UPDATED: How many CDs has Michael Jackson sold since he died?
I’ve been reading all the stories and I can’t figure it out.
The LAT says he’s sold nine million around the world since his death. The Jackson operation, leaking to a hometown newspaper, has always used the world figures whenever the national one aren’t that hot, but let’s take it at face value. Next question: How many CDs, how many digital albums? How many digital tracks?
The story doesn’t say, doesn’t say, and doesn’t say.
Of U.S. sales, the story says this:
Nielsen SoundScan said Jackson’s albums sold 1.1 million copies over the last seven days and had combined to sell an impressive 2.3 million in the U.S. in the nearly three weeks since he died.
Meanwhile, the NYT reports similarly that he sold 1.1 million copies of his solo albums, but then says:
Almost 1.9 million tracks, separate from albums, were sold as digital downloads.
That makes it sound as if he sold another 200,000 albums’ worth digitally.
The sales aren’t insignificant, and I don’t mean to be cranky, but I don’t see them as particularly strong. Boy bands used to sell a lot more than a million albums in a week, though sales overall are a lot lower these days, of course. Finally, a crank will of course note that about half the sales are of two latter-day greatest-hits repackagings, Essential and (the hyperbolically titled) Number Ones.
Now, read Billboard closely, and you can see that Jackson sold 1.1 million for the week total, physical and digital album equivalents. The story says he sold 400,000 copies in the chart half-week immediately after his death, and then 800,000 last week, with a total since his death, three weeks ago, of about 2.3 million. Digital sales were high last week because retailers ran out of physical product. Now they are back in the pipeline.
For the nine million figure to be correct, Jackson would have to be selling almost four times as many CDs around the world as he is at home, a rate that, as we have seen, would far exceed his previous sales patterns.
Update: After nosing around, and checking in with worldwide sales expert Guillaume Vieira, I think it’s fair to say that Jackson has sold about seven million total worldwide in the weeks since his death. Vieira said specifically that the nine million figure is pieces shipped. In other words, the LAT—whose trumpeting of nine million sold was attributed to “a source”—was carrying Sony’s water.
1 Comment so far
Leave a reply
To Bill Wyman: This is the newest post on your front page about Michael Jackson, so, I decided to post here about your appearance on NPR early last month. I am also posting this here for anyone to see. I would like a response from you on the comment that you made on NPR on July 7, 2009, during a discussion on ‘Talk of the Nation’, concerning the Elvis/MJ furor. While I’m not really interested in rehashing that topic, I would like to call into question a statement you made during that broadcast:
Mr. WYMAN: Well, specifically, I was addressing the question of was he as big as Elvis Presley? Was he more important than Elvis Presley? And personally, I don’t want to sound too much like a Grinch here, but I don’t see how that case can credibly be made. Elvis, for all his faults, invented a form of singing, a form of music, and most crucially…
Mr. GEORGE: What form of music did Elvis Presley invent? He invented a form of music?
Mr. WYMAN: Well, (unintelligible) created rock and roll.
Mr. GEORGE: So did Chuck Berry and Little Richard. I mean, Elvis Presley didn’t invent it by himself.
Mr. WYMAN: Well, of course. No one’s not - saying that.
Mr. GEORGE: That’s what you just said. You just said he invented a form of music.
Mr. WYMAN: Well, in the same way that Michael Jackson didn’t do “Thriller” all by himself. He had a bunch of people around him who helped him do it.
I would like to point out that for all your bracktracking, you basically said that Elvis Presley invented rock and roll. I am appalled by that statement. What kind of music critic are you? How could you possibly say that in all seriousnes? Rock and Roll was popularized by EP, but under no circumstances was invented by him. The song that was his breakout hit, “Hound Dog” was a cover from a black artist, which I hope you should know already. And while he had a singing and dancing style all his own, his music was heavily produced, and the songs and styles not even chosen by him. This is not to take away from EP, but such great artists as the Beatles and the Beach Boys ripped from already existing black artists, like Chuck Berry who is mentioned in the piece. There is already enough perpetrating by the music establishment to disregard some of the pioneering work done by African-Americans in the field of popular music. EP may have made the music acceptable to white america, but he by no means invented it, and to say so disregards the musicians, songwriters and producers, of all races, who came before him. Just as saying that MJ invented pop would suggest the same thing. As a musician myself, I was disgusted and irked on hearing your statement, and as an African American I’m insulted. I would say that your integrity demands a response and rebuttle, or at least an clear explanation on your plainly narrow and misguided views.