France Album Sales: U2
The Unforgettable Fire (1984) Era
Proving one more time how difficult of a market it was, France resisted to The Unforgettable Fire as no other country did. While the huge success of War just one year before have put U2 into the success highway, follow up record bombed hard.
Elsewhere, The Unforgettable Fire was just as big as War. In France, the album completely failed to chart. It must be said this album was released on October 1st, while no chart at all got issued in France from July to the first half of November in 1984. Thus, this U2 record would have been most likely charted in October chart had it existed but still the fact by November the album was already out doesn’t let much space for euphoria. In fact, the modest #48 peak reached by the lead single Pride (In The Name Of Love) explains why the album struggled so much.
The short chart format also means albums can amass notable sales while being off the radar. That’s very precisely what this record did as it still went Gold, representing 100,000 units, in January 1985. Continuing to register great catalog sales, live album Under A Blood Red Sky went Gold as well, this time in January 1986.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- Pride (In The Name Of Love) – 23,658,000
- Bad – 5,683,000
- The Unforgettable Fire – 4,132,000