France Album Sales: Celine Dion
PART V: The revival 2012-TBD
Sans Attendre (2012) Era
Going down from 3,6 million to 1,65 million to less than 800,000 to 286,000, two-years sales of previous Celine Dion French albums were dropping like a stone album to album since her legendary D’Eux.
Her status still seemed too big to go anywhere under that last 286,000 units figure. The Sans Attendre album lead single Parler A Mon Père started slowly in early July 2012 at #32 and was down to #85 by week 3. After four months of steady climb, the single peaked at an impressive #8 position in mid-November. Impressive considering this result was already reflecting digital sales, thus displaying a strong widespread appeal even in the 15-25 years range community.
This first hit in many years resulted in outstanding sales for the album. It started with nearly 95,000 units, way better than the 55,000 copies sold by D’Elles. The huge difference was in following weeks as Sans Attendre held extremely well. It dropped to #2 in second week only due to Johnny Hallyday (once again) new L’Attente album debuted at #1. Ironically, both similarily titled albums (Without Waiting and The Wait) share L’Amour Peut Prendre Froid duet from both superstars. All Christmas period long, Sans Attendre remained on fire. It dropped to 36,000 units low point on week 3 and then climbed all the way to #1 just in time for Christmas week with a gigantic 141,000 copies sold. After a mere eight weeks in 2012 the album had shifted 569,000 units, already over Diamond (500,000) status.
In 2013 the album had the standard trajectory of a successful fall album meaning strong January month then quick drop lower down the charts with no more big promotion machines used and then a great middle run resistance thanks to continuous airplay of the era hits. The album sold 170,000 units for the year. The fact popular song Parler A Mon Père was still not available on a compilation made Sans Attendre become a big catalog seller. It charted 33 weeks in 2014, 5 in 2015 and 8 so far in 2016.
This impressive return to huge sales pushed both D’Eux and On Ne Change Pas back on comprehensive Top 200 chart on a regular basis, plus Au Coeur Du Stade and D’Elles for one week each.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- Parler A Mon Père – 2,113,000
- Le Miracle – 710,000
- Qui Peut Vivre Sans Amour? – 464,000