General Question

zensky's avatar

Is there a new way of counting album/singles sales today?

Asked by zensky (13418points) January 6th, 2012

It just flashed on the Tv that Mary J Blige has sold over 50 million albums and 15 million singles… like those numbers are impressive. My kid singing in the shower has gotten over 15 million youtube hits – which means the same thing basically – as they can also be downloaded and saved as mp4.

In other words, are they still counting the sales of physical singles in cd format? Why?

Rainbows, and now many other albums were sold exclusively online as a download…

Isn’t it time we just stopped making silly plastic “albums and singles”? Don’t get me started on the environment… but I digress.

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2 Answers

zenvelo's avatar

They include purchased downloads from iTunes, amazon, and anywhere else legit. But they also include physical pre-orders, that’s how some albums ‘open’ in the Top 10. Beyond that it’s a mystery to me too.

Given what was the Top 30 from 1973 when I graduated from high school, I have never believed the numbers.

zenvelo (39429points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…
tomalarm's avatar

Huhu you just made me google some numbers… I found list of best selling artist which is interesting. Not so much for first 10 places, that belong to Beatles, Elvis, Queen, and so on… But for some newer artists.

And music industry still rages about people not buying music… Hypocrites!

tomalarm (75points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…

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