Gorjesspazze9 Posted February 29 Posted February 29 2 hours ago, ugo said: The Beatles did Madonna was not that big Elvis was never that good at marketing Idc about mj he's just creepy She the best selling female artist of all time what you mean not that big? And she did it with pure physical copies. 3
Blackout2006 Posted February 29 Posted February 29 (edited) 1 hour ago, ugo said: it's not always like that No label is ready to bear huge losses irrespective of their scale of production, just because they can afford it. 'Thriller' sold 32 million copies in one year. They obviously shifted supply to the degree where stores were full of his albums because there was a demand for his music. There are exceptions but this simply isn't one. Edited February 29 by Blackout2006
jdanton2 Posted February 29 Posted February 29 4 hours ago, khalyan said: 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. actually Elvis peaked in the mid and late 50's. back in those days when Elvis and when The Beatles peaked singles were much bigger than albums.
stevyy Posted February 29 Posted February 29 33 minutes ago, jdanton2 said: actually Elvis peaked in the mid and late 50's. back in those days when Elvis and when The Beatles peaked singles were much bigger than albums. VERY true. The single began to die in the early 1990s and was dead by 1998 in the US. (That is the year when BB allowed non-physical singles to chart on airplay points alone). The IFPI released numbers of albums and singles sales.... and by 1998 some 440 million physical singles were sold (globally)... compare that to 1,3 billion digital tracks in 2012. The real question is why Taylor isn't able to replicate her US success outside the US. For example, Madonna sold 80 million albums in Europe. MJ sold 100 million albums in the continent - both are US artists and not European. And the Beatles sold even more. Even unknown musical figures and one-hit-wonders such as Miss Carey shifted 35 million albums in Asia. It's so weird. The music industry works in mysterious ways. Autoplay streaming simply cannot relate. 2
Maroonx Posted February 29 Posted February 29 It's rly hard to compare sales tracking from a half century ago and today...
ugo Posted February 29 Posted February 29 1 hour ago, Blackout2006 said: No label is ready to bear huge losses irrespective of their scale of production, just because they can afford it. 'Thriller' sold 32 million copies in one year. They obviously shifted supply to the degree where stores were full of his albums because there was a demand for his music. There are exceptions but this simply isn't one. It’s all manufactured mj is a creep
swissman Posted February 29 Posted February 29 Even the fact that there are now more nearly double the Americans today than there were in the 1960s is probably an important factor. But as has already been stated many times, comparing different eras with different charts, different rules, different ways of counting sales, different dominance of formats and different relationships to pop music, it's incredibly hard to compare the debut sales (or often even the sales, point blank) of artists then and now.
Sweetness Posted February 29 Posted February 29 This is a joke right? Most people waited to buy an album before they rushed out because of the money and record stores were really small back in the day, you had to stand in line, if it was that much hype. I waited to the hype died downed and to hear what others had to say before i spent my money. The funny thing is that artist like Nsync sold a million in a week but have not outsold or lasted the artists you have mentioned, so clearly it means nothing. It's about how steady it is from then on.
RobynYoBank Posted February 29 Posted February 29 (edited) The Beatles selling one million three decades after their break-up. Quote [1 by The Beatles] spent a total of eight weeks at number 1 and sold 1,258,667 copies during the week before Christmas of 2000. Edited February 29 by RobynYoBank
Sweetness Posted February 29 Posted February 29 35 minutes ago, stevyy said: VERY true. The single began to die in the early 1990s and was dead by 1998 in the US. (That is the year when BB allowed non-physical singles to chart on airplay points alone). The IFPI released numbers of albums and singles sales.... and by 1998 some 440 million physical singles were sold (globally)... compare that to 1,3 billion digital tracks in 2012. The real question is why Taylor isn't able to replicate her US ts and not European. And the Beatles sold even more. success outside the US. For example, Madonna sold 80 million albums in Europe. MJ sold 100 million albums in the continent - both are US artis Even unknown musical figures and one-hit-wonders such as Miss Carey shifted 35 million albums in Asia. It's so weird. The music industry works in mysterious ways. Autoplay streaming simply cannot relate.
Kodak Energy Posted March 1 Posted March 1 7 hours ago, stevyy said: so, the real question is, why can't Taylor Taylor debut with 1m physical sales in a country outside the US? She has multiple times in China. Started with Lover https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7409689/amp/Taylor-Swift-sets-sales-record-China-new-album-Lover-sells-million-copies.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2019/08/30/taylor-swifts-lover-explodes-in-china-reaches-1-million-in-sales/amp/ 1
BrandNewBrandon Posted March 1 Posted March 1 (edited) Sales weren't tracked like that pre-1991. Sales were tracked with calling in to stores and asking "who's the best-seller?" and they would name them and that's it. No figure. The figures they got was when they were certifying albums. Edited March 1 by BrandNewBrandon
BrandNewBrandon Posted March 1 Posted March 1 (edited) 3 hours ago, stevyy said: The real question is why Taylor isn't able to replicate her US success outside the US. For example, Madonna sold 80 million albums in Europe. MJ sold 100 million albums in the continent - both are US artists and not European. And the Beatles sold even more. When looking at Taylor's first weeks outside of Anglosphere she occupies a bit of the Top 10-20 and then free-falls the following week and she can't even score a #1 song on most Spotify charts in individual countries that the Taylor stans on here try to cover up with those Global Top 50 Spotify charts that don't give you a full picture and where even Morgan Wallen is charting. Her sales are strong but not as strong as Adele who was breaking first week sales records in so many markets outside of the US. Taylor is factually not. She just doesn't have that same demand despite her concerts selling out. That doesn't go hand-in-hand either as the previous record-holders U2 sold out stadiums as well but their first week sales weren't as big as Britney, for example. Edited March 1 by BrandNewBrandon 2
BrandNewBrandon Posted March 1 Posted March 1 10 hours 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. You think the first album post-Thriller sold less than 1 million? It was like Adele's 25 era. 9 hours ago, byzantium said: 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. Not sure about the Beatles because albums weren't still as big as they became later on and the industry was different but Michael Jackson is said to have been selling 1 million copies of Thriller for several weeks after it blew up. And then Bad reportedly sold 2+ million. But sales were not tracked by figures in their first week since they were compiled by calling in to stores and asking what was selling, not HOW MUCH it sold. So the figures only came up when doing certifications and at that point no data was available for how much of it was sold in its first week. So plenty of artists probably sold 1+ million but it was just never accounted for. 2
What_A_Mess Posted March 1 Author Posted March 1 10 hours 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. amazing so Michael Jackson did it first. why couldn’t Madonna do it? why couldn’t the Beatlemania do it? Elvis? surely the population then was more than a million people?
Aethereal Posted March 1 Posted March 1 Marketing through social media makes the success in pure sales more concentrated in first few months. And there are pre-orders, online purchases and digital downloads which did not exist back then.
GreatestLoveofAll Posted March 1 Posted March 1 i find it hard to believe the beatles and MJ and even Elvis didnt. they were just epic in their prime. I knowww Thriller had to been moving at least a million copes in the summer of '83 in the US alone.
GraceRandolph Posted March 1 Posted March 1 To be fair to past artists, when Madonna debuted for instance the USA population was 233 million, whereas it had ballooned to over 300 million by the time Taylor became a household name.
Mandalay Posted March 1 Posted March 1 The Beatles did in US decades after their breakup. Mariah did with #1s album in Japan in 1998. Hypocritical considering sales these days are frontloaded due to bulk buying, serving no longevity. 1
ATRL Moderator supaspaz Posted March 1 ATRL Moderator Posted March 1 This premise is not correct. In the pre-SoundScan era, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Prince, Carole King and others were reported to have sold more than a million copies in a week. But it's a less accurate estimate than digital tracking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest-selling_albums#Pre-SoundScan_era 3
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