CSPC: Simon & Garfunkel Popularity Analysis

Digital Singles Sales

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

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964) – 176,000 equivalent albums

The Sound of Silence – 1,050,000
Remaining tracks – 120,000

Sounds of Silence (1966) – 507,000 equivalent albums

The Sound of Silence – 2,550,000
I Am a Rock – 300,000
Kathy’s Song – 250,000
April Come She Will – 220,000
Remaining tracks – 60,000

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966) – 186,000 equivalent albums

Scarborough Fair / Canticle – 480,000
Homeward Bound – 400,000
Remaining tracks – 360,000

Bookends (1968) – 353,000 equivalent albums

America – 420,000
Mrs. Robinson – 1,630,000
Remaining tracks – 300,000

Bridge over Troubled Water (1970) – 903,000 equivalent albums

Bridge over Troubled Water – 2,250,000
El Condor Pasa (If I Could) – 920,000
Cecilia – 770,000
The Boxer – 1,470,000
Remaining tracks – 610,000

Orphan – 27,000 equivalent albums

All tracks – 180,000

With The Sound of Silence, I’m forced to do something that has never been done before: splitting it into two albums. The song is known through its acoustic and electric versions available on their first 2 albums. The problem is that while Spotify has both versions, they are shown with a unique count of streams so we need to identify another way to split it.

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M and Sounds of Silence sold 7,69 million combined, 27,8% from the former and 72,2% from the latter. Similarly, their streams for tracks outside of The Sound of Silence are split 29,4%-70,6%. To stay consistent with these figures, we will assign 28,6% of the song’s digital results to  Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M and 71,4% to Sounds of Silence. We have a first example here as the song’s 3,6 million downloads and ringtones are spread just like this.

Continuing on downloads, Simon & Garfunkel songs aren’t as strong as one could have expect. They are still healthy at more than 6 million for songs from Bridge Over Troubled Water and an average of 2 million from the remaining 4 eras.