Just reading through the sticky thread featuring official published reviews of 3121 a few different journalists state that Musicology sold in the region of 6 to 6.5 million copies . I'm sure I've also read on here in the past that in the USA Musicology sold about 2.5 million copies . So regardless of the whole " buy a concert ticket get a free CD " bundle and peoples opinions on it , does this not mean that Musicology was actually a very big success for Prince outside of the USA as a legitimate regular CD release , without any gimmicky methods of forcing people to buy the CD regardless of whether they wanted to or not as happened in the USA . It seems that Prince's hardcore fanbase outside the USA came out in force for the album again , and we can justifiably say that Musicology was a very successful album for no other reason than the fact that people wanted to buy it outside of America , even though he did no TV appearances or live shows to promote it ? Thoughts on this ?

It's difficult to find out what world-wide figures are because there's no global organisation that collects them as far as I know.

Even trying to find out how much Musicology sold in the UK is hard - I had a look at the bpi site and they certify Musicology as only Silver, which is over 60,000 but less than 100,000. If the UK is truly one of the biggest markets, then adding that to the reputed USA total of just over 2 million, it's still not going to edge it towards that 6.5 million total some reviews have stated.

Even if it is difficult to find out world wide sales figures theres lots of albums about that purport to have sold x million every year , I'm sure its not that impossible . Just going through that reviews thread again , the 2 reviews that stated Musicology had sold 6 million or so were UK publications , Time Out and The Mail On Sunday . Now I'm sure if The Sun had proclaimed 6 million sales it'd be laughed at , anyone want to publically proclaim Time Out and The MOS as bullshit rags making up shit this time around ?

In my opinion that's simply impossible...only two Prince albums, till the present, surpassed the 6 million mark worldwide, "Purple Rain" and "Diamonds & Pearls".

Of the 2 million copies sold by Jan 2006 (Soundscan) of "Musicology" just 934,000 were "really" bought by the general public, the remaining 1,066,000 coming from concert sales. Outside US the sales i have are: 100,000 in UK, 60,000 in Japan, 50,000 in Canada, 40,000 in The Netherlands and 20,000 in Swiss for a international certified sales of 270,000.
At the most "Musicology" sold between 500,000 and 1 million outside US (i believe more in around 750,000), for a worldwide total around 1,750,000 (without concert sales) or 2,750,000 (with those concert sales), very far from 6 million or something like that. All my data seems to show that "Musicology" was more sucefull in the US market than outside it.

Take a look at my thread

http://www.prince.org/msg/7/182470
[Edited 3/30/06 0:22am]

Edu said:

nice figures on the thread yeah , they just back up the already given totals for Musicology sales in the USA though really . Makes you wonder where the 2 UK publications got the figure of 4 million sales outside the USA from , I'm not discounting or accepting anything , just curious , I agree its a surprisingly large figure though ...

Why do all these figures vary so much, is there not one authentic source. I mean even all the books and Articles I read about Purple Rains sales place that between 10 and 28 million, this is some variance. What I know is Musicology sold f all in NZ and Australia, I would say under 1000 cpies in NZ and 10,000 in Australia and us Oceanians are big Prince fans.
Half of our shops here arent even displaying the 3121 album, but crap like Katie Tunstall, James Blunt and some bad local groups. Our number album is a group called Fat Freddies drop who are a jazz reggaae quatret from Wellington. Second is a cheap reggae complimation disk with jems like Reggae nights and Beautiful Woman.
Yes reliable sales figures are unknown and even when they are, do they matter to the US at 15,000 for a platinum album and 5,000 for gold, I probably dont think so.

tane1976 said:

As I said, there isn't an official source for sales figures world-wide, you have to cobble it together with a bit of guesswork! Soundscan started after Purple Rain, 1991, so the data on those early albums are even more unreliable.

Gold is 500,000 and Platinum 1 million in the US according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_album

In New Zealand Gold 20,000 and Platinum 40,000

In Australia Gold 35,000 and Platinum 70,000.

In the UK Gold 100,000 and Platinum 300,000

Jeez, they can't even get a consistent award system organised!