Sales of David Bowie studio albums in the United States?

I will show RIAA and BPI album certifications for each Bowie studio album:

David Bowie / Space Oddity - BPI: Gold
The Man Who Sold the World - BPI:Gold
Hunky Dory - BPI: Platinum
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - BPI:2× Platinum, RIAA:Gold
Aladdin Sane - BPI:Gold, RIAA:Gold
Pin Ups - BPI:Gold
Diamond Dogs - BPI:Gold, RIAA:Gold
Young Americans - BPI:Gold, RIAA:Gold
Station to Station - BPI:Gold, RIAA:Gold
Low - BPI:Gold
"Heroes" - BPI:Gold
Lodger - BPI:Gold
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) - BPI: Platinum
Let's Dance - BPI: Platinum, RIAA: Platinum
Tonight - BPI:Gold, RIAA: Platinum
Never Let Me Down - BPI:Gold, RIAA:Gold
Tin Machine - BPI:Gold
Black Tie White Noise - BPI:Gold
Heathen - BPI:Gold
Reality - BPI:Gold
The Next Day - BPI:Gold
★ - BPI - Platinum, RIAA:Gold

What do you think about these album certifications/sales? Is it possible that Bowie albums from his classic period haven't achieved a pretty good commercial success in the USA?
Even the Bowie's biggest classic "Ziggy Stardust" went only Gold till these days?

 

If you sum up all these RIAA certifications for studio albums it seems that Bowie sold only 5.5 million albums in the USA.

 

Bowie was right up there with the most influential musicians of the 1970s---in fact, he may have been the most important one---but he did NOT generate huge record sales. He only had 4 top 10 albums in the 1970s (and one of those was the ChangesBowie compilation, which peaked at #10). Many albums of his came nowhere close to the top 10. For example, the Ziggy album peaked at #75 in the USA!!

Also, any album that sold platinum could have sold anywhere from 1,000,000 to 1,999,999 copies. So there is a lot of "wiggle" room that would increase by at least twofold the 5.5 million that you estimated. I don't have an exact number, but I'm sure Bowie that sold much more than 5.5 million albums since the 1970s.

 

Oh, after my post above, I realized that your math is way off. A Gold album is at least 500,000 copies sold. And you list 22 albums that sold Gold (or better). So 22 x 500,000 is 11,000,000. And as alluded to before, a Gold album could be from 500,000 to 999,999 albums. So that could mean the 11 million is doubled at the minimum, making 22 million. And then there are a few platinum albums on top of that. So his sales are much, much higher than the 5.5 million. Your calculator was not working properly...

 

If you lived in Cleveland in the early 70's you would have thought Bowie was selling tons of records.

 

I think most people in the US were just content with just buying ChangeOneBowie for the hits in the 70s and 80s, it went Platinum. The direct numbers hide this in the CD era, as Ryko's ChangesBowie replaced the vinyl issue and splits the RIAA awarding. ChangesBowie is also RIAA certified Platinum.

 

Don't believe the poles! I would not trust any record sales figures at all. It seems to be an inexact science.

 

There are various reports that David Bowie has sold between 140 and 150 million albums worldwide, with Let's Dance by far the biggest seller (7.5 - 10.5 million, depending on sources), followed by Ziggy and Aladdin Sane.

 

Do you have something against Polish people?

 

This has been written about many times - Robert Palmer's old BBC doc series on rock music talks about Ziggy's massive success in the UK while charting very low in the US at the time of its release. Like the Ramones or the VU's debut, it eventually went gold decades later largely thanks to their growing critical stature.

Also Jeff Rougvie alluded to this - looking at RCA's projections on what they expected to earn in future CD sales, he realized they had seriously undervalued Bowie's catalog. It's probably because the accountants at RCA didn't realize (and didn't factor in) how much Bowie's seminal 70s work had also grown in stature as well.

 

going my old thrift store digging days he was never a massive seller....id say 1 bowie for every 100 babs. if that. but then again maybe people held on to their alladin sanes and chucked their stoney ends

 

Bowie's catalog sells every year. Day in, day out.

Not every title, but a good cross section of it.

The Discogs numbers bear it out:

David Bowie

180 versions of Hunky Dory
247 versions of Ziggy
165 versions of Diamond Dogs
111 versions of David Live

That's where the $$$$ lie...there is no reason for labels to release and re-release that many albums in that many countries and formats unless they were moving on a regular basis.

And I'd be willing to bet that audits would find sales, err, underreported...

 

Not only is it possible, it may even be desirable. But hey, at least his RIAA- trilogy (83-87) received precious metal

 

How current are those certifications? At some point don’t back catalog albums only get re-certified on request?

Anyway, it does not surprise me that Bowie was not a big seller in the US. He wore a dress after all.

 

Nope. I wanted to separate album sales in the UK (BPI certifications) and sales in the USA(RIAA cerifications).
According to RIAA, Bowie has 7 Gold and 2 Platinum studio albums in the USA.

 

And interestingly enough, another 4 million in compilations and live album.

 

His first big seller in the USA was Aladdin Sane.

How did Boston and Chicago fair in comparison?

 

Worst. Bowie thread. Ever.

 

Let's Dance era is when Bowie got 'rich'. Before then, it was all about the art and the appearance of luxury and wealth.

 

Hi. RIAA certifications are a terrible way to estimate record sales, for a number of reasons:

1. Certification is a voluntary process that is usually initiated by a record companies for publicity purposes. Many companies do not regularly apply for certification because they don't think the publicity is worth anything. Motown for example, never applied for certifications during its heyday. One reason may very well be that the RIAA audit reviews royalty statements, which companies don't like to disclose.

2. The standards for certification have changed over the years. It used to be $1 million in sales would qualify for a Gold album. Then it became 500,000 copies (in the 70's, I believe). Importantly, there was no "Platinum" certification until the mid-80's, so unless his record company reapplied for Platinum cerfication in the late 80's or after that, nothing from Bowie's prime period will be certified as platinum.

3. For many years, I believe that certifications were based on shipments rather than actual sales.

For most artists pre-80's, certifications tend to understate significantly actual record sales.