revolver' absence of certification was simply due to the Hor Zu situation. This revised upwards many of their albums.
3) Australian certifications
In a similar way, digging Discogs & our new tool converting charts into sales, I came to the conclusion that the major 2009 certification audit for the Beatles covered only their CD releases. I always felt it was the case, as a monster like Abbey Road at 3xP felt bogus, but without Discogs it was difficult to assume. It's confirmed by the absence of LP-only albums from this audit, like The Beatles Ballads and The Number Ones, two #1 compilations in the 80s. Once we know the limited coverage of the awards, their career total goes from 5.3m to 7.7m in this market.4) Comprehensiveness of Soundscan
Some 90s US sales actually went down. Live at the BBC from 1.9m to 1.73m, and Anthology 1 from 4.4m to 4.2m. The situation of the 3 'Anthology' albums is well known, with their Soundscan figures falling short of their certifications despite the fact the Beatles' albums were notably absent from music clubs. These gaps led me to assume that for some reason, Soundscan sales only covered 85%-ish of the Beatles in early/mid 90s.After digging the data again, I managed to at last understand that gap. It was due to the version exclusive to Best Buy, which added the Rare Photos & Interview CD. I was thus able to gauge sales of these exclusives (490k for Anthology 1, 350k for 2, 265k for 3) to fine tune the US sales figure, rather than simply multiply the Soundscan number. As fans prefered this version, the drop in sales of 2/3 compared to Anthology 1 wasn't as sharp, which means that the flat extrapolation of inflating this one. Once we understood the missing Soundscan sales came from these exclusives, I also removed the extra sales assumption for Live at the BBC, as it appears that it wasn't concerned.
There are much more cases of adjustments/fixes limited to one album/one country, many that I do not have in mind anymore (I just went through way too many numbers during this update). Points 2 and 3 are some striking examples of official data corrupting our interpretation of sales. And point 4 reflects well how precise we can be with Discogs. I may have left out a significant adjustment, actually I finished with McCartney so I started to forget already some updates, so if you still have questions feel free to ask!
There are some songs listed as orphans in the physical singles list, while they are part of a album. "The Long and winding road", "Run For your life", "Dizzy, Miss Lizzy", "P.S. I love you", "I need You", "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party", "You Like Me Too Much" and "Blue Jay Way".
