Latest on MJJC

Everything you ever wanted to know about worldwide record sales—Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Pink F

^ Not really, say mj and the beatles both had 10 fans each, and each fan bought one of every album mj/beatles releleased, beatles would have sold more cause they got more albums for fans to buy. Unless im lookin at it wrong.

I wish they'd recertify bad...
 
dancemasterman said:
the solo part doesn't matter much to me, because MJ had more people to work with. Instead of being limited to the same 4 or 5 guys to play instruments he always picked the best people to work with.

He had more people backing him up then Lennon had. Just for guitars alone he's had Slash, Van Halen, Santanna and more.
Click to expand...

No one bought his albums because of Slash, Santana and Van Halen. They bought them because they were good albums. Plus that was only one song on the album. I don't think that is valid.
 
a list of best selling artists of all time (including sales of albums, singles, digital downloads, dvd and vhs, ringtones).

Sources: Capitan Acab, Mediatraffic, Billboard, worldwidealbums.net, mjjcharts.com and MJJDangerous.

1 Beatles 510,000,000

2 Michael Jackson 413,000,000 (not including Jackson 5 / jackson sales whichs sales are 110-115 m)

3 Elvis Presley 400,000,000

4 Eltohn John 325,000,000

5 Madonna 320,000,000

6 Rolling Stones 285,000,000

7 Frank Sinatra 250,000,000

8 Queen 250,000,000

9 Bee Gees 220,000,000

10 Pink Floyd 220,000,000

11 Rod Stewart 215,000,000

12 Mariah Carey 215,000,000

13 Celine Dion 210,000,000

14 U2 210,000,000

15 Whiney Houston 205,000,000

16 AC/DC 200,000,000

17 Led zeppelin 185,000,000

18 Stevie Wonder 185,000,000

19 ABBA 180,000,000

20 Barbra Sreisand 175,000,000

21 Phil Collins 175,000,000

22 Bruce Springsteen 175,000,000

23 Paul McCartney 170,000,000

24 Eagles 170,000,000

25 Garth Brooks 165,000,000
 
Last edited:
I highly doubt elvis sold 400 million copies though...
 
Now calculate the sales/album ratio and Michael is on top by far.

BTW, I can understand the fascination with the Beatles, though I have never been a fan myself, but I can see why they were big. However Elvis - totally overrated IMO.
 
Moonwalker.Fan said:
KB50MJ - I love your threads, but could you add your contributions into the first one????

There will be many pages and ... the "numbers" will "dwindle away"...

(anyway, do you have the links of your threads here on the board??? Could you post me them?)

And BTW, The BEATLES re-released BOX set of 14 albums... it seems (id say) it totally failed in terms of selling and ruling the charts..., they are total FLOP!!!!
Click to expand...

Re releases though are never really meant to sell millions, they are simply a re release, an update with better recordings of old tracks. I mean didn't MJ re release his albums in 2001 and they didnt exactly set the charts alight, but they were never supposed to either.
 
irishphil said:
Re releases though are never really meant to sell millions, they are simply a re release, an update with better recordings of old tracks. I mean didn't MJ re release his albums in 2001 and they didnt exactly set the charts alight, but they were never supposed to either.
Click to expand...

These Beatles re-releases were hyped up very much though. I remember on this very forum there was even a thread about it by some Beatles fan claiming how it will be the biggest selling thing in 2009 even out-selling Michael etc. Never happened. Compared to the hype it was a flop IMO.
 
ASIS said:
I highly doubt elvis sold 400 million copies though...
Click to expand...

Exactly, and thats the huge media myth, artificially created based on imaginary estimation in the 50s, 60s, 70s, but Michaels numbers are almost exact because of the official chart performances.
At charts there is no of his albums among best sellers, only Number 1s. compl. reached 8 mill., none of his albums reached 10 mill. as far as I know.

respect77 said:
Now calculate the sales/album ratio and Michael is on top by far.
However Elvis - totally overrated IMO.
Click to expand...

:cheers:
 
Thankyou very much for posting. :) Michael's are amazing for the such small amount of albums he actually released.
 
Moonwalker.Fan said:
Exactly, and thats the huge media myth, artificially created based on imaginary estimation in the 50s, 60s, 70s, but Michaels numbers are almost exact because of the official chart performances.



:cheers:
Click to expand...
What about the beatles? Are they accurate?
 
Well guys in all fairness to Elvis, I got these from a HUGE MJ fan on UKMix.org.

One MJ fan posted this on the forum and MJJDangerous(the TOP chart analysis poster ever on the web, and a HUGE MJ fan on top of that) said that the list was quite correct.

I have to say that these are NOT my numbers. If we went by my numbers, MJ would be sitting at around Way more than 400 million right now if you add all the ringtones, singles and stuff like that. Actually I'm going to change the list now with my own numbers for MJ.

And about the whole ratio thing, I've posted this before, but for anyone who missed it:
Michael Jackson has the best selling album of all time. Is there even another album that came close to selling 70 million? He released way more albums than Michael, but why don't they have an album that has sold anywhere in the vicinity of Thriller. So what if Elvis or The Beatles sold more records. If you took an average of both artists complete catalog, MJ's would be higher. Here is a good explanation for the validity behind this:
Example: Many people consider Michael Jordan to be the best player in basketball, but did you know Jordan isn't even the NBA's all time leading scorer. That would belong to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul Jabbar scoring 38387 while Jordan having 32292. However, Kareem played in more games than Jordan (similar to Elvis and the beatles having more albums than MJ). Jordan played in 1072 games while Abdul-Jabbar played in 1560. Abdul-Jabbar averaged 24.6 points per game, while Jordan averaged 30.1 over the span of their careers. Both were great players, but many consider Michael Jordan the best to play the game.
In correlation, you could argue that Elvis and the Beatles are better because he has sold more records. However, you could also argue that Michael Jackson is better because he has the best selling album of all time, and averages a better selling rate per album than Elvis or the Beatles.
 
KB50MJ said:
Both were great players, but many consider Michael Jordan the best to play the game.
In correlation, you could argue that Elvis and the Beatles are better because he has sold more records. However, you could also argue that Michael Jackson is better because he has the best selling album of all time, and averages a better selling rate per album than Elvis or the Beatles.
Click to expand...


I don't think we should use the word "better" here. In sports stats may mean more (but even there it's debatable), but this is music, art, which cannot be measured by statistics.

Artistic quality has nothing to do with popularity. Sometimes they correlate - like I believe they do in Michael's or the Beatles's case - but very often they do not. There are lot of great artists who sell lot less than much weaker acts. And vica versa: sometimes an artist is hyped up and sells a lot, but he/she is not that good. I think (and I hope there are no Elvis fans here) that Elvis was one of the acts were he got more hype than he artistically deserved. He wasn't even an artist in my book since to me an artist is creative and Elvis was not. He never wrote songs, he was just a performer.
 
Remember also, that since MJ's death he has sold over 75,000,000 units around the world including 31 million albums, 25 million singles/digital downloads, 15 million DVD's, 4 million music video downloads, etc.
 
smooth_criminal05 said:
Remember also, that since MJ's death he has sold over 75,000,000 units around the world including 31 million albums, 25 million singles/digital downloads, 15 million DVD's, 4 million music video downloads, etc.
Click to expand...

Yea I counted all that in the final 413 million figure for MJ. I alos counted about 10 million from the This Is It DVD sales, to make his total DVD sales about 26 million.
 
KB50MJ said:
Well guys in all fairness to Elvis, I got these from a HUGE MJ fan on UKMix.org.
Click to expand...

I respect MJDangerous's work a LOT. I think it's so awesome that he dedicated all that time into trying putting together the puzzle that are the crazy world of record sales.

I was on his site and according to his calculations, not including any of MJ's Or Beatles sales from 2009-present sales, Michael sells more p/album than the Beatles. I would probably include any other act as well. While he does lack a lot in single sales, but he makes up for it in album sales. How many acts can boast that people would rather buy the whole album rather than just a single or two? As for Elvis, he hasn't finished his data on him so it's just a matter of time before we can, honestly, compare not that I think that the results would be any different though.

He's managed to actually be able to compete with Elvis and The Beatles with just 10 studio albums to his name. His anthologies don't sell as well the Beatles though, but I assume that this might change within time, even though I hope not. People probably thought he was crazy when he said that he outsold the Fab 4, but he was right. He's still selling quite well and I hope that can continue on as the years and decades go by.
 
these things can't be compared. Too many variables to truly compare.
Beatles are a group, MJ a solo artist
They had several albums more than MJ (even with J5 and the Jacksons)
2 Beatles have been deceased far longer than MJ.

I think when you make allowances for things like these, you see clearly that MJ was and is in a league of his own.
 
respect77 said:
These Beatles re-releases were hyped up very much though. I remember on this very forum there was even a thread about it by some Beatles fan claiming how it will be the biggest selling thing in 2009 even out-selling Michael etc. Never happened. Compared to the hype it was a flop IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as you say a 'fan'... but fan's never look at things objectively, especially not the obsessive ones. You only got to look at some of the posters on this board to know that.

Anyway, on a slightly more off topic note. I do think its time we got all the MJ albums remastered and released with extra tracks etc. Do you think if this does happen it will be all at once, or will they now do it in the same vain as Thriller 25 (ie release them on anniversarie)?. Im dying to have some more music from around the Dangerous period.
 
^ the new Off The Wall is coming in 2011 and will include unheard album cuts, remixes with modern artists, and a new booklet. Bad 25 is coming in 2012 with a similar make over.
 
So this is telling me that Guinness World Records are making up all their figures!!!!!!!!

Not just that..........that include greatest hits sales for the Beatles, but omit the greatest hits sales for both Michael and the Jacksons. And remember Michael released Number Ones and the Essential.

I also think that the Beatles sales are mega inflated.......I doubt that many could afford that many albums in those days........And if they sold that much, then we will all have Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts who have al least one Beatles album.

Also, his figures are not including about 1/2 of the world, which is important since Michael is famous EVERYWHERE..............

I bet even Aliens come to Earth just to tune into some Michael Jackson music!!!!!!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Krshna28 said:
So this is telling me that Guinness World Records are making up all their figures!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Michael only has 10 albums that make up that 200+ million number if I am correct. This does not add in any of the sales of his anthologies, compilations, and etc. The market has been saturated with those. Though, in terms of studio albums, there's not that many of them since he went solo back w/Epic. Example, he sells about 20 million p/album as opposed to one of his more notable competitors who sell about less than 10 million p/album. (Not exactly correct numbers, but you get my point.)

This can amount to a couple things, either people are buying multiples of albums or Michael has a LOT of people buying his work. In fact, a HUGE number. I know that most of sales come from one album, but even so that's a LOT. I don't think that there's another act that can even boast that. Otoh, I think everyone can say that they have at least 1 compilation album of the Beatles or Elvis, if that. Then again, it's been only 10 years since his last studio album so I guess we'll see if the tides turn later on.

Imo, though, Mj's discography isn't even that big to have to opt to buying the compilations, but to each his own.
 
So guys, its time to ask the Guinness book for updating MJs numbers.

We can e-mail them that request, or?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top