France Album Sales: Michael Jackson
HIStory (1995) Era
After a history making feat of three million sellers, Michael Jackson was back in 1995 to do it again with HIStory. No matter how popular you are 1 million units in France is a truly high level that can’t be matched without a large fanbase. Selling a million requires truly big hits.
Creating hits is what the moonwalker always did the best.. This time they were titled Scream (#4), You Are Not Alone (#1), Earth Song (#2) and They Don’t Care About Us (#4) and occupied a Top 10 spot for 40 weeks combined.
The only album that removed Celine Dion’s unmatchable smash D’Eux from the top spot two weeks in a row, HIStory debuted with huge sales. During the seven months separating its release from the end of the year, singles kept the album going strong. It passed the Christmas season at #2 only behind the aforementioned D’Eux. This run shot the album to 800,000 sales, already close to the million mark.
As it was still #2 in early 1996, it was only a matter of time, especially since it never left the Top 10 during the first quarter of the year and the Top 20 during the second. By August, the album was confirmed at 1 million sales. Always inside the Top 10 just in time for Christmas 1996 and pushed back up to #3 in June 1997 by the HIStory Tour, it was one more unbelievable success story for Michael Jackson. The album completed its era at 1,4 million units sold.
The year 1997 was also the one of the remix album Blood On The Dancefloor. Debuting at #1 ahead of Andrea Bocelli 24-weeks #1 album Romanza, the album had little endurance considering its format. Eight weeks Top 10 and 350,000 by the end of the year was still quite impressive for a remix album.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- They Don’t Care About Us – 44,190,000
- Earth Song – 23,105,000
- You Are Not Alone – 21,989,000