Over inflated record sales figures (Earth Wind and Fire, Thriller and others)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Price.pittsburgh, Feb 5, 2016.

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  1. BurgerKing

    BurgerKing Forum Resident

    Where's the evidence to the contrary?
     
  2. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
  3. Todd W.

    Todd W. It's a Puggle

    Location:
    Maryland
    it is simply the argument always made here when someone doesn't like a certain artist and they sell very well. See Justin Beiber or Taylor Swift etc.... This highlighted is a fact.
     
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  4. Dhreview16

    Dhreview16 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    The US RIAA announced last December that Thriller had sold over 30 million copies in the US and over 100 million world wide.

    EWF were (and still are) also popular all over the world. Since according to the RIAA they have sold over 23 million albums in the US, with the Greatest Hits and the live album Gratitude selling over 8 million, and several others selling over a million each, surely it isn't that unreasonable to think that they have sold at least somewhere in the region of 70-75 million albums worldwide, or more, based on the MJ figures, even excluding singles sales at the height of the disco boom ? 100 million in total might even be on the low side if you add them too.
     
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  5. Billion$Baby

    Billion$Baby Forum Resident

    Location:
    IM AT WKRP
    Most of the EWF catalog has not been counted in 20-30 years so your relying on VERY outdated certifications. The numbers are definitely higher than what they have posted. There is no reason for Columbia Records to give Thousands of Dollars to the RIAA to have long past titles re-certified at this point. The RIAA's money train ended about 15 years ago and their "force" is about 1/3 the size now.
     
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  6. Spanish Prisoner

    Spanish Prisoner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Central New Jersey
    I think you're making a lot of assumptions here. I think it's quite possible that EW&F have sold 90 million units worldwide over the past 45 years.

    What does 'American based' even mean? I think they likely were very big internationally, probably much more so than the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac.
     
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  7. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    Looking at discogs.com, I can see contemporary pressings for EWF's main albums in Brazil, Venezuela, Turkey, Singapore, Argentina, Greece, Yugoslavia, Hong Kong in addition to the USA, Canada, Australia and the whole of Western Europe.

    No idea how much they sold in those markets. Which is the point: no one knows.
     
  8. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    I mean we can look at the RIAA website itself:

    https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/apply/

    It does indicate:

    "The audit calculates what product has been shipped for sale (emphasis mine) and/or sold or streamed online, net after returns for the life of the release. When certifying audio and music video releases, the independent auditor is careful to survey the entire music marketplace."

    Elsewhere on the page, you'll find that it does indeed ask submitters to calculate shipments minus returns, but record companies apply for certification as soon as possible in order to say "went platinum in x days!"
     
  9. Billion$Baby

    Billion$Baby Forum Resident

    Location:
    IM AT WKRP
    NET after Returns is what has changed since the 1970's. Those weren't factored in way back when. Many LP's (Like the KISS Solo albums for example) came back to the distributors as UNSOLD and went into the "Cut Out" Bins. Over 1 Million Units shipped and more than 500,000 came back. Larry Harris/Casablanca records clearly lays out this process from back in the day in his "And Party Everyday" book.
     
  10. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    Thanks for the heads up, what a silly argument.
     
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  11. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Funny how worked up people get over data that is so heavily manipulated, falsified, and unreliable.
     
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  12. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    Mexico for starters and 10,000 is Gold and 20,000 is platinum in Hungry and Mylashia and other locations.
     
  13. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    Johnny I dig Michael Jackson. Always have. He's a big part of my youth. I brought up Thriller because so many different sources have different figures. Thriller probably has sold the 65 million globally that wiki mentions since 32 million is certified in the US. But a few years ago the 100 million figure was being tossed around due to the 100 times platinum criteria when everyone assumed platinum was a million everywhere. Honest mistake I guess. And I don't dislike EW&F either. I just think that 100 million has sort if become the it figure to use once an artists reaches high levels but there is no exact confirmation.
     
  14. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    At what point did I say they weren't multi million sellers outside of the states?
     
  15. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    In all of those links did I once insult Thriller or did I merely speak about the same sales confusion I speak of here? If anything I complimented Thriller on the first link by stating he sounded soulless "Post Thriller" meaning Thriller was good.
     
  16. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    I had already counted the live and best of albums with the 23 million.
     
  17. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Apparently discussion about the accuracy of self-reported music sales is really an ongoing attempt to diss someones very favorite-bestest-ever artists.
     
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  18. When Michael Jackson died, the Wall St Journal did a very exhaustive investigation of the 100 million units sold. What they found was singles were counted the same as albums as were individual downloads of single songs. They also found that since certification awards are built upon each other, meaning in the US the 500, 000 sold units for Gold is part of the 1,000, 000 units needed for platinum, etc., not in addition to, adjustments had to be made there, but were being counted separately and added upon each other. Double albums were counted twice even in RIAA certification, so adjustments had to be made there also.. Also that US sales count for 40% - 60% of most worldwide acts' verifiable sales.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
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  19. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    USA, Japan, U.K., Germany, France.

    After that as far as music sales of legit products its not so big wide world at all. In fact it falls off a cliff, and always has done.
     
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  20. So you don't know exactly how old she is? For your sake I hope you at least know her birthday...
     
    ARK likes this.
  21. Looks like a whopping 2,000 sales gets you platinum in Bulgaria. I guess "platinum in Bulgaria" could replace "big in Japan" one day.
     
    ARK likes this.
  22. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    That's my point from the start but some one here think I'm full of it because they are thinking US population.
     
  23. Billion$Baby

    Billion$Baby Forum Resident

    Location:
    IM AT WKRP
    So exactly what is so surprising about any of this?? This is how its always been. When an artist gets a Gold record its for sales (dollars or units sold) exceeding a certain milestone....then it becomes Platinum at 2X that amount. What person would think an album needs to sell 1.5 Million copies to get a Gold and Platinum certifications? That's preposterous and I don't know of anybody that ever thought that. Same with albums or singles or downloads. They have always been counted as the same. This shreds light on nothing.
     
  24. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Isn't the US the center of the universe? :confused:
     
  25. They found the figures were built upon multiple counts of each award worldwide.
     
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