CSPC: Imagine Dragons Popularity Analysis
Rock is dead. We hear this sentence since decades. Don McLean famously regarded 2/3/1959 as the day the music died after the tragic passing of Buddy Holly. Many claim the Woodstock wheel was broken by the poor output of 1974. Others consider that 1991 was the last breath of the genre. From Coldplay to Linkin Park to Nickelback to Green Day, various bands proved kind of recently that rock can still attract the masses. The last group to illustrate this fact is no other than Imagine Dragons.
Obviously, purists will argue that creativity-wise the band doesn’t bring much. Commercial success and critical acclaim are two distinct things though. Since the release of the single It’s Time, Imagine Dragons has been at the top of the game. Both Radioactive and Demons made their first era, Night Visions, a blockbuster. One of the questions of today’s review is the ranking of that album for the year 2012. So far, out of every artist that has been analyzed, the top performer is Unorthodox Jukebox by Bruno Mars with 13,829,000 units sold through all formats combined. Will Night Visions top it? Another question is about the position of the band among the biggest rock groups of the decade. Are they currently bigger than Coldplay or is that still too much to ask?
In fact, the last 18 months have been massive for the band. Singles of their third album Evolve have been strongly successful. Their new song Natural is gaining strength quickly and a new song is announced for tomorrow. How much can they continue to smash?
As usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge their results. This concept will not only bring you sales information for all Imagine Dragons‘s albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. In fact, it will also determine their true popularity. If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, the next page explains it with a short video. I fully recommend watching the video before getting into the sales figures. Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to skip the video and get into the figures.
Weren’t they supposed to get an update after P!nk?
Updated figures (2021)
Night Visions (2012) – 7,000,000 equivalent albums
Radioactive – 18,815,000
They just did a massive certifications update on US and now have 89.5 million records sold. It would be interesting having a breakdown of pure sales now, specially with a new album coming!
I guess it’s confirmed that Reputation is at 6m+. I wonder what it’s total CSPC is.
It is at 8.3 million cspc. Hdd and chartdata confirmed numbers. She is at 79.8 million album sales csps.
Hi Emre! HDD figures used a 1500 to 1 ratio for video streams which we don’t. Her numbers won’t be nearly as high once we update them.
Wow Night Visions competing with some of the biggest albums of the decade is shocking yet in hindsight i could see why as Imagine Dragons were all over the place when they debuted with this.
Thanks for this one! I’ve been looking forward to seeing how a newer rock era (Night visions) would compare to big ones from previous decades. I thought the total was going to be a little bit higher, not going to lie. But like you mentioned in the article, Night Visions is the second biggest album of 2012 so put that way, it really was a smash. I’m a fan of this band, however I feel much of their music is starting to sound quite similar. They found a formula and seem to stick to it. I hope they can experiment… Read more »
agree they are getting to shouty esp on the choruses. But I love Night Visions as a whole album. Evolve is more of if to compare like Coldplays a head full of dreams,everything is too commercial. Then Origins is somehow still similar but a little better but people tend to be a little tired of them maybe? as it wasnt as noticed as evolve. we can say its a flop just lie their 2nd album was.