CSPC: Wham! & George Michael Popularity Analysis
Original Album Sales – Comments – George Michael
1987 Faith – 18,850,000
1990 Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 – 7,800,000
1996 Older – 8,650,000
1999 Songs from the Last Century – 2,750,000
2004 Patience – 2,700,000
Passing away almost 30 years after his debut solo album, George Michael still released only five LPs, one of them being a cover album. That one, Songs from the Last Century, broke the artist’s status of being an active monster selling act. In fact, his first three records sold a combined 35,3 million copies while the latter two only push that mark to 40,75 million.
More often than not, sales distribution within all markets of an artist remains quite linear over the years. It wasn’t at all the case for the pop legend. Faith was an absolute blockbuster in North America, selling 12 million units there. Barely a decade after the end of that era, Songs from the Last Century was struggling to break the 200,000 units barrier in the same markets despite the all-time US peak market 1999 as a background.
On the other side, up to Older his sales remained brilliant in Europe with the 1996 set even topping Faith’s sales on the old continent.