Statement from MJ Estate Pg 12 #170 / New Yorker - Did Thriller Really Sell a 100 Million Copies?

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In Michael Jackson’s New York Times obituary, the singer is credited with selling a hundred million copies of his most popular album, “Thriller”—and with selling an “estimated” seven hundred and fifty million records worldwide over his career. In a new book on Jackson, “Untouchable,” the writer Randall Sullivan repeats the hundred-million figure for “Thriller.” And earlier this year, fan sites were a buzzing with the news that the Michael Jackson estate had “confirmed” that Jackson had sold a total of a billion records.


Music-industry sales figures are a complex subject, but this doesn’t excuse the fact that they are often exaggerated for public consumption. The numbers surrounding Jackson have always been particularly outlandish. I was amused, for example, while reading a memoir by Jackson’s record producer, Quincy Jones, “Q on Producing,” to see that “Thriller” had sold a hundred million copies—and then, a few pages later, that it had sold a hundred and twenty million. I was sure by the end up of the book it would have risen to a hundred and fifty million. As for that billion figure, that came from a press release for Jackson’s estate a couple of years ago, which asserted, in passing and with no documentation, that the singer had sold an “estimated” billion records.


Let’s look at facts, starting with “Thriller.” When you hear the words “platinum” and “gold” in relation to record sales, they are based on certifications from the Record Industry Association of America, known as the R.I.A.A. The group audits shipments of CDs (and, in the past, albums and cassettes), and gives those awards based on what’s boxed up and trucked out of the pressing plants. Gold represents five hundred thousand units shipped, and platinum a million. Again, that’s shipped, not actually sold. “Thriller” has been certified platinum in the United States twenty-nine times as of 2009. (At the numbers Jackson has sold over the past nearly thirty years, the difference between units sold and shipped wouldn’t be that large. But in the pre-digital era, it was pretty common for an album that had sold, say, eight hundred thousand to get certified platinum—and then have the extra two hundred thousand returned unsold to the label and end up in the cutout bins.)


In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, the famous Billboard charts were compiled by phone surveys of record-store employees, who were just asked “what was selling.” (I was one of them!) Since 1991, album sales in the U.S. have been counted by a company called SoundScan, which records the actual purchases of CDs in sales in actual stores. SoundScan showed that the traditional charts had been based on many misconceptions. We saw that overlooked genres like country and gospel were ringing up massive sales. We also learned that we didn’t have an accurate picture of buying patterns. Before SoundScan, it was extremely rare for an album to début at No. 1 on the charts. After we had the real figures, we saw that it was, in fact, routine. To this day, anticipated releases by major stars open at No. 1 and typically have their highest sales that first week.


For “Thriller,” we have R.I.A.A. data as of 2009, representing at least twenty-nine million albums. How about since Jackson died? Billboard, citing SoundScan figures, reported two years after Jackson’s death that “Thriller” had sold about two million more. It’s still selling, so at this point it’s safe to say it’s sold in the neighborhood of thirty-two million or so in the United States. But what about overseas? Could Jackson have sold another seventy million albums in other countries? It’s doubtful. I occasionally consult with a French music fan, Guillaume Vieira, who, in his off hours as a web developer, obsessively collects sales news from labels and official industry statements all over the globe. He charts the figures carefully, culls more data from a network of sources in the industry in various countries, and analyzes national sales patterns to fill in the blanks. I have no way of checking all of his figures, of course, but his methodology strikes me as more persuasive than the self-serving assertions of record labels.

Vieira totals up fifteen million copies of “Thriller” sold in Europe, three million in Asia, and so forth—and finds that Jackson might have sold an additional thirty-five million or so around the globe. (Here are some of his 2009 data points—before Jackson’s death—in an exhaustive post written under the nom de data MJ Dangerous. Vieira’s research is now being collected at a site called Fan of Music.) For “Thriller” to have sold anything close to a hundred million copies, there would have to be another thirty-five to forty million in sales out there that somehow have eluded official notice. That amount in itself would be as much as one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. The hundred-million figure is in all likelihood a lot of hooey.


So how many records—albums, singles, and downloads—did Jackson sell in total? A tougher question. Classic-era Motown refused to have its sales audited by the industry, so there are no official gold and platinum figures from this era. Vieira says that the Jackson 5 sold a bit less than fifty million singles and fifty million albums for the label. Jackson had a solo career at Motown (with hits like “Ben” and “Got To Be There”) and then further success with his brothers on Epic records, recording as the Jacksons. Then came his momentous adult solo career, beginning with the albums “Off the Wall” and “Thriller.”
Did Jackson sell a billion records, or even seven hundred and fifty million? Sure, “Thriller” sold a lot of copies, but Jackson recorded infrequently, and his later albums sold nowhere near what “Thriller” did. We know from SoundScan figures that Jackson was selling, on average, roughly a million albums a year in the nineteen-nineties and the aughts in the U.S.—and that includes greatest-hits albums, like the four-million-selling “Number Ones.” That’s not nothing, but it’s not the sort of thing that adds up to a billion records over time.


Vieira’s data collection encompasses sales of albums, singles, videos, ringtones, and digital downloads, all the way back to Jackson’s time with the Jackson 5. He found that, around the time Jackson died, Jackson had sold about four hundred million records, give or take. Since Jackson’s death, he’s moved some forty million albums and fifty million song downloads, plus a lot of DVDs and ringtones for a total, more or less, of roughly five hundred and fifteen million sold. That’s about the same as the five hundred million-plus credited to the Beatles but less than any of the cumulative totals of the individual Beatles, Ringo included. (Paul McCartney, Vieira says, has total sales of some six hundred and seventy million.)

I am always happy to exchange e-mails with Vieira, so I asked him what, based on his research, the other best-selling albums worldwide were. Here’s his list:

1. Michael Jackson, “Thriller”: 66,200,000
2. Soundtrack, “Grease”: 44,700,000
3. Pink Floyd, “The Dark Side of the Moon”: 44,200,000
4. Whitney Houston et al., “The Bodyguard”: 38,600,000
5. The Bee Gees at al., “Saturday Night Fever”: 37,200,000
6. The Eagles, “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975”: 36,900,000
7. Bob Marley, “Legend”: 36,800,000
8. Led Zeppelin, “IV”: 35,700,000
9. AC/DC, “Back in Black”: 35,700,000
10. Shania Twain, “Come on Over”: 35,400,000
11. Michael Jackson, “Bad”: 34,700,000
12. Soundtrack, “Dirty Dancing”: 33,300,000
13. Dire Straits, “Brothers in Arms”: 33,200,000
14. Alanis Morissette, “Jagged Little Pill”: 33,200,000
15. Fleetwood Mac, “Rumours”: 33,000,000
16. The Beatles, “1”: 32,400,000
17. Pink Floyd, “The Wall”: 31,900,000
18. ABBA, “Gold”: 31,400,000
19. Guns N’ Roses, “Appetite for Destruction”: 30,800,000
20. Simon & Garfunkel, “Greatest Hits”: 30,700,000
21. Queen, “Greatest Hits”: 30,600,000
22. Celine Dion, “Let’s Talk About Love”: 30,300,000
23. Michael Jackson, “Dangerous”: 30,200,000
24. Celine Dion, “Falling into You”: 30,200,000
25. The Eagles, “Hotel California”: 30,000,000
26. Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.”: 29,100,000
27. Metallica, “Metallica”: 28,900,000
28. Meat Loaf, “Bat Out of Hell”: 28,700,000
29. Soundtrack, “Titanic”: 28,500,000
30. The Beatles, “Abbey Road”: 28,300,000

The “Grease” soundtrack is a perennial seller. Along with the ever-popular “The Dark Side of the Moon,” those two albums seem safe at the No. 2 and 3 slots. Will they, and “Thriller,” be there forever? The digital era has also brought back the availability of the single; music fans no longer have to shell out for the whole album when they just want a song or two. It’s hard to see how numbers like those can be matched. Vieira takes a different view:

Although I would be contradicted by many on that point, yes, it is still easily possible to sell as many records as “Thriller,” “D.S.O.T.M.,” or “Grease.” Those albums are blockbusters—albums that reach groundbreaking sales, e.g. uncommon sales given the market. If we look at the years 1975 to 2005, the worst year for album sales worldwide was 1982—the year “Thriller” was released. On the other side, if you look at best-selling albums released on each of those years, the weakest is 2001’s top seller (Shakira’s “Laundry Service,” with less than twelve million), despite the biggest year for album sales of all time being… 2001.

It means that market size has little to do with best-sellers. Market size is mostly dependent on the number of regular buyers, which is massively low at the moment. But blockbusters find their limits on the number of potential buyers (not regular ones), which is at an all-time high at the moment. Adele ended up selling exactly the same as “Saturday Night Fever” did when it was released, slightly more than “Grease,” and over three times more than what “D.S.O.T.M.” sold during its first two years.

What about China or India, I asked—could a Jackson-size phenom emerge from either country, each with a population far bigger than that of the United States?

Definitely nothing crazy happening in China and India. Despite massive number of inhabitants their markets are pretty weak, similar to Australia or lower.
In the golden age of the nineties, some local acts reached sales of three or four million in China, like their “local Michael Jackson” Jacky Cheung, with “The Goodbye Kiss” (arguably the best-selling album ever in continental Asia), and around two million in India, but those are the best-selling albums ever there.

I can see Adele selling another thirty million albums over the next twenty years and coming up close to “Grease” or “D.S.O.T.M.” But leaving aside some astonishing phenomenon that sweeps the world, Jackson’s “Thriller” will forever remain in its position at No. 1—and it doesn’t need for its sales to be exaggerated to stay there.


Bill Wyman, who recently wrote about Michael Jackson for the magazine, is the former arts editor of Salon.com and National Public Radio.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...ler-really-sell-a-hundred-million-copies.html
 
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... btw, the blogger doubts the billion records sold... by MJ... so... by MJ Estate PR news he has sold - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...he-king-of-pop-january-26-2012-136740033.html

Evidently the blogger has a thing with the USA as the centre of the world and thinks that if MJ sold 32+M from Thriller in the USA, it wouldnt be possible to sell 75+M arounf the world?? (but yes, Elvis mysteriously sold the billion records, right? if none of his albums is among the best sellers, or the Beatles..., estimated? of course.)

afaik, BAD was the second best seller in 1993 with 30 mil. copies, so if the socalled journalists use the 20-year-old numbers... yes, they can guess the actual numbers, especially after 2009 since when MJ has sold 40+ million albums and 40 million singles, more records than any other artist.

But why is it so important for some individuals to question Thriller as the best seller? 60 or 70 or 100 million... whatever..., it is and apparently will be - forever - the best selling album of all time. Done.
 
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Does this blogger also doubt the so called billion records sold by Elvis Presley?
 
I saw this article and it really ticked me off majorly! Talk about missing the point! It is hardly they point if the exact number is 100% valid... The accomplishment itself remains unmatched.

But good points made above: to question one number by citing other numbers seems to be sort of circular logic.

The post was sociologically very interesting... One could argue that it was noteworthy a record by an African American innovator was poo-pooed while white entertainers' accomplishments were validated. This in itself is sadly nothing new.

I may be way off and this guy just was bored...but it irked me anyway - enough to gripe about it on twitter anyway. :)
 
I think it's a fair article. I never really believed the 100 million claim, to be honest that always sounded like PR. But 66.2 million is still awesome and Thriller is still by far the best selling album of all times. I'm OK with that number.

Actually, I think someone should link it to Wikipedia's Best selling albums of all times article because some people there want them to say that Thriller sold 50 million. I had a debate with them about it a couple of weeks ago that I mentioned here: http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/t...dia-Change-Their-Michael-Jackson-record-stats

It's interesting that Wiki places AC/DC's Back in Black on second place (and they cite it to have sold 50 million also), but this list only on 9th place. While Grease is much more further down on the list of Wiki. Based on the certifications that I have seen this list actually seems more realistic than Wikipedia's.


As for saying MJ did not sell 1 billion records. I'm OK with that too. He did not. Nor did Elvis or the Beatles. When the media say they did it's always only PR. No artist sold 1 billion records.
 
Joe Vogel‏@JoeVogel1

@damienshields I would assume though that when international fans discovered MJ during Bad era that they bought Thriller too

5 JanJoe Vogel‏@JoeVogel1

That would suggest Thriller over 100 mill. The 65-70 estimate means more than half of his sales were in the U.S.

5 JanJoe Vogel‏@JoeVogel1

Re: sales of Thriller: Global sales are impossible to know definitively, but MJ has consistently sold at least 2/3 of sales outside U.S.

5 JanJoe Vogel‏@JoeVogel1

Did “Thriller” Really Sell a Hundred Million Copies? http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...ndred-million-copies.html?mbid=social_retweet … via @NewYorker
 
Why doubting the 100+ million copies sold? I bet millions of us have bought more than one Thriller album to keep its record and Michael has more new fans who probably are/will be intereted to buy Thriller. That's waht I call racism!
 
They think it sold only 3 million in Asia,I don´t think so
 
Thriller is the best selling album of all time. I find these articles as a way to put down Michael. Whatever the number is still makes it the best selling album of all time. Why don't other artists sales, work and other things get questioned too? It's like only Michael but everyone else it gets accepted and not analyzed at all about anything they do or accomplish.
 
^That's why is racism and envy against Michael mare.

I do think Thriller sold over 100 million copies because many of us have more than one copy.
 
Fair enough. I find 66 million more believable than 100 to be honest. I don't find that racist. They don't question only Michael. They just bring everything more down to earth. He still remains the 1st obviously, so chill.
 
I don't know the actual sale number of thriller, but it's safe to say thriller is the only album most people known in the world, it brought michael to the globe, to the fame no one else can even come close.
thriller is so groundbreaking, timeless and popular. Even after 25 years, it still sell so strong, debut no 2 on billboard chart, outsell other artists new albums, what other old albums can do like this?
Another fact is Michael Jackson's global market is always much stronger than any other artists, at least 2/3 of US sales. Is there any other artists can give up the US market while doing the concert tours? Michael Jackson can and still had the biggest tour of the time. It's all because the thriller mania that introduced Michael to every corner of the world. His market is always global.
 
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I think is not a bad article but what I really don't understand is
why sells outside USA are so underestimated.

Is it really possible that the majority of buyers are in USA? and not in the rest of the world?


Like really? wow :scratch:
 
There are more than 700 million people living in Europe but this article (and the French guy) claim "Thriller" sold 15 million in Europe.

Really??? This doesnt sound right especially when the article also states "Thriller" has sold 32 million copies in the USA with a population of 300 million.

MJ was and still is very popular all over Europe.
 
I remember when the media glowingly mentioned other artists total album sales. And deliberately lied about MJ's album sales, not including his overseas sales at all.
 
bluetopez;3760336 said:
When there are articles stating how other artist figures like the Beatles and Elvis sales have been exaggerated over the years, then I will give a F about this article questioning MJ sales SMH. So until then. Zzzzz

Exactly!!!
 
max000;3760349 said:
I remember when the media glowingly mentioned other artists total album sales. And deliberately lied about MJ's album sales, not including his overseas sales at all.

The media will always be jealous of the fact michael was the one that made the biggest selling album of all time. They will do anything to make it seem like that didnt happen but no matter what the media does thiiler will always remain THE BIGGEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME NO MATTER WHAT!
 
The author Bill Wyman cites Randall Sullivan's book, and this is not a coincidence. This Bill Wyman just wrote another New Yorker article called "The Pale King," referring to MJ with a nasty focus--reviewing R.S.'s book and making MJ look bad. This is another article in the same vein--this guy is just bashing MJ to get attention.
 
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jamba;3760412 said:
The author Bill Wyman cites Randall Sullivan's book, and this is not a coincidence. This Bill Wyman just wrote another New Yorker article called "The Pale King," referring to MJ with a nasty focus--reviewing R.S.'s book and making MJ look bad. This is another article in the same vein--this guy is just bashing MJ to get attention.

How unsurprising that Sullivan's book leads to more people trashing MJ.


Even when you review the album based on certified numbers, which weren't done properly throughout the 80s, it's still over 50 million.
 
jamba;3760412 said:
The author Bill Wyman cites Randall Sullivan's book, and this is not a coincidence. This Bill Wyman just wrote another New Yorker article called "The Pale King," referring to MJ with a nasty focus--reviewing R.S.'s book and making MJ look bad. This is another article in the same vein--this guy is just bashing MJ to get attention.

Thanks so now we understand the intentions of this article. This amount of hate against one man is getting really foolish & transparent now. When you cite a book that is not selling and leave out scholarly works like Vogel, then we know there is nothing non-biased in that article. There will continue to be a long stream of journalist going to great pains to show Micahel is not the King of Pop; he did not influence popular culture; he did not influence other artists; his Thriller sales were not that significant and on and on.

These writers always act as though America is the center of the world and people in Asia, Europe, Africa & Australia do not listen to Michael music or buy it. Simple because they cannot judge the sales in those areas, they come to the erroneous conclusion that there were more sales in the US. They forget that Micahel sold out areas in non-US arenas during tours, & in some places no Westerner ever sold out. You mean to tell me all these people never bought a Thriller album?

Right now I have 3 CD's in my house together with the record and my sister bought the original record when it came out. Then when tapes became a big thing, she bought the tape too. Then when CDs became the new craze, she bought the CD too. There are several people who have that same experience.
 
I don't think it sold 100 million copies but it is still the biggest selling album.
 
The guy says things like 'most likely'. So he's guessing. Look, the album sold one hundred mill. the guy's blowing hot air, in vain. he just felt the need to be heard.
 
no matter what "THRILLER " is the biggest selling album of all time,
- "bad" inside or will be the top 10 and
-"dangerous" inside the top 20 ,
- let's not forget "HISTORY" biggest selling multiple cd album of all time,
- "blood on the dance floor" biggest selling remix album of all time...now who will ever achieve that...no matter how hard they try, no one can underestimate/beat Michael's achievements.
 
I don't see this as an attempt to undermine Michael's achievements. Thriller is still by far the best selling album of all times and this article didn't claim otherwise. Of course they could also ask questions like "Did Elvis/The Beatles really sell over 1 billion records?" To dissect those numbers would be just as much fun as to dissect the sales of Thriller all over and over again.

This article says the Beatles sold 500 million, so only half of the often claimed 1 billion. So IMO it's OK. They say Thriller did not sell 100 million, but they also say the Beatles did not sell 1 billion. IMO that's fair.
 
a better question.
does the eagles album really sold 30 millions in the usa?

the fact is it does not sold 30 million. 16 or 17 million is the truth. they faked that to cheat michael jackson, to give the eagles an award for the album of the century. so the truth is that thriller is the best selling album in the usa since 1984, and the album of the century! what a sucess!

and about the 750 million. i heart that 20 years ago the first time. so, michael jackson did not sell any copy since ~1990?
 
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MIST;3760315 said:
They think it sold only 3 million in Asia,I don´t think so

Yeah, I laughed at that.
"Vieira totals up fifteen million copies of “Thriller” sold in Europe, three million in Asia, and so forth—and finds that Jackson might have sold an additional thirty-five million or so around the globe."

Population in Asia is about/around/well over 3 billion - Thriller sold 3 million
Population in Europe over 700 million - Thriller sold 15 million
Population in US 300 million - Thriller sold 32 million

That doesn't make any sense? Michael have been more successful outside of US and according this list, he sold more in US than Asia and Europe combined?

I personally don't know exact or accurate numbers sold, but I don't believe this guys numbers either.

I see he doesn't think The Beatles has sold over billion either, but he doesn't say anything about Elvis' albums, maybe because he is biased as fan of his?
I was reading comments section and author of this article commented how Elvis moved the universe:D
That might be the reason he feels need to put down MJ record sales as he might feel that MJ threatens Elvis' record sales.

In comments section he also had a few words about Spike Lee's documentary, and it wasn't nice one:doh:
 
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^^ Even the official Elvis Presley site admits Elvis' sales (as well as the Beatles' and many others') are exaggerated.

Some might say spin and hype did not start with politics, but in the entertainment world way back at the time of the Roman circuses. And nowhere will you find the air more thick with spin or hype than in the record industry. It seems that pretty well everybody in the business tends to exaggerate the achievements of their clients simply because they know that everyone else is doing the same. Bing Crosby's disc sales were once upon a time estimated by his record company on the basis of a somewhat quirky analysis of his sheet music sales and those of the Beatles were for years inflated on the rather spurious grounds that the sale of each one of their albums should be considered as equivalent to six singles. It is, however, going to come as rather a shock when fans begin to realise that the Presley figures have also not been immune to the odd spot of massaging over the years. Elvis did not sell 1 billion records by 1982 which claim first appeared via an article in the 'Washington Post' dated 12 July of that year and quoted RCA as its source, nor is there any validity in the current claim of 1.5 billion - whatever Sony BMG may say in the liner notes on the back of one or two recent DVD releases. Rest assured my investigations reveal that Elvis is still by some distance the greatest record seller of all time, but even 26 years later it is no easy task trying to establish whether or not his sales have actually exceeded one billion copies.

Of course, they are still a bit biased for Elvis saying "26 years later it is no easy task trying to establish whether or not his sales have actually exceeded one billion copies", suggesting it's possible he did. IMO it's impossible. As the article itself later acknowledges:

The truth is that nobody really knows or will ever know.

http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/one_billion_record_sales.shtml

Exaggerating sales numbers as a kind of PR and hype has long been a part of show business. I agree if someone makes the point that not only Michael should be called out on it. I'd take issues with the above article if they dissected Thriller's sales but would claim that the Beatles sold 1 billion. But since they gave a more realistic number for the Beatles as well, I don't see it as a personal agenda against Michael.
 
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