CSPC: Bob Marley Popularity Analysis

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

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

The reputation of Exodus seemed overrated considering its great but not record breaking sales. We already saw that its tracks sold plenty of units across multiple singles formats, now we can also see that they have been responsible for sales of more than 20 million compilations, a tremendous figure. The only reason why it hasn’t sold more units by itself is because of the heavy cannibalization it has suffered due to the release of various packages exploiting its songs.

Kaya is a close second at 17 million. We must point out that its figure is slightly inflated. The recent remixes of Is This Love give Kaya a bigger weight than it should organically have among Marley‘s catalog. Without the influx of those new remixes on streaming services, Kaya would have about 14 million sales from compilations rather than 17 million and the 3 million more sales would be distributed among the rest of his discography instead, led by Exodus.

Should we discredit all figures though? For several reasons, no. The boost received by Is This Love also boosted Legend, which increased its yearly sales in the UK from 91,000 units in 2015 to 172,000 in 2016 in the UK. That’s not quite a 3 million boost, even considering remaining markets. Still, Is This Love has been boosted today the same way that Three Little Birds was boosted by the movie I Am Legend, just like Jamming profile increased after a Vodafone commercial, etc. Each standard will get additional exposure here and there as it’s part of the life of a catalog. At the end of the day, the temporary boosts will get linearized by the ongoing streams of all songs and all figures will get back to their real organic level.

Kaya and Exodus aren’t the only worthy releases listed in this table. Burnin’, Natty Dread and Uprising are all responsible for a ridiculous amount of sales. Indeed, Marley‘s compilations, live, remix, and music videos packages sold a whopping 82 million units combined.