Oasis albums and songs sales

More than 20 years after Oasis‘ peak, both Noel and Liam Gallagher shot to #1 in the UK this year, both with one of the Top 5 highest debuts of the year. This demonstrates how solid their following remains in their native country. One may wonder how they managed to create such a powerful fan base.

Obviously, if you can put Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Roll With It, Morning Glory, Champagne Supernova, Some Might Say and She’s Electric into the same studio album, you are very likely to perform well. The string of memorable smashes that Oasis dropped from 1994 to 1997 raised the band’s status from unknown guys to one of the biggest bands on Earth in no time. Their Beatles-esque style opened the door to ferocious debate and arguments in both commercial and artistic points of views. Even though the band has been past their peak for a while, those talks still continue to this day.

These discussions are fed with several myths. We can read everywhere that (What’s the story) Morning Glory? sold 22 million units to date, or that Definitely Maybe sold 15 million. As a wise reader of ChartMasters.org, you know that you have to take these claims with a pinch of salt – or two, or three pinches. On the other hand some argue that the group never broke into the mainstream of America. Unlike discussions surrounding stars from today which happen between fans and haters talks related to Oasis have been widely covered by all forms of media including the biggest ones.

The lack of accurate facts and objective comparisons based on reliable data prevented the argument from being solved. However, now is the time to solve that argument. At last, the answers are coming!

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

Definitely Maybe (1994)

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Be Here Now (1997)

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000)

Heathen Chemistry (2002)

Don’t Believe the Truth (2005)

Dig Out Your Soul (2008)

Original Album Sales – Comments

Definitely Maybe was a solid debut with more than 2 million sales prior to the release of Morning Glory. This sophomore effort put the band on a roll. Issued in October 1995, Morning Glory was up to 5 million sales by January 1996, 7 million by March and topped 10 million before the end of that year. This immense surge pushed catalog sales of its predecessor too and by March 1998 their first two albums had sold 18 million cumulatively.

This success led Be Here Now to record breaking sales when it debuted in August 1997. In the UK its first week, which was only 3 days, saw 663,389 sales be registered, the highest debut ever up to that point. Here is the interesting fact though: after the massive splash the album failed to have continuity, ending its road at 7,4 million units to date, almost the same number as units shipped upon release. We must then ponder how to regard this album. Is it a success because it sold 7 million copies or a flop because it completely destroyed the momentum of the band?

Oasis‘ 1997 situation is fairly close to what Taylor Swift is facing today. Both artists were / are ridiculously popular in their own country and both had their global sales questioned in spite of great sales (only because of the misguided comparison with their local sales). Be Here Now and Reputation debuted in their respective country with record breaking sales. Both were the top sellers of their year of release on the back of their fan base alone. Both had a #1 lead single that failed to be consistent. Both dropped fairly quickly. Although Swift has had a fan base established for a while, she is warned, she better get a hit soon if she wants to remain a A-League event.

Back to Oasis, their 2000s albums sold around 2 million each. At least they managed to remain consistent, although these figures are nowhere near good enough to claim to be a major global band, especially back in 2000 when the market was at its best.

In total Oasis sold 41 million units of their 7 studio albums combined, including 43% from Morning Glory alone.

This 1995 album sold over 5 million in the US. This is huge. It is impossible to argue the band never broke the main audience there considering this figure. Morning Glory is responsible for 63% of their US studio album sales though. Plus, the remaining two decent sellers sold half of their copies thanks to Morning Glory. In other words, if Oasis definitely cracked the US market, they were a one-album wonder there.

Were they mostly a local band then? Certainly not. While the band was undoubtedly much more consistent throughout their career in the UK than in the US, they remained a force up to their disbanding in several markets like Japan, Brazil and Italy.

1994 Definitely Maybe – 6,680,000
1995 (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? – 17,660,000
1997 Be Here Now – 7,410,000
2000 Standing on the Shoulder of Giants – 2,620,000
2002 Heathen Chemistry – 2,750,000
2005 Don’t Believe the Truth – 2,240,000
2008 Dig Out Your Soul – 1,690,000

Physical Singles Sales

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

Part 1

The singles chart history of Oasis is special. Each of their singles up to Wonderwall lasted at least 100 weeks inside the UK Top 200 chart. Back in the 90s that wasn’t the norm at all. Physical singles were available for a limited amount of time. They were selling like hot cakes which made it hard to hold on for many weeks. For example, none of Blur‘s first 10 singles lasted even 15 weeks. The hysteria was so big that fans felt the need to collect all their singles including songs promoted one or two years before.

As many as 83% of sales from Definitely Maybe‘s singles came from the UK and 84% for Roll With It. Their global breakthrough came with Wonderwall. The cult song sold 970,000 physical copies in the UK and 850,000 elsewhere, more than one fourth of which were shifted in the US.

With all their singles being surefire hits in their homeland the only singles with less than 300,000 sales are Morning Glory, Champagne Supernova and Don’t Go Away, three songs with releases limited to Australia or Japan. The lackluster performance of songs from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is obvious, explaining why this album sold so much less than its predecessors.

Definitely Maybe (1994) – 456,000 equivalent albums

Shakermaker – 350,000
Live Forever – 370,000
Supersonic – 390,000
Cigarettes & Alcohol – 410,000

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) – 1,334,000 equivalent albums

Roll With It – 690,000
Wonderwall – 1,820,000
Don’t Look Back In Anger – 1,060,000
Some Might Say – 810,000
Morning Glory – 50,000
Champagne Supernova – 15,000

Be Here Now (1997) – 639,000 equivalent albums

D’You Know What I Mean? – 1,130,000
Stand By Me – 570,000
Don’t Go Away – 40,000
All Around The World – 390,000

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000) – 246,000 equivalent albums

Go Let It Out – 490,000
Who Feels Love? – 170,000
Sunday Morning Call – 160,000

Part 2

Considering the highly negative reception of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, singles from Heathen Chemistry have been solid hits, although mostly in the UK. Due to the collapse of the physical singles’ market subsequent singles sold less and less. In fact, in spite of its 120,000 sales only, The Importance Of Being Idle was the first hit from the band to spend 5 weeks inside the Top 20 UK chart since 1997.

Among the orphan songs, Whatever, which was used as a bridge between Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory, is a million seller.

Heathen Chemistry (2002) – 279,000 equivalent albums

The Hindu Times – 330,000
Stop Crying Your Heart Out – 270,000
Songbird – 140,000
Little By Little – 190,000

Don’t Believe the Truth (2005) – 117,000 equivalent albums

Lyla – 190,000
The Importance Of Being Idle – 120,000
Let There Be Love – 80,000

Dig Out Your Soul (2008) – 30,000 equivalent albums

The Shock Of The Lightning – 60,000
I’m Outta Time – 20,000
Falling Down – 20,000

Orphan – 324,000 equivalent albums

Whatever – 1,040,000
Remaining Singles – 40,000

Digital Singles Sales

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

Part 1

Digital sales from Definitely Maybe‘s tracks appear to be somewhat average. Although tt contains two half a million sellers with Supersonic and Live Forever. The big numbers are once again to be seen inside the results of Morning Glory.

Their signature song is Wonderwall. At nearly 6 million this song is a phenomenal catalog seller. Half of these sales are made up of US downloads which proves the track remains a hot favorite there. Don’t Look Back in Anger would be the flagship of many bands with its 2,5 million sales. Surprisingly, this song is their most popular tune in most Asian countries, Japan included. It was Platinum there for 250,000 units sold this year and did even better in South Korea.

A radio smash back in the day in spite of never being released as a proper single, the popularity of Champagne Supernova remains strong. This track has now sold 1,5 million downloads and ringtones. As many as 7 more songs from Morning Glory have relevant sales, it builds a total of 11,4 million sales from this era in digital format.

Songs from Be Here Now are nowhere near as popular nowadays, although they top 1 million combined. The era Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is mostly forgotten.

Definitely Maybe (1994) – 276,000 equivalent albums

Slide Away – 130,000
Live Forever – 540,000
Supersonic – 540,000
Cigarettes & Alcohol – 250,000
Rock ‘N’ Roll Star – 180,000
Remaining tracks – 200,000

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) – 1,715,000 equivalent albums

Roll With It – 260,000
Wonderwall – 5,970,000
Don’t Look Back In Anger – 2,470,000
Some Might Say – 270,000
Morning Glory – 480,000
Champagne Supernova – 1,540,000
She’s Electric – 240,000
Remaining tracks – 200,000

Be Here Now (1997) – 188,000 equivalent albums

D’You Know What I Mean? – 230,000
Stand By Me – 610,000
Don’t Go Away – 280,000
All Around The World – 80,000
Remaining tracks – 50,000

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000) – 60,000 equivalent albums

Remaining tracks – 400,000

Part 2

Stop Crying Your Heart Out became a perennial seller for Oasis in the UK where it sells as well as Champagne Supernova on a yearly basis. Similarly, Little By Little and The Importance Of Being Idle retain a decent level of popularity.

Several early outtakes continue to be purchased like Acquiese, Whatever and Half the World Away, which have sold over 1 million downloads combined.

Heathen Chemistry (2002) – 158,000 equivalent albums

The Hindu Times – 80,000
Stop Crying Your Heart Out – 510,000
Songbird – 120,000
Little By Little – 290,000
Remaining tracks – 50,000

Don’t Believe the Truth (2005) – 132,000 equivalent albums

Lyla – 210,000
The Importance Of Being Idle – 310,000
Let There Be Love – 210,000
Remaining tracks – 150,000

Dig Out Your Soul (2008) – 84,000 equivalent albums

The Shock Of The Lightning – 200,000
I’m Outta Time – 120,000
Falling Down – 90,000
Remaining tracks – 150,000

Orphan – 207,000 equivalent albums

Acquiesce – 220,000
Lord Don’t Slow Me Down – 110,000
Whatever – 530,000
Half the World Away – 320,000
Remaining tracks – 200,000

Streaming Sales

Streaming is made up of two families – audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 132 million of the 212 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:

Audio Stream – 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream – 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Streaming Part 1

Definitely Maybe has a consistent and great streaming record. All its tracks are over 2 million streams on Spotify and five of them crack 10 million. Youtube views are similar, bringing the overall equivalent album sales to 161,000 units.

If numbers of Definitely Maybe are very good, those of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? are on a different level. Its main driving force is Wonderwall. This track has outstanding numbers with nearly 350 million streams on YouTube and even more on Spotify where it is quite simply the biggest pre-2000 of all time, easily topping the likes of Nirvana‘s Smells Like Teen Spirit, Journey‘s Don’t Stop Believin‘ and Michael Jackson‘s Billie Jean.

Don’t Look Back in Anger is a massive runner up too with 118 million streams on Spotify while Champagne Supernova comes third at 78 million. Four more songs are inside the 13-23 million range while all album tracks top 2,5 million. Its comprehensive total is 762,000 equivalent album sales from streams, a tremendous result.

Streaming Part 2

It may come as a surprise to see Heathen Chemistry nearly as high as Be Here Now on streams. Stop Crying Your Heart Out is almost tied with Stand By Me, both over 37 million on Spotify and 103 million on YouTube. Both contain one solid second song too with Don’t Go Away and Little by Little. Streams from the lead single of each era, D’You Know What I Mean? and The Hindu Times, are disappointing as neither of them reach 10 million on Spotify.

No song at all from Standing breaks this plateau. This album seriously lacks a hit to support it as has been the case since its release.

Streaming Part 3

The fan base of Oasis appears clearly on streams of Don’t Believe the Truth and Dig Out Your Soul. Songs issued as singles barely out-perform album cuts, this happens for unsuccessful albums from acts which own a highly dedicated fan base. They are both around 38,000 EAS from streams.

Streaming Part 4

Interestingly, Oasis has various relevant songs outside of their studio albums. Half the World Away is the strongest of all at 27 million streams on Spotify. The entire lists adds for 149,000 equivalent album sales.

Full Length related record Sales

It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era – studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams – to get the full picture of an album’s popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.

All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.

Part 1

How to understand this table? If you check for example the Stop the Clocks line, those figures mean it sold 2,710,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 929,000 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.

The second part on the right of the table shows how many equivalent streams are coming from each original album, plus the share it represents on the overall package. Thus, streaming figures tell us songs from the Definitely Maybe album are responsible for 14% of the Stop the Clocks track list attractiveness. This means it generated 376,000 of its 2,710,000 album sales and so forth for the other records.

The first three packages are specific as they merge together singles or outtakes. The first set that exploited Oasis‘ catalog is the live album Familiar to Millions from 2000. A huge 76% of its appeal comes from songs of Morning Glory? The same pattern appears for their best of albums, Stop the Clocks and Time Flies.

Part 2

Aside from their compilations Oasis released plenty of music videos, all of which sell rather well. The best example is There and Then, a 8xPlatinum record in the UK. All of them benefited massively from the success of Morning Glory which is responsible for at least 74% of their appeal.

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

(What’s the story) Morning Glory leads with a considerable margin Oasis’ catalog in terms of pure album sales, physical singles sales, download sales, and streaming but also in generated sales of compilations and music videos. The album has an overwhelming impact on their totals as more than 5 million out of the 7 million sales from their compilations come from this album. Apart from this, they also register nearly 3 million sales from unreleased material, mostly thanks to The Masterplan.

BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

• America
  • US – 8,655,000
  • Canada – 1,760,000
  • Argentina – N/A
  • Brazil – 910,000+
  • Mexico – 520,000+
• Asia – 6,825,000
  • Japan – 4,055,000
• Oceania
  • Australia – 1,005,000
  • New Zealand – 220,000
• Europe – 26,880,000
  • UK – 17,205,000
  • France – 1,650,000
  • Germany – 1,685,000
  • Italy – 1,590,000
  • Spain – 650,000
  • Sweden – 420,000
  • Netherland – 290,000
  • Switzerland – 275,000
  • Austria – 130,000
  • Finland – 100,000
• World – 48,720,000

Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.

OASIS CAREER CSPC RESULTS

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Oasis achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in 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

(What’s the story) Morning Glory? finishes its impressive run of sales from every format on 26,55 million equivalent album sales. There is no way to discredit this total. Its ongoing catalog sales and streams are also mind-blowing allowing it to climb more and more.

Definitely Maybe and Be Here Now fail to reach 10 million units overall, a disappointing result considering all the claims made about those albums. With that said the figures are still very solid.

The drop of fame which happened with Standing on the Shoulder of Giants has been brutal and the band was never able to recover fully. The album remains on 3 million almost the same as its follow ups Heathen Chemistry and Don’t Believe the Truth. The band’s last album Dig Out Your Soul closes the list with 1,9 million sales.

In total, Oasis has moved 58,7 million equivalent album sales. This puts them at the bottom of the Top 50 all-time biggest bands. People who flagged them as the new Beatles may see this number as lower than expected. If we ignore the unrealistic comparisons, making the all-time Top 50 of your category is an amazing achievement. It must be said that the UK alone represents an insane 21,7 million units of their sales. This makes them one of the very top selling acts ever there and explains the distinct perception of their success one may have depending on where they live.

The following sections list their most successful songs as well as their records and achievements.

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

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Sony Reports, Chartmasters.org.

BIGGEST TRACKS – Oasis

The list of most successful songs is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each of them. It includes the song’s own physical singles sales with a 0,3 weighting, its download and streaming sales, and with appropriate weighting too, plus its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

1 1995 – Wonderwall [(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?] – 14,920,000
2 1995 – Don’t Look Back In Anger [(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?] – 5,180,000
3 1997 – Stand By Me [Be Here Now] – 3,750,000
4 1994 – Live Forever [Definitely Maybe] – 2,950,000
5 1995 – Champagne Supernova [(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?] – 2,840,000
6 1994 – Supersonic [Definitely Maybe] – 2,040,000
7 1997 – Don’t Go Away [Be Here Now] – 2,020,000
8 2002 – Stop Crying Your Heart Out [Heathen Chemistry] – 1,760,000
9 1994 – Cigarettes & Alcohol [Definitely Maybe] – 1,130,000
10 1997 – D’You Know What I Mean? [Be Here Now] – 1,120,000

Records & Achievements

• At 369 million streams on Spotify, Wonderwall is the most streamed pre-2000 song.
• At 14,92 million equivalent album sales, Wonderwall is the 2nd most successful song from 1995.
• At 26,55 million equivalent album sales, (What’s the story) Morning Glory? is the 4th most successful album from 1995.
• At 5,115,000 copies sold, (What’s the story) Morning Glory? is the second best selling studio album of all-time in the UK.
• At 663,389 copies sold, Be Here Now was the fastest selling album ever on a weekly basis in the UK until 2015. It remains the fastest selling album by a band as well as the fastest selling album ever on a daily basis.
• At 282 weeks, Oasis has the most weeks on the Top 75 UK Singles Chart of the 90s.
• At 134 weeks in 1996, Oasis has the most weeks on the Top 75 UK Singles Chart inside a calendar year ever for a band.
• Wonderwall is the only track ever in the UK with sales over 500,000 units in all three distinct music formats – physical, digital and streaming.

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