How To Find Sales Figures On An Album

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I was under the impression that this information was actually specified in Billboard, but I can't seem to find it online.

Is there anywhere this stuff is actually tabulated online, or is it a closely guarded state secret of record companies?

― Custard Subsidence (kate), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

Anything that sells 500,000 copies or more should show up in the RIAA's database of Gold and Platinum records. Otherwise, the info is none too readily available.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:35 (nineteen years ago)

Nah, I'm looking for something that probably sold in the region of about 100,000 copies. It's almost unreasonably hard to find!

― Custard Subsidence (kate), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:57 (nineteen years ago)

RIAA database is good for certifications only. Cetifications are based on the number of units 'shipped.' Big difference -- this why a double album can show up as 10-times plaatinum even if the album itself has sold only 5 million copies -- each disc counts total the shipping total. So 5 million albums = 10 million discs.

As far as the actual sales data, SoundScan is the best place to get that from, if you can (they can be stingy; I once had a secretary contact there who hooked me up once in a while).

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

Man, fuck Garth Brooks.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, they want money for soundscan. I'm just trying to find out info for another messageboard to settle a question.

― Custard Subsidence (kate), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

The answer is you can't. Billboard and HITS usually report weekly sales figures for the past week's top 10, and sometimes cumulative numbers for a few of those, but that's about it. The soundscan data is tres proprietary, and tres expensive. Maybe someone at the label would tell you, especially if you are a journalist who might be working on a story.

― Vornado (Vornado), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

Vornado is incorrect.

If you are a journalist, the people at Scoop Marketing, who do the PR for Nielsen SoundScan, will likely give you the info free. It could take a while though. Google them. This is for U.S. sales only.

― Jake A. Brown (Jake Brown), Friday, 30 June 2006 21:15 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Is there a way to check how many albums bands have sold?

On their lastfm entry, it says that Siouxsie and the Banshees have sold over 50 million albums worldwide...Whilst I was just reading on the bbc news site that Led Zeppelin have sold over 300 million records worldwide.

I'd be gobsmacked that Siouxsie can get within 0.01 % sales of Led Zeppelin.

― Bob Six, Sunday, 18 November 2007 12:13 (eighteen years ago)

Both those figures sound way off.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Sunday, 18 November 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, fan boys like to puff up the figures of their idols. I'd guesstimate 10-15 mil for Siouxsie and around 150 mil for Led Zep.

― Billy Dods, Sunday, 18 November 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

Per the RIAA site, Siouxsie never had a gold record in the U.S. (500,000 copies), were they a million-selling band elsewhere?

― Mark Rich@rdson, Sunday, 18 November 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

They were never as successful in the UK as their legacy would suggest, only two top ten singles iirc. A few gold albums I'd guess, maybe platinum (300,000) for the singles album. They released several albums and even more singles, which I included in my estimate.

― Billy Dods, Sunday, 18 November 2007 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

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