CSPC: Shakira Popularity Analysis

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.

For most artists, live and compilations sales got generated by singles of their biggest albums, which is quite normal as it usually features the artist biggest hits. This isn’t the case at all for Shakira. Both MTV Unplugged and Grandes Exitos sold very well and both are massively driven by songs of Dónde Están los Ladrones?. This is why there isn’t that much of a gap in album sales between that album and Pies Descalzos in spite of its arguably more popular songs, because quickly after its release its sales got translated into different packages.