France Album Sales: Mariah Carey
The Emancipation Of Mimi (2005) Era
A decade past her hey-days, Mariah Carey was still a decent selling force in France among international catalog. With her 2005 album The Emancipation Of Mimi, Â she aimed to recover her past popularity in the American market.
She obviously did, selling a massive 6 million units in the process in the US. If R&B songs hit a more restricted market in France, hits remain hits and do sell albums. The Emancipation Of Mimi start wasn’t big in spite of the #4 position it debuted on, as this was due to the low period of competition on which the set was released. Sales of 11,627 were less than 5% of Charmbracelet total and obviously not setting up a good start to reach at least Gold by the end of its run.
Down to #70 by week 8, the album life was looking worse and worse as It’s Like That #16 single wasn’t helping it at all. We Belong Together changed the map yet. Despite of a relatively modest #12 peak, the song was an airplay smash, boosting The Emancipation Of Mimi from #73 to #11 within’ a couple of months.
With 137,000 retail sales during 2005 after nine months of sales, this album can be regarded as a disappointment still. In fact, ultimately it sold way less than Charmbracelet. Not only that, Island believed a lot in this album, making it the third most promoted artist on radio for the year with investments topping 1 million euros while the album was only the #58 seller of 2005. This kind of weak returns on investment are not only negative for the current release, they are also often accompanied by much lower marketing budget for upcoming records especially in a decreasing market context.
In 2006, Mariah Carey albums ranked in the year end Top 500 combined for 67,000 units, despite none of them hitting 40,000 and the cut-off being on 22,000 units. Do the math’s, she had two albums ranked, each selling a bit more than 30,000 units. Just on that mark was The Emancipation Of Mimi that was ending its run. On 35,000 units was her 2001 compilation The Essential which was re-released in March, out-peaking its original #12 position by ranking #3 with nearly 7,000 weekly sales.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- We Belong Together – 36,371,000
- Shake It Off – 8,184,000
- It’s Like That – 6,286,000