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How Many Records Have All The Jacksons Sold Collectively?

Jack A.

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Was kinda curious about this!

It's said that The Jackson 5 sold between 100-150 million records worldwide. Janet is widely credited with selling 100 million records (that estimate seems rather low to me, to be honest). Estimates for Michael range from 400 million all the way up to 1 billion records. It's hard to know exactly for sure. Then we have all the solo works released by the other siblings, which never reached a high level of success.

BUT, based on everything we know, is there any reasonably educated estimate that we can come up with for how many records the Jackson family has collectively sold? This can include their children (3T, Paris, etc.) I feel like there should something about this mentioned on the Jackson family Wikipedia page - something like "Collectively, members of the Jackson family have sold in excess of x million/billion records."

Let's have a discussion about this.
 
It depends on one's definition of the 'record' term.

Records are actually a broader term and they refer not only to albums, but also to singles and EPs.

So, based on that definition, Janet Jackson for example has sold 150-200 million records worldwide (which includes her albums, singles, and EPs).
 
Yeah that 150-200 million estimate for Janet makes more sense - single sales appear to be much harder to calculate than album sales, as there’s not much data available other than if they were RIAA-certified. Especially for a lot of overseas countries - there doesn’t seem to be much of a way to know.
 
What is the estimated minimum based on factual certified sales? That would be interesting
 
What about the album sales of the brothers combined?
I'd say Invincible sold more.
 
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For strictly Michael's solo work, I'm coming up with a total of 90.294 million certified albums in the US (that's including both units of double albums, which I believe the RIAA also does when awarding certifications). All studio albums and compilations are included in that figure, video albums are NOT - unless that counts, don't know if it does. I also have 86.7 million certified singles - which means Michael has sold a grand total of 176.994 records sold in the US alone (certified, at least).

For other countries it's going to be pretty hard to track a definitive number.
 
although these numbers are incomplete, I find it interesting that michael’s solo success with ‘off the wall’ & ‘thriller’, didn’t translate to the jacksons albums ‘triumph’ & ‘victory’ that followed them. I guess the public were intentional in wanting michael to be the only focus?

‘triumph’ even sold a little less than ‘destiny’ worldwide. I would have thought that the groundbreaking short film for ‘can you feel it’ would have made a difference. then again, it was released towards the end of the campaign.. then again, so was ‘thriller’.. ‘can you feel it’ is also the only song I hear on the radio from ‘triumph’. yet ‘blame it on the boogie’ & ’shake your body down (to the ground)’ are both played from ‘destiny’

the jacksons albums had tours to support them. the ones for ‘triumph’ & ‘victory’ were only in america & canada. the live album apparently sold a million copies worldwide..

I agree that the jackson 5 were mainly a singles act. their christmas album has been the most enduring. their peak seems to mirror the jacksons in terms of album sales.

I’m more interested in the singles. I’ll stay tuned for the latest developments in this research. thanks for sharing.
 
83magic said:
although these numbers are incomplete, I find it interesting that michael’s solo success with ‘off the wall’ & ‘thriller’, didn’t translate to the jacksons albums ‘triumph’ & ‘victory’ that followed them. I guess the public were intentional in wanting michael to be the only focus?
Click to expand...
It was because The Jacksons were primarily marketed to R&B radio stations (in the USA). So was Jermaine's solo records. As such they didn't get the same amount of crossover push to Top 40. Most R&B artists of the time didn't get crossover promotion. The fact they had to "crossover" is because of segregation in US entertainment. Black artists in general were pretty much automatically considered R&B. Notice that Off The Wall was only nominated for R&B & disco awards at the Grammys/AMAs. Rolling Stone magazine declined to do a cover story on Mike at the time because Black entertainers on the cover usually didn't sell as well. That was the reason magazines Ebony, Jet, & Right On! existed. To give coverage to Black celebrities that the mainstream magazines ignored. On Saturday Night Live there was a skit where Frank Sinatra & Stevie Wonder (not the real ones, lol) is recording Ebony And Ivory. At one point Frank says "Ebony, a magazine most people do not buy". Probably meaning white people.

The cable channel BET was started in the early 1980s to show music videos by Black artists that MTV would not show. David Bowie asked why MTV did not show many videos by Black artists. They claimed it was because MTV was a rock music channel. 2 problems with this explanation. 1 is that there were Black rock acts like The Bus Boys, Bad Brains, & Fishbone that were not shown. The 2nd is that MTV would show music videos by acts like Culture Club, ABC, The Police, Doobie Brothers, and Hall & Oates who were basically doing R&B and/or reggae based music. They were even called "blue eyed soul" or "white reggae".
 
Jack A. said:
For strictly Michael's solo work, I'm coming up with a total of 90.294 million certified albums in the US (that's including both units of double albums, which I believe the RIAA also does when awarding certifications). All studio albums and compilations are included in that figure, video albums are NOT - unless that counts, don't know if it does. I also have 86.7 million certified singles - which means Michael has sold a grand total of 176.994 records sold in the US alone (certified, at least).

For other countries it's going to be pretty hard to track a definitive number.
Click to expand...
chartmasters.org

Michael Jackson albums and songs sales - ChartMasters

How many units has Thriller sold? And Bad? And Dangerous? Find out the anwsers to these questions and an awful lot more about Michael Jackson right here!
chartmasters.org
 
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