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


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Posted (edited)
12 hours 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 :rip: I think big debut weeks became a thing in early/mid 2000s. Not so much 80s/90s. 

The peak of album debut sales was 1998-2001 with *NSYNC, Backstreet, Britney, Eminem and others all having multiple 1M+ opening weeks.

 

Edited by PoisonPill
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Posted
1 hour ago, What_A_Mess said:

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?

They probably did however sales were not tracked as they are now and labels called in to stores prior to Nielsen and were just told what was selling, not in so-and-so number of copies. Certifications were the only time when sales would be provided. 

BrandNewBrandon
Posted
37 minutes ago, GraceRandolph said:

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.

Also, most fans bought one album and that was that. Taylor's fans buy multiple versions on vinyl, cd and then stream it in full on streaming services giving it another buy. So it was not only how many people there were although that is a factor. 

Posted
12 hours ago, vale9001 said:

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.

 

 

Only one song has ever sold 1M copies in a week and that was Hello from Hurricane Adele :rip: 

Posted
2 hours ago, Mandalay said:

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's: Japan:

 

week 1 - #1 - 1,046,710

week 2 - #1 - 613,390

 

Massive.

 

also:

Daydream

week 1 - #1 - 487,270

week 2 - #1 - 328,630

 

#1's must have sold 2 million copies in week 1 globally, Daydream must have sold 1,2 million globally in week 1. And then 2  million in week 12 when it sold 760k in the US. Those global sales were insane.

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Posted

the era of big debuts started in late 90s

Posted (edited)

By the time Soundscan arrived MJ and Madonna were past their peaks. In Madonna's case, her first post-Soundscan album was released when the public was really against her.

 

If Soundscan had been around for True Blue she probably would've done a milli first week. Same with MJ with Bad.

Edited by MatiRod
Posted

you can always count on that one base to show idiocy each and every time about anything related to the music industry pre 2010

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Posted
On 2/29/2024 at 3:35 PM, Hector said:

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)

End thread

Posted

Longevity was way more important, which is lacking today. Most artists debut high then collapse by the second week, whereas before labels were promoting and pushing albums to ensure that they were steady on the charts 

Posted

People mentioning population in here.

 

:ahh:

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