France best selling albums ever: Mon Paradis by Christophe Maé (2007)
As far as one may remember, musicals have been hugely popular in France. They also often managed to send newcomers into super stardom. It happened with Julien Clerc (Hair), Daniel Balavoine (Starmania) or Hélène Ségara and Garou (Notre-Dame de Paris) among others. Successful musical Le Roi Soleil, released in 2005, brough two new star in French Variété scene: Emmanuel Moire and Christophe Maé.
While the former had a strong debut, the latter reached highs unseen in several years. His debut song On S’Attache was an immediate hit and everything released since has been big as well.
Despite being topped by colorful singer Mika in 2007 Album Year End chart, time proved Mon Paradis album had the best legs out of both smashes.
Yearly French retail sales stand as below:
- 2007: 820,000 CD + 12,000 DL
- 2008: 498,000 CD + 9,000 DL
- 2009: 77,000 CD + 3,000 DL
- 2010: 53,000 CD + 3,000 DL
- 2011: 40,000
- 2012-2015: 50,000
- 2CD boxes: 25,000
A grand total of 1,590,000 copies sold.
The picture seems rather clear but as we are going deeper into the past data contains more and more traps. In fact, Mon Paradis sold 714,000 copies in 2007 and 422,000 copies in 2008 as per IFOP that was the official sales data provider from 1995 til 2008, while GFK took over from 2009. After studying in details both providers I have to stick with GFK data as soon as it is available although IFOP was still the official one. I’ll be posting a dedicated post explaining why GFK appears to be the most accurate out of the two company.
Net shipment as of the end of 2015 is estimated at 1,610,000 copies.
As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!