CSPC: NSYNC Popularity Analysis
At the turn of the millennium three teen acts were huge in the US, the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and NSYNC. The latter is the only one we haven’t study so far. It took 15 years and Adele to break their record of 2,4 million units sold of No Strings Attached in its first week alone.
It wasn’t a fluke, as the second fastest selling album of the Soundscan era prior 2015, was also theirs since Celebrity debuted with 1,88 million units sold. Was the teen group led by Justin Timberlake really that big? Was it only in the US where they found success? Or were they a global phenomenon?
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 NSYNC‘s albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming, but 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.
I found two additional sales numbers:
NSYNC’s self-titled album sold 300,000 copies in Germany according to this site but it already sold more than 300,000 in 1997 (Billboard December 6, 1997).
The Winter Album also seems to be too low.
It supposedly sold 60,000 copies worldwide but it already sold 159,000 as of 1999 (Billboard March 20, 1999).
Where is their Greatest Hits album?
Page 13. Remaining long format.
As per RIAA (US) No strings attached sold 11m, backstreet boys 14m, millenium 13m (as of 2001)..both bsb album surpassed nsync’s ..as artists nsync sold 28m, bsb sold 37m
as per nielsen soundscan (north america) for the bestselling albums of all time #6 millenium-12.29m, #12 nsa-11.18m
#23 backstreet boys 10.17m #36 nsync-8.87m
therefore, bsb outsold nsync in the us..
NSYNC certified 10xP on January 5th,2000. Soundscan sales was 7.7m by the end of 1999 (according to 1998 and 1999 year-end charts),and now it was 8.863m acc to billboard by 2018.That’s 1.163m Soundscan sales since the end of 1999. NSYNC was 33th best selling album of the week 2000-01-01,so I think it should still be around 1 million at least Sundscan sales since last certification. Thinking of club sales, My estimation for the album is at least 11,150,000. What do you think, MJD?
euhm No Strings Attached sold 14.5M in the United States
Hi Dan Gomes!
Says who? 😉
Says this https://www.webcitation.org/5jW8qIpnZ?url=http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=47877
This gives their BMG sales, which are already factored in. Where does it says that album sold 14.5 million in the US?
NSYNC’s debut certified 10xP on January 5th,2000. Soundscan sales was 7.7m by the end of 1999 (according to 1998 and 1999 year-end charts),and now it was 8.863m acc to billboard by 2018.That’s 1.163m Soundscan sales since the end of 1999. NSYNC was 33th best selling album of the week 2000-01-01,so I think it should still be around 1 million at least Sundscan sales since last certification. I think the total should be at 11.1million. What do you think,MJD?
Hi dhhd,
Shipments and retail sales are different things. The 10 platinum award from January 2000 included all shipments from 1999 Xmas season, which includes a lot of copies sold at retail after the RIAA award. It’s possible to add new Soundscan sales to RIAA awards for old releases with few copies left on shelves, but doing so on a Christmas fueled certification at the all-time peak of physical sales can only bring to very flawed results.
Then how do you estimate the 10.9 million figure for NSYNC?And,why do you estimate Britney’s third album at 5.2 million while its SoundScan plus BMG sales was under 5 million, but Oops was at 10.44 million combined Soundscan and BMG but you estimated it at only 10.5 million. In The Zone’s US sales was estimated at 3.3 million, but soundscan sales was at 3 million, and music club sales was only 5% and I remember it was not on BMG or Columbia.
Haven’t u seen his respond on ur Whitney’s comment. The Britney album as well as her other albums hasnt been audited for years. Same case as Whitney.
SoundScan is audited at any time and BMG ended in 2003.
It is not audited at any time. The data is there it just hasnt been updated/published publicly. Artist or record labels need to apply for album sales review before it is released to the public. Since “Nsync” & “Britney” are barely selling anything much lately. I dont think they are in a rush to request for an audit right now as they are barely going to make that much money from royalties.
Yeah it does have 14 .5 m sales in the USA on the Wikipedia site of the album
Hah. I knew right from the very beginning that Nsync was extremely local. I was right. Their sales was nowhere near Britney nor BSB. Justin did the right move by dating Britney. It gave him the opportunity to introduce himself to the world, and is very useful for the build up of his solo career.
I’m wondering about a similar comparison between Take That and Robbie Williams, at the moment. Who would have higher CSPC in your opinion?
Good sales I may say for 3 studio albums. They should not have stopped,
So this puts NSYNC at less than half the backstreet boys, which totally makes sense. I always felt their music didn’t quite compare…it had a cheaper sound and seemed like they were just riding the boy band trend rather than leading it.
no nsync music is better than backstreet boys. Americans prefer nsync since nsync sold over 1m in its first day and 9.94m in one year breaking the soundscan history.
Backstreet boys first 3 albums has bigger sales than Nsync 3 album sales in the US though, and with a pretty big lead too. So im pretty sure BSB was bigger. I wouldnt say Nsync’s music sounds cheaper. Nsync target audience is concentrated a lot more towards teenagers. Among teens Nsync is probably bigger than BSB in the US. But BSB is pretty big among older women too. So their target audience is more diverse. As far Nsync music are cheaper or not, that one is very subjective. At the end of the day, literally all of the singles that… Read more »
That’s only because Backstreet Boys sold more catolog sales. NSA sold 1 million in first day and 9.93 million in 9 months, breaking SoundScan all-time history. Their third album also sold 1.9 million in first week. At their peak, NSYNC has more hard fan obviously.
And that’s where you’re wrong!! Nsync was far superior to bsb especially when it came to TALENT but everytime the nsync vs bsb conversation comes up it never seems to be about TALENT….but my thing about you are saying nsync had a “cheaper” sound but then it seems to me you are clearly judging them based on singles nsync and bsb music was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT nsync was wayyy more urban and this is where strong dumb statements like bsb “could sing better” and “music was better” because most of nsync singles were the hype fun dance type tracks then you… Read more »
I think Justin will have sold less. Maybe:
85 M digital sales
25 M albums
2.5 M streaming
40-43 M
But he sold more record
Albums also are records. An album has 12 records, so NSYNC sold more records also.