CSPC: Prince Popularity Analysis

Original Album Sales – Comments

1978 For You – 950,000
1979 Prince – 2,080,000
1980 Dirty Mind – 1,540,000
1981 Controversy – 2,320,000
1982 1999 – 7,010,000
1984 Purple Rain – 23,030,000
1985 Around the World in A Day – 5,000,000
1986 Parade – 4,560,000
1987 Sign ‘O’ The Times – 5,250,000
1988 Lovesexy – 3,390,000
1989 Batman – 6,680,000
1990 Graffiti Bridge – 2,550,000
1991 Diamonds And Pearls – 7,100,000
1992 Love Symbol Album – 3,020,000
1994 Come – 1,270,000
1995 The Gold Experience – 1,130,000
1996 Chaos & Disorder – 450,000
1996 Emancipation – 1,420,000
1998 New Power Soul – 400,000
1999 The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale – 300,000
1999 Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic – 820,000
2001 The Rainbow Children – 320,000
2004 Musicology – 2,830,000
2006 3121 – 1,080,000
2007 Planet Earth – 520,000
2009 LotusFlow3r – 700,000
2014 Plectrumelectrum – 190,000
2014 Art Official Age – 350,000
2015 Hit n Run Phase One – 180,000
2015 Hit n Run Phase Two – 150,000

The improbable trajectory of Prince results into atypical results. His last pair of HITnRUN albums were struggling to hit 100,000 sales before his death, a chaotic number for an artist that tops 23 million units moved with his classic Purple Rain.

Sales of that 1984 blockbuster make everything else look weak. In all fairness, all albums from 1999 to Love Symbol Album, his last before his conflict with Warner Music, shifted very solid numbers.

From that point, the icon remained prolific but without the support of a label and without even the right to use his name his sales collapsed. Most records got special releases from concert ticket bundles to units paired with newspapers going through albums issued only on his website. You may notice many more albums are missing, they are precisely the ones that weren’t issued on traditional outlets. Giving their special nature, they have been added to the orphan section rather than listed here.

In spite of all limitations, these albums add for a sizable 86,7 million units.