France best selling albums ever: Chansons Pour Les Pieds by Jean-Jacques Goldman (2001)
Coming back from seven – yes, seven – consecutive million selling studio album, one can only do badly when releasing a new album. Selling a million would be rated as barely normal while missing it would be a failure. Jean-Jacques Goldman still did good yet as Chansons Pour Les Pieds not only passed the million but did it in an incredible fashion.
Dislodging Michael Jackson‘s Invincible from the #1 position on its debut week, last studio album to date by Goldman, the set was topped only by reality TV shows albums during the entire Christmas season. This enabled it to finish the year 2001 as the 2nd bestseller. The album was already nearing a million which was ultimately certified on February 12 2002.
Supported by various hits including Tournent Les Violons, Chansons Pour Les Pieds was hardly over after that early success. From its November 2001 release until June 2002 it never left the Top 10, some 30 weeks in a row. The record kept sticking around, charting an impressive 93 weeks inside the Top 150.
Thanks to the success of Génération Goldman album of covers this 2001 album along with 1997 En Passant enjoyed some kind of revival as their hits still not covered on a compilation, the last one released by the artist, Singulier, dropped in 1996. Since 2013, Chansons Pour Les Pieds charted nothing less than 56 weeks inside the main chart.
Yearly sales stand as below:
- 2001: 900,000
- 2002: 575,000
- 2003: 95,000
- 2004-2012: 125,000
- 2013-2015: 75,000
Net shipment as of the end of 2015 is estimated at 1,770,000 copies.
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Sources: SNEP, IFOP.