Out of the dreadful mid-80s sales context in France, Dire Straits was one of the very few acts to surface over the water. With a 1988 booming market, Christmas gifts around the corner and a compilation full of past hits, the British band was poised to do well with Money For Nothing release.
Different ways, same results. Tracy Chapman debut and eponymous album did just as well in France than it did in both US and UK, both during the promotional campaign and as a catalog item. The song behind those successes is not the same yet.
In November 1989, three albums entered the album chart Top 20. Three studio albums. Three solo male albums. Three upcoming million sellers. Phil Collins (…But Seriously, #7), Patrick Bruel (Alors Regarde, #18) have already been studied, the last one is Hélène by Roch Voisine which debuted at #14 on that famous chart.
We can hardly argue François Feldman success lasted over years. His last 2004 album peaked at an abysmal #132 position before being released from his contract. It doesn’t prevent Une Présence from having been an incredible success story yet.
Much has been said about Alors Regarde album and the Bruelmania that surrounded it. Much has been said about its sales too, not everything was true yet.
Up to his fourth solo album, Phil Collins wasn’t the drummer of Genesis for long by 1989. One of the biggest acts of the 80s, he handled the transition to the 90s perfectly with the release of …But Seriously.
Considering the amount of success received by Francis Cabrel after this album it is hard to believe that during 12 years and six albums up to 1989 he still had to get close to the million mark.
It has now been one month since we entered into the 90s, I’m happy to have now complete that heavy period. An impressive total of 68 million sellers emerged during the biggest decade of sales ever. On following pages, we will do a second Summary after years 2000-2015, so again you will be presented with various rankings of bestselling Studio album, Foreign album, Female album etc. with short comments per section. Obviously, the comprehensive ranking of 90s bestsellers is also presented. Let’s go!
After a decade of smash albums and singles, Jean-Jacques Goldman dropped in December 1990 his first non-solo record since his early Tai Phong years.
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Releasing a sophomore album 18 months after the debut is quite normal. Doing it while your debut album is still Top 10 is much more atypical, let alone when you switched from one label (Polydor) to another (CBS) in-between.