Understanding: Music Clubs #2 – The Eagles, Mariah Carey

#1’s

Album – Certification – Date – Soundscan – Unsold units – Gap
#1’s – 3xP – 02/10/1999 –  2,150,000 – 1,800,000 – 300,000
#1’s – 4xP – 02/23/2000 –  2,950,000 – 100,000 – 950,000
#1’s – 5xP – 01/24/2003 –  3,300,000 – Irrelevant – 1,700,000

Put together three facts – #1’s was the artist only album continuously available on both main Clubs, it sold 1 million units at BMG Music Club, Columbia House had dropped below BMG by that time – and you get a realistic estimate for Columbia sales anywhere from 500,000 units to 800,000 units. This is very exactly the result we find out while studying RIAA certifications. The album moved more than half a million copies since this last award, Club sales though were already dying by 2003.

Rainbow

The last Mariah Carey album available on Clubs is Rainbow at BMG alone. Released in late 1999, it was certified 3xPlatinum just after one month, never being updated since. The album moved 2.1 million copies as per Soundscan in 1999, which were complete sales as it was still not sent on Clubs by then. When made available, it sold 443,000 unis on BMG. By now, the album is up to nearly 3 million Soundscan sales, an estimated overall shipment close to 3.5 million, explaining logically why it was not certified anew in later years.