Bob Dylan albums and songs sales

Pulitzer Prize, US Presidential Medal of Freedom, French Légion D’Honneur, Spanish Principe de Asturias… only the Nobel Prize was missing to the immaculate collection of awards received by Bob Dylan. I don’t even mention the infinite list of purely musical prizes.

Exactly 50 years after publishing the cult Blonde On Blonde, 40 years after the global smash Desire, 10 years after his Rolling Stone Magazine Album of the Year Modern Times, the iconic singer-songwriter turned out to be the new recipient of the most coveted prize in the world a few days ago. In the meantime, he just keeps touring as nothing happened. At 75, Bob Dylan printed his name all over the music history. The godfather and the main origin of the Rock branch that exploded thanks to the Beatles to become the main music genre for decades, he dropped nothing less than 37 studio albums. As it wasn’t enough, he also released a dozen of live albums and as many bootlegs. Plus, his discography includes more than a quarter of century of compilations. All those records came out from 1962 to 2016.

All those numbers and awards are outstanding but Bob Dylan has never been famous for being a huge selling act. Among solo male acts Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley are the firsts to be quoted. Even thinking more about it, the general public will name Elton John, Phil Collins, Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley before him. We can add Julio Iglesias, Robbie Williams, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks and more.

Where does Bob Dylan sits in comparison to all those top selling acts? With his sales being spread over so many studio albums, which ones surface on top after factoring in all compilations and live albums?

ChartMasters’ method: the CSPC

As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept (CSPC) in order to relevantly gauge the act’s results. It will not only bring you sales information for all albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. In fact, it will really determine the act’s 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 reading on and to the sales figures. You’ll get the idea in just two minutes.

And if you 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!

Original Albums Sales

Bob Dylan (1962)

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964)

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Blonde on Blonde (1966)

John Wesley Harding (1967)

Nashville Skyline (1969)

Self Portrait (1969)

New Morning (1970)

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

Dylan (1973)

Planet Waves (1974)

Blood on the Tracks (1975)

The Basement Tapes (1975)

• America
  • US – 600,000
  • Canada – 50,000
  • Argentina – N/A
  • Brazil – N/A
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – N/A
• Oceania
  • Australia – N/A
  • New Zealand – N/A
• Europe – 780,000
  • UK – 225,000
  • France – 50,000
  • Germany – 50,000
  • Italy – 150,000
  • Spain – 75,000
  • Sweden – N/A
  • Netherland – 45,000
  • Switzerland – N/A
  • Austria – N/A
  • Finland – N/A
• World – 1,800,000

Desire (1976)

Street Legal (1978)

Slow Train Coming (1979)

Saved (1980)

Shot Of Love (1981)

Infidels (1983)

Empire Burlesque (1985)

Knocked Out Loaded (1986)

Down in the Groove (1988)

Oh Mercy (1989)

Under the Red Sky (1990)

Good as I Been to You (1992)

• America
  • US – 275,000
  • Canada – 35,000
  • Argentina – N/A
  • Brazil – N/A
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 40,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 10,000
  • New Zealand – N/A
• Europe – 340,000
  • UK – 60,000
  • France – N/A
  • Germany – 80,000
  • Italy – 20,000
  • Spain – N/A
  • Sweden – 15,000
  • Netherland – 20,000
  • Switzerland – 20,000
  • Austria – 5,000
  • Finland – N/A
• World –

World Gone Wrong (1993)

Time Out of Mind (1997)

Love and Theft (2001)

Modern Times (2006)

Together Through Life (2009)

Christmas in the Heart (2009)

Tempest (2012)

Shadows in the Night (2015)

Fallen Angels (2016)

• America
  • US – 90,000
  • Canada – 10,000
  • Argentina – N/A
  • Brazil – 5,000
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 10,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 10,000
  • New Zealand – N/A
• Europe – 90,000
  • UK – 20,000
  • France – 5,000
  • Germany – 20,000
  • Italy – 5,000
  • Spain – 5,000
  • Sweden – 5,000
  • Netherland – 5,000
  • Switzerland – 5,000
  • Austria – 5,000
  • Finland – N/A
• World – 250,000

Original Album Sales – Comments

Some 37 albums, some 83,35 million units sold. Every LP from his first 24 sold at least 1 million units, all except 1973 Dylan which was actually a collection of outtakes not validated by the artist himself. Bob Dylan never had a studio album crushing the 10 million mark though, far from that as his highest selling LP remains Desire at 7,7 million.

Don’t get it wrong though, the legendary lyricist has been highly successful. From 1964 to 1966, only three artists managed to retain the #1 position in the UK Album chart along with Sound Of Music soundtrack, those artists were the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan who had two back to back chart toppers. During the Beatles era from 1963 to 1970, the longest running #1 artist album was also from Bob Dylan as his 1968 John Wesley Harding led for 13 weeks. In the second half of the 60s he had eight Top 10 albums in the US while latter both Planet Waves and Desire were one month #1 records. This last album was an unbelievable 23 weeks at the top in Spain, but also 8 weeks in the Netherlands, while smashing too in France or Italy. In spite of starting after his best years in 1968, Norwegian charts saw the unreal total of 40 Dylan albums reach the Top 10, while even his bootlegs are hitting #1 in Sweden.

All those facts highlight one key element which is that the artist 1963 to 1975 cult albums haven’t truly big sales only due to the very low market of that time. As a trademark of that situation, despite 16 Top 20 albums including 12 Top 10 / 6 Top 5 / 2 #1s, none of the artist albums up to 1975 reached 1 million units within’ their first two years on charts. Since, extraordinary catalog sales made those records reach 3-5-7 million copies sold in spite of sales spread over countless records.

Speaking of that incredibly large catalog, it obviously creates a favorable background for greatest hits packages. Thus, don’t let it go here as there is much, much more coming within’ the next pages.

1962 Bob Dylan – 1,200,000
1963 The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan – 4,200,000
1964 The Times They Are a-Changin’ – 2,800,000
1964 Another Side of Bob Dylan – 1,700,000
1965 Bringing It All Back Home – 3,800,000
1965 Highway 61 Revisited – 5,000,000
1966 Blonde on Blonde – 5,100,000
1967 John Wesley Harding – 3,200,000
1969 Nashville Skyline – 3,800,000
1970 Self Portrait – 1,800,000
1970 New Morning – 2,200,000
1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – 2,000,000
1973 Dylan – 900,000
1974 Planet Waves – 2,400,000
1975 Blood on the Tracks – 6,800,000
1975 The Basement Tapes – 1,800,000
1976 Desire – 7,700,000
1978 Street Legal – 3,200,000
1979 Slow Train Coming – 3,600,000
1980 Saved – 1,300,000
1981 Shot of Love – 1,100,000
1983 Infidels – 2,000,000
1985 Empire Burlesque – 1,100,000
1986 Knocked Out Loaded – 800,000
1988 Down in the Groove – 650,000
1989 Oh Mercy – 1,400,000
1990 Under the Red Sky – 900,000
1992 Good as I Been to You – 800,000
1993 World Gone Wrong – 500,000
1997 Time Out of Mind – 2,200,000
2001 Love and Theft – 1,800,000
2006 Modern Times – 2,450,000
2009 Together Through Life – 1,050,000
2009 Christmas in the Heart – 550,000
2012 Tempest – 850,000
2015 Shadows in the Night – 450,000
2016 Fallen Angels – 250,000

Physical Singles Sales

The US, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Italy… fact is, if you wanna get a #1 Single by Bob Dylan, you may spend an awful lot of time searching for it as in all those countries he never did it. His best years came when the single was the main format yet, thus even average hits were equal to significant sales. In total, he sold more than 17 million physical singles, most of them during the 60s.

Some notable albums are missing from below list like Another Side Of Bob Dylan, quite simply because no single came out from this record.

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.

The Times They Are A-Changin'(1964)-60,000 equivalent albums

The Times They Are A-Changin’ – 200,000

Bringing It All Back Home (1965) – 210,000 equivalent albums

Subterranean Homesick Blues – 600,000
Maggie’s Farm – 100,000

Highway 61 Revisited (1965) – 555,000 equivalent albums

Like a Rolling Stone – 1,800,000
Highway 61 Revisited – 50,000

Blonde on Blonde (1966) – 952,500 equivalent albums

One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) – 125,000
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 – 1,800,000
I Want You – 700,000
Just Like a Woman – 400,000
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat – 150,000

John Wesley Harding (1967) – 60,000 equivalent albums

All Singles – 200,000

Nashville Skyline (1969) – 600,000 equivalent albums

I Threw It All Away – 200,000
Lay Lady Lay – 1,600,000
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You – 200,000

Self Portrait (1970) – 240,000 equivalent albums

Wigwam – 750,000
Forget More Than You’ll Ever Know – 50,000

New Morning (1970) – 30,000 equivalent albums

If Not For You – 100,000

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) – 345,000 equivalent albums

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – 1,150,000

Dylan (1973) – 60,000 equivalent albums

A Fool Such as I – 200,000

Planet Waves (1974) – 120,000 equivalent albums

On a Night Like This – 300,000
Something There Is About You – 100,000

Blood on the Tracks (1975) – 90,000 equivalent albums

Tangled Up in Blue – 300,000

Desire (1976) – 360,000 equivalent albums

Hurricane – 1,000,000
Mozambique – 200,000

Street-Legal (1978) – 165,000 equivalent albums

Is Your Love in Vain – 50,000
Baby, Stop Crying – 250,000
Changing of the Guards – 250,000

Slow Train Coming (1979) – 390,000 equivalent albums

Gotta Serve Somebody – 700,000
Man Gave Names to All the Animals – 500,000
Remaining Singles – 100,000

Saved (1980) – 30,000  equivalent albums

All Singles – 100,000

Shot Of Love (1981) – 30,000  equivalent albums

All Singles – 100,000

Infidels (1983) – 90,000 equivalent albums

Sweetheart like You – 200,000
Remaining Singles – 100,000

Empire Burlesque (1985) – 60,000 equivalent albums

Tight Connection to my Heart – 150,000
When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky – 50,000

Knocked Out Loaded (1986) – 15,000 equivalent albums

Got My Mind Made Up – 50,000

Down in the Groove (1988) – 15,000 equivalent albums

Silvio – 50,000

Oh Mercy (1989) – 15,000 equivalent albums

Everything Is Broken – 50,000

Under the Red Sky (1990) – 9,000 equivalent albums

Unbelievable – 30,000

Time Out of Mind (1997) – 15,000 equivalent albums

All Singles – 50,000

Orphan Album – 786,000 equivalent albums

Positively 4th Street – 900,000
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? – 300,000
Watching the River Flow – 350,000
George Jackson – 350,000
Most Likely You Go Your Way – 200,000
Rita May – 150,000
Dignity – 50,000
Things Have Changed – 20,000
Remaining Singles – 300,000

Digital Singles Sales

The cultural importance of Bob Dylan is so huge that we tend to forget he does own fully valid popular hits. Blowin’ In The Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Like A Rolling Stone, All Along The Watchtower, Lay Lady Lay, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Forever Young, Mr. Tambourine Man or Hurricane are all well known songs, often recognized even by people not aware at all about the artist himself.

The result is inevitable download sales with steady appeal year after year. In total, he has now passed the 30 million mark, an impressive result.

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

Bob Dylan (1962) – 90,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 600,000

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) – 555,000 equivalent albums

Blowin’ in the Wind – 1,000,000
Girl From The North Country – 1,300,000
Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright – 700,000
Remaining tracks – 700,000

The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964) – 435,000 equivalent albums

The Times They Are A-Changin’ – 2,200,000
Remaining tracks – 700,000

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) – 90,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 600,000

Bringing It All Back Home (1965) – 315,000 equivalent albums

Subterranean Homesick Blues – 450,000
Mr. Tambourine Man – 850,000
Remaining tracks – 800,000

Highway 61 Revisited (1965) – 555,000 equivalent albums

Like A Rolling Stone – 2,700,000
Remaining tracks – 1,000,000

Blonde on Blonde (1966) – 270,000 equivalent albums

Visions Of Johanna – 200,000
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 – 200,000
I Want You – 500,000
Just Like a Woman – 250,000
Remaining tracks – 650,000

John Wesley Harding (1967) – 75,000 equivalent albums

All Along the Watchtower – 300,000
Remaining tracks – 200,000

Nashville Skyline (1969) – 203,000 equivalent albums

Lay Lady Lay – 950,000
Remaining tracks – 400,000

Self Portrait (1970) – 45,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 300,000

New Morning (1970) – 90,000 equivalent albums

The Man In Me – 300,000
Remaining tracks – 300,000

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) – 285,000 equivalent albums

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – 1,700,000
Remaining tracks – 200,000

Dylan (1973) – 9,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 60,000

Planet Waves (1974) – 83,000 equivalent albums

Forever Young – 400,000
Remaining tracks – 150,000

Blood on the Tracks (1975) – 285,000 equivalent albums

Tangled Up in Blue – 600,000
Shelter From The Storm – 400,000
Remaining tracks – 900,000

The Basement Tapes (1975) – 90,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 600,000

Desire (1976) – 330,000 equivalent albums

Hurricane – 1,600,000
Remaining tracks – 600,000

Street Legal (1978) – 38,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 250,000

Slow Train Coming (1979) – 38,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 250,000

Saved (1980) – 6,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 40,000

Shot of Love (1981) – 12,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 80,000

Infidels (1983) – 38,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 250,000

Empire Burlesque (1985) – 12,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 80,000

Knocked Out Loaded (1986) – 6,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 40,000

Down in the Groove (1988) – 8,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 50,000

Oh Mercy (1989) – 45,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 300,000

Under the Red Sky (1990) – 11,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 70,000

Good as I Been to You (1992) – 9,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 60,000

World Gone Wrong (1993) – 9,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 60,000

Time Out of Mind (1997) – 60,000 equivalent albums

Make You Feel My Love – 150,000
Remaining tracks – 250,000

Love and Theft (2001) – 30,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 200,000

Modern Times (2006) – 68,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 450,000

Together Through Life (2009) – 38,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 250,000

Chrostmas in the Heart (2009) – 45,000 equivalent albums

Must Be Santa – 150,000
Remaining tracks – 300,000

Tempest (2012) – 30,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 200,000

Shadows in the Night (2015) – 9,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 60,000

Fallen Angels (2016) – 5,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 30,000

Orphan Album – 225,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 1,500,000

Streaming Sales

The table below lists Spotify streaming of all songs from the five albums we are studying. The Comprehensive Streaming is reached by multiplying Spotify figures by 68/26. In fact, as shown in IFPI 2015 Report, there were 68 million paying subscribers to all streaming platforms by the end of 2015. While the exact count of Spotify paying subscribers by the end of 2015 is unknown, that figure reached 20 million in June 2015 and 30 million in March 2016, thus an estimated 26 million is used as of the end of 2015.

The equivalent album sales is the division of the comprehensive streaming figure by 1500 as it is now the norm in the new industry model.

Streaming Part 1 – Blowin’ In The Biz

It has been widely reported how the singer debut album Bob Dylan moved less than 5,000 units when first released way back in 1962. More than 50 years later, it sold more copies in streaming album sales equivalent, talk about an irony! Although it had no hit, the fact all album tracks are near or over half a million plays is impressive.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin’ are similar albums in a way that both are cult, both are never quoted among the artist Top 3 best albums though, but both contain some of the artist most well known songs. Very few 50+ years old songs made it to the 15 million streams level, still, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is home to three such hits, including Blowin’ In The Wind, one of the most covered songs ever.

The last album contains the cult title track which is close to 50 million plays by now. Both latter albums add for almost 250,000 album sales equivalent, a strong addition within’ a few years when you consider they sold 7 million units combined in album format with such a long period of availability.

Streaming Part 2 – Success Highway

Three more albums, three more cult ones, all released within 387 days. While Another Side Of Bob Dylan failed to generate a hit, Bringing It All Back Home had two big ones. First was Subterranean Homesick Blues, close to 10 million plays. The second wasn’t even a single for Bob Dylan. A cover of Mr. Tambourine Man was recorded a mere five days after the original by The Byrds band. That cover was #1 in both the US and the UK, popularizing the original song as well, which now nears 20 million Spotify plays.

Both Highway 61 Revisited and Like A Rolling Stone are hot contenders for all Albums and Singles all-time greatest lists. They aren’t only academy favorites as the public shows them strong love too. At 60 million streams, Like A Rolling Stone features among the Top 20 biggest songs from the 60s in the Spotify platform.

Streaming Part 3 – We Want Him

All Music Guide website rarely provides five stars to albums. Each of those three albums are rated 5* though. This is just one illustration of the universal acclaim received by all Bob Dylan outputs during the 60s.

Blonde On Blonde contains 12 songs over 1 million. This is a good opportunity to highlight how tough it is to achieve such figures when your discography exceeds 500 songs available on Spotify. For such an extensive body of work, we must highlight the playing time factor, as even a hard core fan can only bring a few plays per song to his favorite artist tunes.

The biggest hit of this pack is Lay Lady Lay at 21 million streams. We are used to check figures of the very biggest artists including some highly popular current acts so this tally doesn’t sound impressive. Well, let just notice this would put that song well inside Madonna‘s Top 10 biggest hits in spite of the song being one generation older than anything the Material Girl ever issued.

Streaming Part 4 – Breaking the Chain

Bored of being considered the voice of his generation, Bob Dylan dropped what he himself rated as a joke, Self Portrait, an album with various covers of pop and traditional songs recorded as country songs with an unfamiliar voice for the artist. Heavily bashed by critics, the album is still getting some plays from Spotify although it has no hit at all.

Back to more Dylan-esque sounds, New Morning was home for The Man In Me, which registered more than 6 million plays, and If Not For You, the first Top 10 hit of Olivia Newton-John a few months later, helping the famous Grease star to get her breakthrough that would result into an immensely successful career.

Streaming Part 5 – Side Projects

Enjoying family days after being exhausted by heavy touring and recording during the 60s – 11 albums within’ 8 years -, Bob Dylan had a break in 1971-1972. For nearly three years, he released no album at all.

In 1973, he returned by acting in the western movie Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. He was also responsible for the Soundtrack, which featured mostly instrumentals. It also featured one single, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Doors, a song made cult two decades later by the Guns N’ Roses when they successfully covered it. If the hard rock band version topped the 70 million mark recently, Bob Dylan one has nothing to be ashamed of at an impressive 39 million.

With the artist deciding to quit Columbia, the label issued Dylan, a collection of outtakes from Self Portrait and New Morning recording sessions. Although marketed as a proper new album, the public wasn’t fooled and largely ignored this record. Its two thousands album sales equivalent through streaming speak by themselves.

Recording Planet Waves with The Band group to support their reunion tour, this album met some success, notably including Forever Young. Recently noticed for being the first single of UK X Factor 2015 winner Louisa Johnson, the song was also a hit for Rod Stewart in 1989.

Streaming Part 6 – Back On Track

1975 record Blood On The Tracks was the first 100% Bob Dylan album in years. Not that well received by critics upon release, it is now widely rated as one of the best albums ever, often charted as the artist best album. All its songs are well past 1 million streams with both Tangled Up In Blue and Shelter From The Storm achieving the most success.

The Basement Tapes is a compilation of 1967 outtakes widely available on various unofficial bootlegs. To tackle those ilegal recordings, they were assembled together to be released as a proper album in 1975. All songs have over 100,000 plays, quite incredible for a 24 songs track list of outtakes from half a century ago.

Desire includes Hurricane, a huge global hit. This song opened doors of various markets that were still not very reactive to the artist music like continental Europe or Japan. It is still one of the singer most popular songs with a huge 36 million streams. This is possibly the highest tally of a song so long, indeed, Hurricane runs for 8:33 minutes.

Streaming Part 7 – Nothing Saved

At more than 3 million copies sold to date, both Street Legal and Slow Train Coming were good selling albums by the artist standards. This being said, they both sold well in part thanks to the booming market in late 70s and the follow up effect after the huge success of Desire.

Once again, streaming brings some justice back by proving those records weren’t as strong as they look like as per their pure album sales. Each only have one song over 1 million and both are around 10,000 album sales equivalent only, the lowest totals to that date by legitimate Bob Dylan albums.

Those less appealing records turned down the public interest which led Saved release to get a very discreet initial reception. Time hasn’t improve its status, far from that, as no song from the record reaches 200,000 plays.

Streaming Part 8 – Is there anybody out there?

If you follow closely my articles, you surely noticed I already titled several artists periods with that Pink Floyd reference. This question is just so telling that there isn’t much to add. By the 80s, Bob Dylan hey-days were gone and the artist himself was very fine with that situation. Infidels was some kind of mini revival but all in all there isn’t much left from those years as shown by their streaming numbers.

Streaming Part 9 – Is there anybody out there? #2

We keep going through the 80s years of the artist to pass by various more unnoticed records. The first two albums from this list were the first valid Bob Dylan studio albums that have yet to reach 1 million units sold.

Oh Mercy, just like Infidels, inversed the trend a bit but that wasn’t enough to truly impact following albums.

Streaming Part 10 – Is there anybody out there? #3

World Gone Wrong, so did the artist career. By that time in 1993, Bob Dylan was up to 10 consecutive disappointing sellers, with Infidels being the only album from the pack to reach 2 million. It went worse and worse with the 1993 effort moving barely 500,000 units worldwide.

Streaming figures show just that. We can even go back to Street Legal. If Blood On The Tracks and Desire have a combined 18 tracks over 1 million streams, the 12 albums released from Street Legal to World Gone Wrong add for a mere 5 such tracks all together. The problem doesn’t relate to album tracks only as the biggest track from all those albums has yet to cross 3 million plays, a far cry from Hurricane 36 million tally. In fact, that song alone has more streams than all tracks from following 12 albums combined! As the singer was already 52 by 1993, it can be regarded as quite natural. A comeback to form was very dubious at that point.

Streaming Part 11 – Modern Love

After being for so long in the wilderness, Bob Dylan made an unexpected return to the top of charts with 1997 Grammy Album of the Year Time Out Of Mind.

While the album indeed moved as many units as its three immediate predecessors combined, it appears not that much is left nowadays from that era. The biggest song from the album is the streaming era is Make You Feel My Love, arguably thanks to Adele popular cover of the track.

Similarly, both Love And Theft and Modern Times moved around 2 million units a piece being widely tagged as immensely successful, but both struggle to generate that much interest now that all the fuzz is over. With the songwriter being already 65 by the release of the last album, we still need to value those figures.

Streaming Part 12 – Must Be Christmas

With Together Through Life, the hype around Bob Dylan new music started to slow down. It was still a very deserving seller, but its streaming results highlight a strong lack of hits, just like most of the artist albums since the 80s.

The singer 34th studio album, Christmas In The Heart was his first Holiday effort. The always returning festive season is providing this album some decent streaming results. It is poised to climb among Bob Dylan discography as years pass.

Streaming Part 13 – Back out of the spotlight

After an heavy amount of albums, we ultimately reach the last batch of LPs. Both Tempest and Shadows In The Night show a well known pattern for albums with no hits, e.g. decreasing figures as you get deeper into the track list. This is due to most plays being album plays rather than song plays. Listeners put on the record and when they reach home or work, they stop it, a scenario benefitting tracks appearing early.

Shadows In The Night numbers are fairly low due to its very recent availability in the platform. Fallen Angels has yet to be made fully available as only the single Melancholy Mood features on it. This strategy consisting of listing only the single first and the full album about a year later is still largely used for artists who are mostly album sellers.

Streaming Part 14 – Orphan Album #1

It seems incredible that despite releasing 37 studio albums, there is still such an heavy amount of tracks that got issued outside them. This list is mostly made of songs released on Bootlegs albums that have been coming out very frequently in the last 25 years, but also a few songs from live and compilation records.

Streaming Part 15 – Orphan Album #2

Here are just so more tracks from Bootlegs and the likes. The difference with the previous list is that those songs are still not available on Spotify. As it happens for all albums from the artists, it may be only a matter of time before they appear into it.

Full Length related records Sales

As already mentioned, Bob Dylan released an extensive list of full length records outside of his studio albums. Compilations, bootlegs, live albums, music videos, each category is filled is countless releases. Let’s start with the main batch, the one featuring globally released compilations.

Part I – Major compilations

How to understand this table? If you check for example Greatest Hits compilation line, those figures mean it sold 12,800,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all songs included on this package add for 186 million streaming plays on Spotify.

The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album plus the share it represents on the overall package streams. Thus, streaming figures tell us Highway 61 Revisited songs are responsible for 32% of the Greatest Hits tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 4,120,000 of its 12,800,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

It is difficult to do specific comments on those statistics for studio albums as each compilation contains tracks from an heavy amount of records. One thing to point out is that Greatest Hits sold 12,8 million units, more than any studio album Bob Dylan ever released. This someway explains why his mid-70s hit albums outsold his cultest 60s records. In fact, Greatest Hits was issued in 1967, thus fully covering his studio albums up to Blonde On Blonde, meaning their catalog sales were cannibalized by stronger compilations than his 70s albums. In fact, nowadays Blood On The Tracks is the artist strongest catalog seller among his studio album. Interestingly, it represents a mere 4 to 6% of track lists attractiveness of both career spanning compilations, letting a lot of room for the original studio album to keep on selling.

Part II – Local compilations #1

Masterpieces was a hugely successful package released in Oceania and in Japan. The Best Of first couple of albums were mostly European sellers, while the latter one from 2005 was issued in North America only.

Those limited releases explain the relatively low sales numbers, even more considering they all were second to Greatest Hits sets.

Just like with larger compilations, those records display a fact quite unique for Bob Dylan with his top 2 sellers in original format, Blood On The Tracks and Desire, not contributing that much to later sales of compilations. In the other side, his 60s body of work appear to be the main traction of his catalog.

Part III – Local compilations #2

Here comes an other bunch of the various career spanning compilations that emerged in recent years. Once again, mid-60s albums take the largest part of the pie.

It must be noted a box set was released along with The Best Of The Mono Recordings which was titled The Original Mono Recordings Box. This package sold 100,000 units worldwide, containing each of the artist first eight albums in full. Thus, all albums from Bob Dylan to John Wesley Harding get assigned those sales.

Part IV – Live albums

As of today, Bob Dylan performed the whopping total of 3,356 concerts – and he is adding one more tonight. Such a busy tour schedule obviously concluded into various live albums, five of which sold more than 1 million units. Songs of Highway 61 Revisited are often the stand out point of them, but Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and Nashville Skyline hits also largely consolidated those records attractiveness.

Part V – Bootleg albums

Way back in 1985, Biograph was released. A 5LP / 3CD package, it is widely considered as the very first box set ever released. A tremendous success giving its price and the absence of promotion – more than 1 million units sold to date – the album was followed by a whole bunch of Bootleg Series albums, a serie that itself became cult as years passed.

Some relate to outtakes, others to demos, others to live albums. Those large sets cumulate more than 6 million copies sold to date counting every package as one – e.g. way more discs have been sold. Giving the atypical track list of all those sets, it is hard to take out a pattern among studio albums responsible for their sales. Highway 61 Revisited does end as the largest contributor to the attractiveness of 5 out of 12 of those records yet.

Part VI – Music videos

Bob Dylan Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all figures, how many overall equivalent album sales each Bob Dylan album achieved? Well, at this point we barely need to do the addition of all figures defined all over this article!

In the following results table, all categories display figures in equivalent album sales. If different, pure sales are listed between parentheses.

'Av.' stands for Average, 'LD' for Last Day.

As a reminder:

• Studio Album: sales of the original album
• Other Releases: sales of compilations generated thanks to the album
• Physical Singles: sales of physical singles from the album (ratio 3/10)
• Download Singles: sales of digital singles from the album (ratio 1,5/10)
• Streaming: equivalent album sales of all the album tracks (ratio 1/1500 for Audio stream and 1/6750 for Video stream)

Artist career totals

See where the artist ranks among remaining singers

We got there! For most artists studied so far, the norm is that the top selling studio album in its original format is also the artist more popular album. The case of Bob Dylan is quite incredible in this aspect as his Top 3 best sellers in album form are all different from his three more popular records.

In fact, #1 seller Desire, #2 Blood On The Tracks and #3 Blonde On Blonde end up respectively #4, #7 and #5 in overall popularity after combining every sales generated by each album. The main reason for this situation is the Greatest Hits 1967 package, which quickly competed against the singer’s early albums, preventing them from accumulating larger catalog sales. In the other side, records like Blood On The Tracks and Desire got their hits covered on strong selling compilations many years after their release, themselves also featuring mostly Bob Dylan hits from the 60s.

The result is that both mid-70s smashes contributed into a relatively low 2 million equivalent album sales each outside of their original format. While this tally is respectable, it is nowhere near the 11 million sales generated in various forms by Highway 61 Revisited, which ultimately finishes as the easy winner in terms of popularity among the artist LPs. Its overall total is quite impressive, at 16,6 million this album is a fully valid challenger against many records perceived as much bigger sellers. That cumulative tally is indeed higher than albums like Metallica‘s Master Of Puppets, Coldplay‘s X&Y or Madonna‘s Music.

In the same way, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan at 10,9 million, The Times They Are A-Changin’ at 10,3 million, Blonde On Blonde at 9,5 million and Bringing It All Back Home at 9,2 million perform incredibly well.

If those albums were already considered successful in their original form, it is less the case for both Nashville Skyline and Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. Those two records created more than 4 million equivalent album sales each in various forms, completely rewarding their undoubtable successes.

The comprehensive total of Bob Dylan climbs all the way up to 142,3 million equivalent album sales, a number many big pop stars will likely never reach.

I hope you enjoyed this article which was truly exhausting to write. Time to pick up one more cup of coffee for the road!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, All Music, Rolling Stone, Chartmasters.org.

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