CSPC: Usher Popularity Analysis

Physical Singles Sales – Part 1

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

Usher (1994) – 101,000 equivalent albums

Can U Get Wit It – 140,000
Think Of You – 170,000
The Many Ways – 25,000

My Way (1997) – 1,920,000 equivalent albums

You Make Me Wanna… – 3,100,000
Nice & Slow – 1,710,000
My Way – 1,590,000

8701 (2001) – 411,000 equivalent albums

U Remind Me – 920,000
U Got It Bad – 330,000
U Don’t Have to Call – 20,000
U-Turn – 100,000

Failing to succeed on his first attempt, Usher hasn’t miss it twice. You Make Me Wanna… was a tremendous seller in the US, moving an impressive 2,3 million units. Nice & Slow and My Way sold near 3 million combined there. One of the rare albums that saw its singles sell more than 5 million units in physical format in the US alone, My Way hits were that big in remaining markets though.

Ironically, while 8701 sold similar amounts as My Way – both near 7,5 million units – its singles sold way less. By 2001 the norm was to hold the release of physical singles in the US in order to boost sales of the parent album. U Remind Me was still issued on that format, helping the song to jump from #21 to #1, sales were already low. As Usher was nowhere near as big elsewhere than in the US, the disappearance of the physical singles market on that country concluded on a much lower selling era post-1998.