base talk Why couldn’t the Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson and Madonna sell 1M in a week?

[What_A_Mess]

Why couldn’t the Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Mariah sell 1M copies of their album in a week during their prime?

 

To be fair the Beatles did sell 1 million for “1” in 2000 but it’s a posthumous work. Whitney was the one who did it first and other icons like Usher, Lady Gaga, Adele, and Taylor (who has 6, the most of any artist), etc were also able to do it? Did they not have a big enough following/cultural dominance?

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/best-selling-albums-all-time-one-week-2021-10

Edited February 29 by What_A_Mess

[Hector]

That list is only since Luminate/Soundscan started measuring sales since 1991. Only other time we'd hear about sales before then would be from record companies. 

[TedMiracle]

Back in the days, it was all about LONGEVITY, now is all about first week sales. 

[Feanor]

'Bad' did sell 2M+ first week according to the then marketing VP of Sony:

Quote

“It was a tremendous coup… we shipped 4.2 million copies [of the album], and we sold half of it the first week.”

Billboard

 

This was pre-Nielsen so third-party verification was more dubious, but he clearly differentiated between shipments and sales, so even if her overestimated by 1M for whatever reason, it'd still mean MJ had a 1M opener.

 

Edited February 29 by Feanor

[FolkLover1989]

Sales were much more backloaded back then

 

Also awareness took time to build. Not everyone was following TV to know when Madonna is dropping 

[Saint James]

were the logistics there for that to happen? a million copies made and arrived in store by a particular date, plus accurate reporting from the stores and record companies. i can't even find a figure for Thriller's first week sales, apparently it didn't debut at #1.

[shyboi]

amazing question tbh

 

like why? I think people tend to overestimate how big they really were just because the nostalgia

Edited February 29 by shyboi

[visions]

Fans have different (psychotic) relations to their favourite artists these days. Of course Beatlemania etc. was real but there wasn’t that weird sense of fans trying to one up each other on social media for buying as much as possible. 

 

For particular fanbases (swifties, kpop stans, barbz to a degree) there’s a sense that if you don’t provide monetary support you’re not a good fan. 

[Into The Void]

Because longevity > peaks

[vale9001]

Same reason a Song could sell 1M copies in a week in 2012 but not now in 2024. 

The world and the market was just different.

 

Also there wasn't a very organized system like we have now (even with the movies box office) to track the sales.

 

 

Promotion was very different.

The distribution was different from now, in some states- cities- zones the records could arrive After some time, without all the big distribution chain stores there are now.

 

Part of the data from a lot of states for example were given to labels after weeks or even months. 

 

It's not like now we almost have Daily tracking about Sales, box office, views etc..

 

So I'm not sure in the reality some of they actually didn't sell the 1M copies.

 

 

Edited February 29 by vale9001

[Into The Void]

Nielsen/ Soundscan didn't exist before 1991 to verify actual sales

[James_Dean]

Idk maybe they should have resorted to vinyl variants and signed albums 

[Jjang]

opening weeks sales were completely different back then. 

 

I think in 1998 ROL’s debut week was considered the biggest debut week for a female ever and it only opened with 400k  I think big debut weeks became a thing in early/mid 2000s. Not so much 80s/90s. 

Edited February 29 by Jjang

[UnusualBoy]

They were fads, not enough power

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hector]

8 minutes ago, Feanor said:

'Bad' did sell 2M+ first week according to the then marketing VP of Sony:

Billboard

 

This was pre-Nielsen so third-party verification was more dubious, but he clearly differentiated between shipments and sales, so even if her overestimated by 1M for whatever reason, it'd still mean MJ had a 1M opener.

 

In the United States, Bad debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, selling over 2.25 million copies in its first week, which made it the fastest-selling album in US history at the time. It remained there for six consecutive weeks. At the beginning of November 1987, the album had sold 3.7 million copies in the US. In mid-1988, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified Bad for sales of 6 million copies. Its failure to match the sales of Thriller in the US caused some in the media to label the album a disappointment. In 2021, it was certified 11× platinum by the RIAA.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_(album)

[khalyan]

Plenty of very obvious reasons

1. Nielsen SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991, so data before that time cannot be verified as easily as it can be now.

2. Marketing albums is easier today with how popular social media is and how easy it is to follow your favorite artists. In a time before computers, you had to rely on physical stores, magazines, radio, or television marketing to tell you when an album was releasing.

3. Population increases make it easier for artists to achieve 1m sales currently. The Beatles and Elvis were peaking in mid-60s with 189m people in the US. Currently, there are 341m people in the US. That's nearly double the amount of people living in this country, which obviously makes it easier to reach high numbers with popular artists. 

4. Different culture in the industry at the time. You'd rather have an era with longevity than an era with a quick peak and immediate fall back then. 

[Nights]

I remember reading many times that Thriller sold 1 million + in multiple weeks in the US at its peak (I believe it was a label source). None of those weeks were its debut week. Truth is, there's hardly a way to verify and it's likely that several albums did move 1 million a week back then but they didn't have the tools to track that reliably in the US.

 

Pre-sales and ship-to-home were also much much much less regularly used back then and most people had to go out to a record store to pick up albums, spreading the sales over many weeks instead of sudden deliveries of a mass of pre-orders.

[Sailor Moon]

6 minutes ago, Jjang said:

opening weeks sales were completely different back then. 

 

I think in 1998 ROL’s debut week was considered the biggest debut week for a female ever and it only opened with 400k  I think big debut weeks became a thing in early/mid 2000s. Not so much 80s/90s. 

+ Big debuts weren't really a thing back then..

Madonna's like a virgin was first female album in history to sell over five million copies in the United States (it took 9 months - 1985).

and Mariah carey's music box was the first female album to be ceritifed diamond in the US.

 

It was all about longevity

 

[dawnettakins]

No vinyl variants or endless copies with extra songs, no rabid cult following that buys every version they can, and the fact Nielsen Soundscan wasn't recording and documenting sales how they do now maybe??

[NEX]

Maybe they didn't, but the blockbusters were able to sell 500k+ for many many weeks in a row 

[enchanted0]

Amazon didn't exist back then so they couldn't sell their albums for 99 cents

[Funnyfatty]

Promoting an album was harder then lol 

 

you couldn’t hear the album tracks the only way to get them was buying the album (and this went on till 2012 iirc where album tracks were mostly hidden/album exclusive) 

 

Now an artist only has to post a picture on their socials and its done. Millions of people have seen it. Then they have to click on the link to order the album and they can easily sell millions of albums. Back then you really had to make people know you had an album out. 
 

looking at it now, I’m genuinely shocked like how did that even happen

[Kimi]

35 minutes ago, khalyan said:

The Beatles and Elvis were peaking in mid-60s with 189m people in the US.

that is crazy to think especially knowing how much they sold. they truly were unlike anyone before or after.

[byzantium]

Are we sure the Beatles did not do it in the 60s?  The tracking data was not great back then, but I find it hard to believe they could sell as much as they did an not have one week where an album sold over 1 million.  

[JISOO]

Mariah sold 1 million copies of #1's in it's first week in Japan and in 1998 

Edited February 29 by JISOO