France Album Sales: Mylène Farmer
Ainsi Soit Je… (1988) Era
By 1987, Mylène Farmer had already started to build her fanbase with a strong and loyal following, she hadn’t attracted the masses still. This issue was solved a few months later.
Some weeks after Tristana, the last single of the debut album, dropped out of the Top 50 Singles Chart, a new song came out. It was Sans Contrefaçon, the leading single from the upcoming second album, Ainsi Soit Je…
As controversial as ever – she claims to be a boy in the song lyrics and video – Mylène Farmer was all over FM airwaves by 1987 holiday season. Sans Contrefaçon became her third Top 10 hit but it was arguably bigger than the previous two with a #2 peak and 10 weeks inside the Top 10. The album obviously benefited from both the growing fanbase and the single smash to debut at #8. Both Sans Contrefaçon and then the title track supported the album during various months. For 28 weeks, the LP never dropped below #26 with a #6 peak on its 5th/6th frame – charts were still bi-weekly at the time.
Thanks to this consistency the album was targeting a Platinum record by the end of its run, e.g. 300,000 sales. Her first album made the artist some kind of cult underground star. The first singles of her new record enabled her to step up into a real music star. The third single was going to improve her league even more to reach nationwide super stardom. It was Pourvu Qu’Elles Soient Douces issued in September 1988. This ground-breaking five weeks #1 became instantly cult. Much more than just a hit single, the song pushed the album 23-11-5-4-3-1 during the last quarter to top the Christmas chart.
After some 500,000 sales during 1988, the train kept going strong in 1989. Two more singles came out, #10 hit Sans Logique and #16 single A Quoi Je Sers. The lower singles peaks were due to the album sales to date being higher and higher, reducing the number of available buyers. In fact, they were still very convincing by dominating radios playlists and maintaining the album inside the Top 25 during the complete year of 1989, including 28 frames inside the Top 10. Such stability concluded on a Diamond award celebrated in November 14 of that year.
It took until December 1989 before the album started to lose traction. It was due to the release of En Concert, a live record appearing as some kind of early best of, reducing the catalog appeal of studio albums. Mylène Farmer was so hyped at the time that even a live album like that one went 2xGold for 200,000 units shipped within’ a month. This record peaked at #9 in January, it sold an estimated 225,000 by the end of 1990, a time by which Ainsi Soit Je… was on 1,2 million.
A last word must be said about Cendres De Lune. As it had to be expected, this previous album was boosted by the success of the new one, even debuting on charts in April 1989 some three years after its initial release. Peaking at #39, the record doubled its sales from April 1988 to the end of 1989.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- Sans Contrefaçon – 1,421,000
- Pourvu Qu’Elles Soient Douces – 609,000
- Ainsi Soit Je – 279,000