Michael Bublé albums and songs sales

It’s time! After The Weeknd and Shania Twain we continue our Canadian road trip with one more stop today. As we get closer to Christmas, holidays habits come back to the surface. Since 2011, Michael Buble made his spot among those habits with his blockbuster album Christmas.

This recurring success story has been so widely reported that we almost forgot the artist issued many albums before. We even barely noticed he dropped a fresh new album Nobody But Me a only couple of months ago. Obviously, this is also due to the fact the singer put his career on hold doing no promotion for that record. In fact, during the release week of that album, the singer’s 3-years-old son was diagnosed with a cancer. He is receiving treatments at the moment. We can only wish Michael Buble‘s family all the best during this difficult period, hoping his little kid will recover as soon as possible.

Back to the music industry, so far we covered several post-2000 superstars, mostly divas, rap masters and pop / rock bands. Very few artists outside of those boxes made it big in recent years. Just like Rihanna, Drake or Coldplay, all of them have a huge appeal in the digital area. On the other side, all acts massively driven by physical sales are older ones a la Billy Joel or Celine Dion.

We may wonder how an artist in-between those two profiles is performing. The perfect study case is Michael Buble, a relatively young artist who targets an adult contemporary audience. How well is he translating into the digital world? How does he stand against huge pop stars in terms of overall sales?

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

Michael Bublé (2003)

• America
  • US – 3,100,000
  • Canada – 625,000
  • Argentina – 30,000
  • Brazil – 40,000
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 90,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 725,000
  • New Zealand – 55,000
• Europe – 2,360,000
  • UK – 975,000
  • France – 80,000
  • Germany – 250,000
  • Italy – 460,000
  • Spain – 125,000
  • Sweden – 15,000
  • Netherland – 60,000
  • Switzerland – 20,000
  • Austria – 15,000
  • Finland – N/A
• World – 7,250,000

It’s Time (2005)

• America
  • US – 3,950,000
  • Canada – 875,000
  • Argentina – 35,000
  • Brazil – 55,000
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 75,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 550,000
  • New Zealand – 40,000
• Europe – 3,040,000
  • UK – 925,000
  • France – 140,000
  • Germany – 475,000
  • Italy – 575,000
  • Spain – 95,000
  • Sweden – 35,000
  • Netherland – 180,000
  • Switzerland – 60,000
  • Austria – 30,000
  • Finland – N/A
• World – 8,850,000

Call Me Irresponsible (2007)

Crazy Love (2009)

Christmas (2011)

To Be Loved (2013)

Nobody but Me (2016)

• America
  • US – 250,000
  • Canada – 80,000
  • Argentina – N/A
  • Brazil – 10,000
  • Mexico – N/A
• Asia
  • Japan – 10,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 60,000
  • New Zealand – 5,000
• Europe – 490,000
  • UK – 300,000
  • France – 15,000
  • Germany – 75,000
  • Italy – 15,000
  • Spain – 10,000
  • Sweden – N/A
  • Netherland – 10,000
  • Switzerland – 5,000
  • Austria – 5,000
  • Finland – N/A
• World – 950,000

Original Album Sales – Comments

2003 Michael Bublé – 7,250,000
2005 It’s Time – 8,850,000
2007 Call Me Irresponsible – 7,200,000
2009 Crazy Love – 8,650,000
2011 Christmas – 11,600,000
2013 To Be Loved – 3,300,000
2016 Nobody but Me – 950,000

As you can see this list doesn’t include his very first two LPs BaBalu and Dream that he released independently and locally only, getting irrelevant sales. Tracks from those records got repackaged afterwards on various true label albums which will be reviewed in later pages.

With five consecutive albums from 7,2 to 11,6 million, the first instinctive comment we think about is how incredibly consistent the artist has been. More than the consistency though, I would like to highlight the strength of those figures. During the last 13 years, there isn’t that many albums that topped 7 million units, yet all first five Michael Buble LPs did it.

How does that compare with other artists from the same era? The first five studio albums of Taylor Swift sold a combined 38,6 million, those from Rihanna moved 25,3 million copies. Michael Buble ones add for an impressive 43,5 million. Christmas is even stronger on his own as only Adele juggernauts 21 and 25 outsold it since its 2011 release. All together, his studio albums shipped as much as 47,8 million to date.

Obviously, album sales don’t represent the whole picture as Rihanna or Taylor Swift popularity is also shown through their digital sales. At first, we may expect Michael Buble singles sales to be rather low but sometimes feelings can be wrong…

Physical Singles Sales

Michael Buble never had a Top 10 Single in the US Hot 100. His career peak is #24. Nor he had a top 10 in Germany or in France, plus he made it only one time in the UK.

Combining all his physical singles, his tally is logically a modest 770,000 units. Translated into equivalent album sales, physical singles from each of his eras brought in less than 1% of their respective album sales.

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

Michael Bublé (2003) – 63,000 equivalent albums

Sway – 50,000
Spider-Man Theme – 60,000
Remaining Singles – 100,000

It’s Time (2005) – 60,000 equivalent albums

Feeling Good – 80,000
Home – 100,000
Save the Last Dance for Me – 20,000

Call Me Irresponsible (2007) – 66,000 equivalent albums

Everything – 120,000
Lost – 50,000
Remaining Singles – 50,000

Crazy Love (2009) – 27,000 equivalent albums

Haven’t Met You Yet – 40,000
Remaining Singles – 50,000

Orphan Album – 15,000 equivalent albums

Let It Snow! – 50,000

Digital Singles Sales

Download singles destroyed the whole concept of albums and singles. As soon as you can pick any track you want at any time you want, downloading songs can perfectly replace the purchase of an album.

This fact is very visible within’ Michael Buble download singles sales. At a cumulative 35,4 million, they are utterly impressive considering the very little impact of his songs on charts. As the artist wasn’t at all a singles seller during the physical era, this means those singles downloads replaced in fact albums purchases. His biggest download hit so far remains Haven’t Met You Yet at 4,8 million.

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

Michael Bublé (2003) – 495,000 equivalent albums

Sway – 900,000
Remaining tracks – 2,400,000

It’s Time (2005) – 1,245,000 equivalent albums

Feeling Good – 1,900,000
Home – 3,600,000
Save the Last Dance for Me – 1,100,000
Remaining tracks – 1,700,000

Call Me Irresponsible (2007) – 1,140,000 equivalent albums

Everything – 3,400,000
Me and Mrs. Jones – 800,000
Lost – 1,900,000
Remaining tracks – 1,500,000

Crazy Love (2009) – 1,305,000 equivalent albums

Haven’t Met You Yet – 4,800,000
Cry Me a River – 1,200,000
Remaining tracks – 2,700,000

Christmas (2011) – 645,000 equivalent albums

All I Want for Christmas Is You – 400,000
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas – 700,000
White Christmas – 300,000
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – 300,000
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town – 300,000
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – 300,000
Holly Jolly Christmas – 300,000
Remaining tracks – 1,700,000

To Be Loved (2013) – 330,000 equivalent albums

It’s a Beautiful Day – 800,000
Remaining tracks – 1,400,000

Nobody but Me (2016) – 45,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 300,000

Orphan Album – 105,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 700,000

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 – Maybe irresponsible, surely successful

Out of those three albums that got released years before the streaming era we can extract three kind of songs.

First, there is some impressive hits. Feeling Good, Home and Everything are all over 50 million streams, a fairly solid showing. Those songs do not have much to envy pop stars big catalog hits. Second, there is moderate hits which include Sway, Save the Last Dance for Me, Me and Mrs. Jones and Lost. Third, there is all remaining album tracks. Each and every song from those three albums crack the 2 million mark, way better than results of various classic rock albums. Those figures testify that streaming isn’t only for pop stars, a Jazz crooner can perfectly achieve a sizeable success there.

Streaming Part 2 – Crazy Christmas Love

The album Crazy Love pretty much repeats the pattern of the previous three records at a slightly higher level with all songs over 3,5 million. All told, streams of its songs equal to 300,000 album sales.

Then, there is Christmas. With no track crossing 100 million so far, the album still registered enough streams to amass more than 1 million equivalent album sales, an unreal result. Right now, it is getting streams worth 10,000 album sales every day.

Streaming Part 3 – No More So Loved

Interestingly, although a much weaker album seller, To Be Loved performed well in streaming world. Of course, it came out when streams were already available but they exploded latter so the album didn’t had that much of an advantage. Near 300,000 units are a very nice addition to the total of the album.

On its side, Nobody But Me has been struggling a lot. It has yet to be seen if the album will be able to turn things around with a proper hit.

Streaming Part 4 – Orphan Album

Full Length related records Sales

Michael Buble never issued a best of album. Various EPs and packages of all kinds came out though with pre-fame recordings and outtakes, as well as a few live albums, several of which sold pretty well.

How to understand this table? If you check for example Caught In The Act live album line, those figures mean it sold 1,500,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all songs included on this package add for 219 million streaming plays on Spotify as of December 10th 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 It’s Time songs are responsible for 71% of the Caught In The Act tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 1,058,000 of its 1,500,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

A very atypical case appears here with most of Let It Snow EP sales going to Christmas, although the latter having been released after the former. It would have been an option to define Let It Snow as a stand-alone album but as it is an EP that came out very anonymously at first, I decided to let it apart with Orphan Album category. Several of its songs then appeared on Christmas which explains why sales of the EP are going into the album.

Michael Buble Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all figures, how many overall equivalent album sales each Michael Buble 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

CSPC surely puts everything in its right place. As successful as it has been, this is quite logical to see Christmas no higher than albums like Justin Bieber‘s Purpose or Ed Sheeran‘s X that market a full 12-18 months period. Considering how incredibly strong it keeps going, one can only guess how high it will climb. If no other holiday set replaces it in the singer’s discography, I would expect this album to reach 20 million as early as in 2019.

Similarly, it is only a matter of time before each of the artist first four albums reach 10 million equivalent album sales. It’s Time got there already at 12 million while Crazy Love will do it within’ a few weeks.

Undoubtedly, To Be Loved and then Nobody But Me have been two strong drops in comparison to their predecessors. The former keeps climbing and has a respectable result nevertheless. The latter is definitely needing a successful single once the Christmas hype is over.

In total, the vocalist sold 62,2 million albums equivalent units through all formats. This is almost as much as Katy Perry and Amy Winehouse combined and also on par or higher with Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber overall totals. In conclusion, you do not need to be all over gossips papers to sell records!

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

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, Chartmasters.org.

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