Best Ever Albums

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

Bork — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:47:36 GMT

Author: Bork

Posted: 04/13/2010 17:47

Oh by all means feel free to slam George Strait. He is pretty dull. However, as for crossover success the following may be of interest:

Carrying Your Love with Me (1997), Somewhere Down in Texas (2005), Troubadour (2008), and Twang (2009) all reached the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 (Highest Selling Albums). An additional nine albums have reached the top 10, not counting compilations and live albums.

Success on the singles lists (other than the country ones) have been limited, but every single release since late 1998 has appeared on the Billboard Hot 100, albeit never higher than #23. In total he has had 30 singles on the chart. As has been mentioned his style is fairly straight country without too much pop in it (as opposed to most of todays Nashville productions), so the lack of higher positions on the pop charts is not a big surprise.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

ffudnebbuh — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:07:26 GMT

Author: ffudnebbuh

Posted: 04/13/2010 15:07

I wasn't slamming George Strait, but I am more fascinated that someone that I am completely unfamiliar with had sold so many albums, obviously country albums sell very well and have a solid core of faithful fans..I am familiar with some of the country artists from the 50s and 60s and my favorite from that era is George Jones. I think that he has one of the most amazing voices from any genre. It has that Scotch/Irish Appalachian sound in his voice, although I don't know what his heritage is...there is such a beautiful quality to it.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

Bork — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:03:03 GMT

Author: Bork

Posted: 04/13/2010 15:03

And, on a side note, if people who aren't into country at all start their venture into it by listening to George Strait, they are most likely going to be disappointed and continue not being able to stand that genre. I purchase pretty much every (major label) country album that is released and while there is less consistency throughout the albums, largely due to strong control from Nashville which means you have to do the sappy stuff that for some reason sells good, there has been more good country during the last ten years than at any point since the mid-70's, and if you are at all interested in good time rock n' roll music country might just be your best bet. Great albums have been achieved by very few, but tons of great songs have been made by Brad Paisley, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, Dierks Bentley, Trace Adkins, Miranda Lambert, Pat Green, Blake Shelton, Billy Currington, Rodney Atkins, Montgomery Gentry, and several others. If you like a good rocker, don't overlook new country.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 12:59:57 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/09/2010 16:59

The King of Country, Strait, is strickly country--western swing revival music, bar-room ballads, honky-tonk style, contemporary country and fresh yet traditional country western music (new traditionalist).

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

ffudnebbuh — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 09:15:35 GMT

Author: ffudnebbuh

Posted: 04/09/2010 13:15

That is what is the most interesting, he didn't cross over to any other genres as far as I know.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 09:12:27 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/09/2010 13:12

He had country radio support.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

ffudnebbuh — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 09:10:07 GMT

Author: ffudnebbuh

Posted: 04/09/2010 13:10

What is fascinating to me about George Strait is that he sold so many albums without having crossover radio support(Top 40, AOR, urban, rock, etc), quite an achievement. Usually acts become very big by crossing over to the other genres, for instance, Elvis was a fixture on black radio, country and top 40 in the 50s. Garth Brooks crossed between country and top 40. Beatles between top 40 and AOR etc..

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 08:23:32 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/09/2010 12:23

RIAA says certifications are based on unit shipments minus returns. Furthermore they state that "The certification process begins with an independent sales audit of each title by Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, a highly respected accounting firm that has been auditing title sales for the RIAA® for more than 20 years." Believe what you will, I'm just giving you the stated facts.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

ffudnebbuh — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 07:30:49 GMT

Author: ffudnebbuh

Posted: 04/09/2010 11:30

I would be very surprised if they actually count returns, I have never seen a gold certification awarded and then removed.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

Freddie55 — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 01:33:24 GMT

Author: Freddie55

Posted: 04/09/2010 05:33

RFNAPLES wrote:

Use these settings:
Searchable Database

Title:
Artist:
Label:
Format: Any
Category: Any
Type: Digital
Award: Any
Certification Date
From: January 1958
To: April 2010

Sort by: Cert. Date
Descending
Results Per Page: 50

You will get search results

Thanks. I had neglected to check the date boxes.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 01:25:45 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/09/2010 05:25

Use these settings:
Searchable Database

Title:
Artist:
Label:
Format: Any
Category: Any
Type: Digital
Award: Any
Certification Date
From: January 1958
To: April 2010

Sort by: Cert. Date
Descending
Results Per Page: 50

You will get search results

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

Freddie55 — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 21:48:41 GMT

Author: Freddie55

Posted: 04/09/2010 01:48

RFNAPLES wrote:

You can use the RIAA searchable database to search for digital certifications by selecting type: digital. You can also sort the search results by certification date to see the latest artists.
See http://riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH

Interesting. I can't find any award winners when I select digital though. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:15:07 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/08/2010 23:15

You can use the RIAA searchable database to search for digital certifications by selecting type: digital. You can also sort the search results by certification date to see the latest artists.
See http://riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:03:28 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/08/2010 23:03

"•Each company that requests RIAA® certification must be a firm or corporation that has headquarters in the United States and is engaged in the legitimate production and sale of sound recordings."
"•Only domestic sales and sales to U.S. military post exchanges may be included. The requesting company must separate PX sales from other accounts on sales sheets. Export sales outside the United States are not included in certification."
"•Promotional radio and press copies, cut-outs, inventory sell-offs and surplus sales are not included toward certification."
From http://riaa.com/goldandplatinum.php?content_selector=criteria

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 18:57:41 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/08/2010 22:57

“RIAA®'s certification levels are based on unit shipments (minus returns) from manufacturers to a wide range of accounts, including non-retail record clubs, mail order houses, specialty stores, units shipped for Internet fulfillment or direct marketing sales, such as TV-advertised albums.” from http://riaa.com/goldandplatinum.php?content_selector=certification

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

ffudnebbuh — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 12:40:07 GMT

Author: ffudnebbuh

Posted: 04/08/2010 16:40

That is a great point....It doesn't take into account returns. Sales reps really pressured buyers to purchase huge initial shipments of new albums so that they could get a gold certification. This was especially true for albums released through Polygram which distributed the Kiss albums..so if you ever noticed Kiss albums would always get a gold certification when in fact they never sold with the exception of Kiss Alive and Destroyer. The just had big initial shipments because there were alot of advertising dollars attached to the initial purchase...We would probably buy 3000 of a new Rolling Stones album like "Some girls'(which ended being the Stones biggest album) with no returns but only 150 of a new Kiss album and even then we ended up returning some. You are absolutely correct. It happened most often with the follow up release from artists who just had a huge album. You had to be very careful.

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

Freddie55 — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 11:55:09 GMT

Author: Freddie55

Posted: 04/08/2010 15:55

List of best-selling music artists in the United States from RIAA

"The RIAA does not deal in sales of albums, only certifications of shipped units. Therefore this best-selling list is based on total accumulated certifications given per artist and may not reflect the true physical sales obtained by these artists." (are albums that are shipped and returned or ultimately just destroyed counted in this total?)

"It should be noted that since digital music players have become the dominant listening medium, sales of "hard albums" have declined sharply." (does this mean that the list doesn't include internet sales and therefore no modern artist will ever enter the top 100?)

The current list is almost entirely comprised of American artists. I think that the internet has probably increased the consumption of foreign music in the U.S. At least, I hope it has!

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

RFNAPLES — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 08:29:19 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 04/08/2010 12:29

ABBA 300-370 million
Depeche Mode-100 million
Ricky Martin-60 million

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

ffudnebbuh — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 08:19:26 GMT

Author: ffudnebbuh

Posted: 04/08/2010 12:19

I think that ABBA sold 300 million album globally. they didn't sell very much at all in the US, I remember reading about how big they were globally when I was a buyer and the WEA(Warner/Elektra/Altantic)rep would try and get our chain to buy tons of a new ABBA album based on the global sales insisting that they would break big in the US at any moment, but they never did...interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists

Re: George Strait has sold 68.5 million albums?

Charicature — Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:07:57 GMT

Author: Charicature

Posted: 04/07/2010 18:07

ffudnebbuh wrote:

I am not a country music fan but when I went to the RIAA website which tracks the best selling albums and artists, I was stunned to see that George Strait (who I have never heard) has sold 68.5 million albums in the US alone, That is more than Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Metallica, Van Halen, U2...etc..Having worked as a buyer for a record chain for almost 20 years, I should have known that...thought this was interesting.

http://riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=1&table=tblTopArt&action=

Wow...Bush has sold as many units as Depeche Mode? They only had a third of the albums. For that matter...ABBA, George Harrison, Nine Inch Nails, and Ricky Martin have also not sold more than Bush (10.5 million certified units). I find this amazing. 1) that Bush, with one really good album, has sold as many as all these more popular acts and 2) that ABBA, George Harrison, and Depeche Mode have only sold 10.5 million units after 18 to 30 years of sales.

EDIT: Oh, okay - those aren't worldwide sales numbers. Gotcha.