Nah actually it sold 20m counting both discs
As one package it only sold 10m. Not even half of Dangerous lol
I think this is wrong. People are chopping and changing their terms when they say "20 million" and people are like, 20 million discs or 20 million double discs aka, 10 million.
No, it sold 20 million units, 40 million discs. If you think it only sold 10 million you're supposing that it was LESS successful than Invincible was. Tha is DEFINITELY not the case.
Dangerous sold like 30m worldwide
History only sold half of that lol
I am not sure where sales stood in the 90s but Dangerous is now estimated to have sold 40 million, much of that, perhaps, since his death.
So yeah, it was hyped. That's exactly why it was considered such a disappointment when it didn't do so well in the end, compared to MJ's previous adult solo albums. By the time he was reported to be working on his next album, Invincible, there definitely wasn't as much hype because the public perception was largely that MJ was a freak. Invincible sold 363k in its first week, which isn't bad, but by 2001, that wasn't an impressive number.
This is 'mostly' true. In its first few weeks Invincible was outselling Dangerous, and then died when nothing outside of YRMW came out. HIStory fizzled after the first couple of singles as well. Some of that may be owed to the increased pricing of a double disc.
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I think HIStory was a pretty good album. I think the issue it faced was the over-the-top promotion that came off narcissistic, and also the fact it came with a greatest hits disc. It made people wonder and question the quality of whatever is on the second disc. Are they all of cuts and why wont they stand on their own?
As far as singles go, Scream and YRNA were successes in the US, Earth Song internationally, TCAU really flailed in the US, probably due to the contrrversy around it. Usually Michael Jackson albums are a sustained enslaught, two years worth of releases. I think outside of the HIStory tour, (which never played in the US), there was no real prolonged effort with HIStory in the US especially, which adds to the perception that the album was a "disappointment", because in the US, it was. And half assing on releases and tours there contributes tto that.
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As for Invincible I don't remember any hype for Invincible here in Australia. I remember just going about my life oblivious, then next thing you know my sister is playing a new Michael Jackson album. And it's like Michael Jackson? Seriously? He's still around? Can he still moonwalk? I'd mostly forgotten about the guy for about 6-7 years at that point. I did hear more of him once the album had released but it was usually the media snickering, classmates bagging me for liking Michael Jackson, all this. As good as I think 'some' of the material on Invincible was, the albnum really failed to land and there was no real Michael Jackson hype in 2001.