Bon Jovi albums and songs sales

In music culture, there is very few categories of artists that encapsulate them all. You have classical acts, vocal acts, teen acts, entertainers and then singer-songwriters. This act type category will dictate the way an artist sells way more than its music genre. Then you have Bon Jovi, a band which belongs to none of those categories, that can’t be compared at all with other popular rock bands.

Classical acts sell steady amounts over the curse of time. We can enlarge that definition to include for example Jazz acts a la Miles Davis. Vocal acts from Frank Sinatra to Celine Dion sell mainly to an Adult Contemporary audience. They are less impacted by the success of their current singles. They can be extremely and widely popular although their studio albums won’t be good catalog sellers with the general public just cherry-picking one best of. Teen acts, say One Direction, sell very well within’ a very short period of time but they get the ability to sell well of every format that comes out in the market. Entertainers a la Madonna or ABBA are mostly pop stars, they sell heavy amounts everywhere in the world when they come out with big hits but as soon as they lack airplay their sales will go downhill. They do not have that much of a strong fan base following. Their studio albums will be poor catalog sellers with compilations taking the largest part of the pie, their album tracks are also completely ignored on streaming platforms. Then you get singer-songwriters, first solo acts like Bob Dylan, it quickly became the ground of highly popular rock bands. Those artists do not have that many die-hard fans in the negative sense of it, but they do have very loyal buyers. Their records, including studio albums, keep selling well for decades. Someway they benefit from advantages of all groups selling well in the short-mid-long run, e.g. upon release, during the promotional campaign and as catalog items.

One may say Bon Jovi obviously fits into the last category. Well, no, they don’t. Their sales pattern is definitely closer to the one of entertainers like ABBA rather than Metallica. A pattern is just that yet, a pattern, it doesn’t tell you how big they got while fitting into that display. So, a few days after the release of their last album, the 13th in 32 years, how did Bon Jovi perform along the way? We will found out results just now. Just a small technicality for this group, as their greatest hits albums involve songs from both the band and the couple of albums lead singer Jon Bon Jovi issued under his own name, I’m adding those two albums into the study. Feel free to remove final sales figures for them from the overall total of the band.

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

Bon Jovi (1984)

• America
  • US – 2,200,000
  • Canada – 175,000
  • Argentina – N/A
  • Brazil – N/A
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 200,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 90,000
  • New Zealand – 20,000
• Europe – 740,000
  • UK – 230,000
  • France – N/A
  • Germany – 150,000
  • Italy – 25,000
  • Spain – 50,000
  • Sweden – N/A
  • Netherland – 20,000
  • Switzerland – 60,000
  • Austria – 30,000
  • Finland – N/A
• World – 3,600,000

7800° Fahrenheit (1985)

Slippery When Wet (1986)

New Jersey (1988)

Blaze of Glory (1990) as Jon Bon Jovi

Keep the Faith (1992)

These Days (1995)

Destination Anywhere (1997) as Jon Bon Jovi

Crush (2000)

• America
  • US – 2,300,000
  • Canada – 275,000
  • Argentina – 100,000
  • Brazil – 180,000
  • Mexico – 180,000
• Asia
  • Japan – 900,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 150,000
  • New Zealand – 10,000
• Europe – 3,090,000
  • UK – 515,000
  • France – 130,000
  • Germany – 800,000
  • Italy – 250,000
  • Spain – 250,000
  • Sweden – 75,000
  • Netherland – 165,000
  • Switzerland – 140,000
  • Austria – 90,000
  • Finland – 63,000
• World – 8,100,000

Bounce (2002)

Have a Nice Day (2005)

Lost Highway (2007)

The Circle (2009)

What About Now (2013)

This House Is Not for Sale (2016)

Original Album Sales – Comments

At 88,55 million, total studio album sales of Bon Jovi are very healthy. Obviously, just like U2 or Madonna, they got lucky to get their hey-days during the best years of the music industry, also constantly getting heavy promotion giving their strong appeal.

If we check breakdowns of all albums we start understanding why the band belongs more to entertainers category than singer-songwriters, more to pop stars than classic rock bands. Although this latter group of artists accumulated significant sales in Japan for example thanks to decades of catalog appeal, they never got truly massive. Bon Jovi did the same as ABBA or Michael Jackson there, getting incredibly big at some point, even selling at retail an unreal 379,000 units of These Days in its first week there, an all-time record up to that point. That album shows an impressive 7,6 million sales worldwide despite a mere 1 million units moved in the US.

Their blockbuster album clearly remains Slippery When Wet though. Up to 23,6 million units sold, it was on 13 million by the end of 1988 with 9 million of them coming from the US alone. During the 90s, as they penetrated strongly more and more markets they lost a large chunk of their popularity in their native market.

A small clarification, figure of This House Is Not for Sale is an estimation of its to date shipment. As it just came out, the gap between sales and shipment is still relevant, but it will be fulfilled in a matter of weeks.

1984 Bon Jovi – 3,600,000
1985 7800° Fahrenheit – 3,600,000
1986 Slippery When Wet – 23,600,000
1988 New Jersey – 13,900,000
1990 Blaze of Glory – 4,900,000
1992 Keep the Faith – 8,600,000
1995 These Days – 7,600,000
1997 Destination Anywhere – 2,900,000
2000 Crush – 8,100,000
2002 Bounce – 2,900,000
2005 Have a Nice Day – 3,600,000
2007 Lost Highway – 3,100,000
2009 The Circle – 1,750,000
2013 What About Now – 900,000
2016 This House Is Not for Sale – 400,000

Physical Singles Sales

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

In spite of having only one hit that broke the 2 million sales barrier worldwide of physical singles, Bon Jovi amassed near 28 million cumulative units sold in that format.

Their biggest seller is easily 1994 smash Always. This is just one more example of the need of using CSPC figures. In fact, that Always outsold all their remaining hits by at least 2 to 1 makes it look much bigger than their previous songs. In reality, singles belonging to Orphan Album will always have a sales to popularity ratio much healthier than singles from studio albums. Many people already owned Slippery When Wet or New Jersey when Crossroads best of came out in 1994, so picking the compilation was useless, which led a large part of the public to move to the physical single. In the other side, people who liked Wanted Dead Or Alive or Livin’ On A Prayer got tempted to buy the studio album instead. Sales of each format individually appears to be quite useless, bringing more confusing that information.

Bon Jovi (1984) – 165,000 equivalent albums

Runaway – 300,000
She Don’t Know Me – 250,000

7800° Fahrenheit (1985) – 150,000 equivalent albums

Only Lonely – 200,000
In and Out of Love – 200,000
The Hardest Part Is the Night – 100,000

Slippery When Wet (1986) – 1,320,000 equivalent albums

You Give Love a Bad Name – 1,400,000
Livin’ on a Prayer – 1,900,000
Wanted Dead or Alive – 900,000
Never Say Goodbye – 200,000

New Jersey (1988) – 1,740,000 equivalent albums

Bad Medicine – 1,300,000
Born to Be My Baby – 1,050,000
I’ll Be There for You – 1,400,000
Lay Your Hands on Me – 1,100,000
Living in Sin – 950,000

Blaze of Glory (1990) – 735,000 equivalent albums

Blaze of Glory – 1,700,000
Miracle – 750,000

Keep the Faith (1992) – 967,500 equivalent albums

Keep the Faith – 1,000,000
Bed of Roses – 900,000
In These Arms – 750,000
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead – 175,000
I Believe -200,000
Dry County – 200,000

These Days (1995) – 795,000 equivalent albums

This Ain’t a Love Song – 1,500,000
Something for the Pain – 300,000
Lie to Me – 300,000
These Days – 250,000
Hey God – 100,000
Real Life – 200,000

Destination Anywhere (1997) – 225,000 equivalent albums

Midnight in Chelsea – 450,000
Queen of New Orleans – 150,000
Janie, Don’t Take Your Love to Town – 150,000

Crush (2000) – 622,500 equivalent albums

It’s My Life – 1,700,000
Say It Isn’t So – 225,000
Thank You for Loving Me – 150,000

Bounce (2002) – 165,000 equivalent albums

Everyday – 275,000
Misunderstood – 125,000
All About Lovin’ You – 150,000

Have a Nice Day (2005) – 75,000 equivalent albums

Have a Nice Day – 125,000
Who Says You Can’t Go Home – 75,000
Welcome to Wherever You Are – 50,000

Lost Highway (2007) – 45,000 equivalent albums

(You Want To) Make a Memory – 75,000
Remaining Singles – 75,000

The Circle (2009) – 30,000 equivalent albums

Remaining Singles – 100,000

Orphan Album – 1,357,500 equivalent albums

Please Come Home for Christmas – 200,000
Always – 3,800,000
Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night – 275,000
One Wild Night – 150,000
Remaining Singles – 100,000

Digital Singles Sales

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

As all acts with a solid back catalog of hits, Bon Jovi enjoyed notable digital sales within’ the last decade. Once again though, their pattern is close to the one of big pop stars. Their album tracks are massively ignored, so are some of their albums like 7800° Fahrenheit. At the other end, their biggest songs are outstanding sellers, most notably the incredible trio from Slippery When Wet led by Livin’ On A Prayer. Tracks from this album total close to 15 million of the group 38 million digital singles sales.

The band enjoyed two latter hits, Always in 1994 and It’s My Life in 2000. While the pair features as high if not higher than their 1986 classics in many countries, their weaker sales in the US hurt the overall total.

Bon Jovi (1984) – 210,000 equivalent albums

Runaway – 1,100,000
Remaining tracks – 300,000

7800° Fahrenheit (1985) – 45,000 equivalent albums

In and Out of Love – 100,000
Remaining tracks – 200,000

Slippery When Wet (1986) – 2,220,000 equivalent albums

You Give Love a Bad Name – 3,300,000
Livin’ on a Prayer – 7,100,000
Wanted Dead or Alive – 3,800,000
Remaining tracks – 600,000

New Jersey (1988) – 495,000 equivalent albums

Bad Medicine – 800,000
Born to Be My Baby – 600,000
I’ll Be There for You – 1,200,000
Lay Your Hands on Me – 300,000
Remaining tracks – 400,000

Blaze of Glory (1990) – 240,000 equivalent albums

Blaze of Glory – 1,200,000
Remaining tracks – 400,000

Keep the Faith (1992) – 330,000 equivalent albums

Bed of Roses – 1,300,000
Remaining tracks – 900,000

These Days (1995) – 98,000 equivalent albums

This Ain’t a Love Song – 250,000
These Days – 150,000
Remaining tracks – 250,000

Destination Anywhere (1997) – 30,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 200,000

Crush (2000) – 720,000 equivalent albums

It’s My Life – 4,300,000
Thank You for Loving Me – 250,000
Remaining tracks – 250,000

Bounce (2002) – 60,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 400,000

Have a Nice Day (2005) – 330,000 equivalent albums

Have a Nice Day – 800,000
Who Says You Can’t Go Home – 900,000
Remaining tracks – 500,000

Lost Highway (2007) – 270,000 equivalent albums

(You Want To) Make a Memory – 750,000
Remaining tracks – 1,050,000

The Circle (2009) – 210,000 equivalent albums

We Weren’t Born to Follow – 800,000
Remaining tracks – 600,000

What About Now (2013) – 75,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 500,000

Orphan Album – 435,000 equivalent albums

Always – 2,300,000
Remaining tracks – 1,600,000

Streaming Sales

Below table 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 – Just getting started

With the exception of Runaway from their debut album, there isn’t much to save from those two records which show rather poor streaming results. This is just one more element putting them among pop stars rather than classic rock legends. As both of those albums have little weight in their discography, better check streaming of their big albums though to get a better understanding of the situation!

Streaming Part 2 – The band hey-days

Streaming results of Slippery When Wet almost look mistaken. On one side, it owns three terrific hits. Livin’ On A Prayer is one of the biggest 80s song with 128 million streams to date, You Give Love A Bad Name isn’t that far at 93 million. Wanted Dead Or Alive at 47 million almost seems weak in comparison to its colleagues but it would be the signature song of many notable acts with such a high result.

In the other side, several tracks are still very far from 1 million plays. All tracks from Metallica‘s Black Album, Led Zeppelin‘s IV or Fleetwood Mac‘s Rumours stand at 5 million or more. Actually, as incredible as it may seem, even ABBA albums Arrival or The Album do not have tracks as low as Social Disease. The 200+ factor between two consecutive tracks like Livin’ On A Prayer and Social Disease is pretty unique. It highlights that very few people reach Bon Jovi own Spotify page, with instead an awful lot of listeners from general playlists or that added a couple of their songs into their personal playlist.

Still, despite the lack of consistency of their albums, the strength of their hits are enough to grant almost half a million album equivalent sales to Slippery When Wet. New Jersey has a similar pattern at a lower level. The various tracks with very low numbers at the end are songs added to the 2014 extended edition of the album.

Streaming Part 3 – The 90s

As previously seen, Keep The Faith and These Days were still healthy album sellers. In the streaming era though, only Bed Of Roses is holding strong. At 34 million streams, the song easily overshadows over Bon Jovi hits from the 90s, indeed that song has exactly the same plays as all other tracks from those two albums combined. Overall, both records perform rather poorly in this segment.

Streaming Part 4 – It’s My Life revival

Up to 2000, the career of Bon Jovi followed very closely the path of U2. Both bands started slow until getting a massive smash album in 1986/1987. Both held strong for a few years before slowing down a bit during the 90s. Both had an outstanding revival in 2000. For the Irish band, the song was Beautiful Day. For Bon Jovi, it was It’s My Life.

With over 85 million streams, that song status raised as high as their previous biggest hits, a rare feat so deep into a career. Unlike U2 though, Bon Jovi failed to capitalize on that success to keep on getting hit singles with everything coming next being moderate hits at best.

Streaming Part 5 – Hanging around

In spite of never smashing again, the band held some popularity still well into the 00s mostly thanks to two songs, Have A Nice Day and We Weren’t Bron to Follow. Interestingly, all those albums are better remembered nowadays than These Days even if that one was easily a bigger seller upon release.

Streaming Part 6 – Streaming Era

With What About Now, we get into the streaming era as this album was issued in 2013. This explains the higher consistency of its tracks in comparison to past records. The album still strongly lacked hits.

Songs from This House Is Not For Sale are still mostly unavailable within’ Spotify.

Streaming Part 7 – Jon Bon Jovi

Jon Bon Jovi are more of the same in comparison to Bon Jovi proper albums. Overall, both albums are fairly weak. His debut release title track Blaze Of Glory is surprisingly one of the band biggest hits in the US, which is highlighted there.

Streaming Part 8 – Orphan Album

Well, out of this long list of Orphan Album songs, there is only one to truly notice – Always. Closing in 42 million streams, this hit is the 5th biggest song of the band catalog.

Full Length related records Sales

As every act with such an extensive discography, Bon Jovi issued various compilations, box sets, live albums and music videos. Clearly, 1994 first best of album Crossroads is the biggest seller of all those sets but the band moved more records than just that one.

Part 1 – Compilations & Live

How to understand this table? If you check for example Crossroads compilation album line, those figures mean it sold 22,800,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all songs included on this package add for 442 million streaming plays on Spotify as of November 14th 2016.

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 Slippery When Wet songs are responsible for 62% of the Crossroads tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 14,026,000 of its 22,800,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

This first pack of full length include their major compilation Crossroads, their main live set One Wild Night Live as well as a local best of from Japan, Tokyo Road. All those packages came out at least one decade after the band debut which means they cover various albums. Still, hits of Slippery When Wet are so much bigger than anything else in the band discography that this album is responsible for more than 60% of all those packages sales. Guess what? This pattern will be verified again and again within’ upcoming records. The only other album that manages to get a relevant share of sales generated is Crush thanks to the smash It’s My Life.

Crossroads (1994)

• America
  • US – 7,200,000
  • Canada – 1,500,000
  • Argentina – 240,000
  • Brazil – N/A
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 1,700,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 825,000
  • New Zealand – 120,000
• Europe – 8,600,000
  • UK – 2,500,000
  • France – 525,000
  • Germany – 1,650,000
  • Italy – 650,000
  • Spain – 600,000
  • Sweden – 250,000
  • Netherland – 375,000
  • Switzerland – 200,000
  • Austria – 220,000
  • Finland – 124,000
• World – 22,800,000

Part 2 – Compilations & Box Sets

More of the same. As incredible as it seems, even 2010 career-spanning compilation Greatest Hits is still insanely dominated by Slippery When Wet in spite of covering as much as 12 albums. The Orphan Album has a decent share on it thanks to Always track.

It must be noted Polygram haven’t hesitated in removing completely some albums from best of releases. For example, many compilations have no tracks at all from These Days album.

Part 3 – Music Videos #1

With the exception of the few albums-themed music videos, all those packages are once again heavily oriented around Slippery When Wet hits.

Part 4 – Music Videos #2

More of the same once again! You must start wondering how many units their 1986 blockbuster amassed. Good news, results are just behind the window!

Bon Jovi Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all figures, how many overall album sales equivalent each Bon Jovi 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

As the band continued to release good selling efforts for long, it comes as a surprise to see Slippery When Wet with such a terrific domination among the group catalog. When I compiled all CSPC articles published so far a few weeks ago, this was the listing of biggest 80s albums. A pair of rock albums from the same era as Slippery When Wet ended up at #1 and #2, U2 set The Joshua Tree and Guns N’ Roses classic Appetite For Destruction, both at 46,5 million give or take half a million. Believe it or not, Bon Jovi 1986 smash steals the throne, dislodging them by a few millions. With overall CSPC sales topping 50 million, among all albums studied so far the only later album which tops it is Nirvana‘s Nevermind at 52 million. Impressive, I know.

With such a juggernaut in the middle it is tough to shine. This being said, at 19,6 million New Jersey appears to be a strongly successful record too while both Keep The Faith and Crush easily crack 10 million. This later album is poised to climb at fast rate in the future thanks to It’s My Life. This hasn’t happened already only because Greatest Hits, the first real best of containing that hit, came out as late as in 2010 fall. Maintaining a 3 million plus level during several decades, the band’s last three albums are showing a real drop in popularity in recent years.

In total, the group sold 144,1 million equivalent album sales through all formats. This cumulative figure is very close to the one of Metallica and Fleetwood Mac. While a good 50 million behind the likes U2 and Led Zeppelin, this total is quite mind-blowing nevertheless. Obviously, as the pair of Jon Bon Jovi albums managed 10 million CSPC sales on their own, pure Bon Jovi numbers stand at 134,1 million equivalent album sales. I’ll let all of you decide either or not you include those two albums into the band tally.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, Chartmasters.org.

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