Prince has sold over 90 million albums world wide including singles and albums.. Here is the list of his album sales since 2003.. sources off nielson soundscan billboard uptown and prince articles and websites...
For You- 132,000
Prince- 1.25 million
Dirty Mind- 1.3 million
Controversy- 1.4 million
1999- 5.3 million
Purple Rain- 16.9 million
Around The World In A Day- 3.3 million
Parade-4.2 million
Sign O The Times- 4 million
Lovesexy- 1.2 million
Batman- 4.7 million
Grafitti Bridge- 1.2 million
Diamonds and Pearls- 6.5 million
0(+>- 2.9 million
The Hits\B sides- 3.2 million
Come- 489,067
Black Album- 388,907
Beautiful Epxerience- 721,000
Gold Experience- 808,997
Girl 6- 257,087
Chaos and Disorder- 578,986
Emancipation- 2.3 million
N.P.S.- 288,933
Crystall Ball- 121,000
The Vault- 129,000
Rave Un 2 The Joy Fantastic- 613,001
Rainbow Children- 136,022
Very Best of Prince- 1 million
One Night Alone Live - 188,002
NEWS- 80,044 (so far)
ALL WORLD WIDE TOTAL SALES
[This message was edited Thu Aug 14 8:31:46 PDT 2003 by lildragon]

Interesting, very interesting.

Yeah, thanks

look at the money made from ona...live! he made over 9 million for that...

People actually bought THE VAULT??

thanks for the info. i was surprised to see that many copies of 'emancipation' were bought. surprised at the (IMO) small # of and Gold Exp.

WonHungLo said:

I love "The Vault".

the vault is the best album released by prince or warners since the gold experience , by far better than emancipation , the 2 million sales for emancipation include the 1.9 million that are lying in bargain bins in every asda supermarket in the u.k priced at £3.49. that just over a £1 per disc , considering the quality of the tracks even at a £1 its overpriced...the vault rules...try playing when the lights go down on a quality hi fi loud and listen to the musicianship...pure quality.

DJ506 said:

me too. Old Friends 4 Sale is on it. Not to mention 5 Women. as one person put it, it's a master class in popular music.

it keeps decreasing...and diamond&perls is a 6 million copies album???

hazel said:

Happens to be he isn't popular anymore, it aint rocket science!

(1 of the 129,000 worldwide who bought the Vault and proud of it!!)

summerdawn said:

i read somewhere that because Emancipation was a 3cd album they multiplied each album sold by 3 thus giving it such a high number.700,000 sounds just about right to me.


but if that were true then surely Crystal Ball would have a similiar figure if not higher?

why doesn't this list include Rave In2? Am I the only one with it?

muirdo said:

thats right, muirdo, i read that too. disc sets get counted by how many discs were in the set...seems sketchy but it's true.

Dippydippydope said:

what are u talking about? it was listed as:
Rave Un 2 The Joy Fantastic- 613,001

Prince's audience has shrunk down to the level of his early days. He gained his freedom from Warner Bros but basically he has to start over & rebuild an audience.

imnotsayinthisjust2bnasty said:

thanks for the info. it does sound about right now that you threw that in there.

It's important to distinguish between sales and certifications when we're having this discussion.

The RIAA issues Gold/Platinum certifications based on numbers shipped to retailers while Soundscan tracks copies actually sold to consumers.

I hope these are actual sales figures...they would be pretty good for Prince if true.

Peace, David

I consider the sales of 'NEWS' at over 80,000 to be very good for an independent, instrumental album with no promotion. Judging by the sales registered so far, it could easily equal 'TRC'.

Comparing Prince's big budget releases with large companies supporting with his independent work is fruitless. It is in no way a barometer of his popularity as his recent albums have arrived with no promotional support and are not full of commercial 'chart-ready' material.

Does anyone seriously believe that Prince wanted or expected to have major commercial successes with 'The Rainbow Children' and 'News', an album of 14 minute instrumental tracks?

Prince is now an independent artist with independent sales figures. The sooner people accept this, the better.

Prince did not 'fall' from anywhere. He chose an alternative route.

A path which values artistic freedom and expression more than sales figures.

Mr7 said:

Co-sign. Good post.

Mr7 said:

I'm sorry, but that's BS. Prince craved for mainstream success at least till Rave, and when he figured he'd lost it, that's when he chose to go 'artistic freedom and expression' as you call it. It was an interesting move and probably a good choice for him to make, but it was also a choice he HAD to make because he had few options left.

Btw, i'm surprised @ how low some of these numbers are. Especially Rainbow Children. This one has been available around the world in stores, was supported by a very succesfull tour and received quite some radio playtime where i live.
I realise his fanbase has shrunk dramitacally, but Prince is still a household name and 136000 is really nothing. Somebody should list all the albums of the last two years that sold 1000-15000 copies, i'd b surprised if i know any of the artists.

Jem said:

I thought they were two different albums. I have two different albums (Rave in2 and Rave Un2) with two different track listings. Did they get included into one? Maybe Un2 sold 613,000 and Rave In2 sold the 1! lol.

Interesting figures! Somehow I do questition a few of this numbers though. SOTT sold only 4 million times? TRC only 136.002 after he did his world tour? But most interestingly I find that VBOP sold 1 million copies while ONA Live sold only 188.002 copies.

lildragon said:

Man, that gives me the shits!

most of the sales look about right but some are not, lovesexy was prince,s biggest seller in europe outwith purple rain so i would say it sold a least 1.5 million copies. emancipation did not sell over 2 million copies, it was nearer 700.000 copies. the rainbow children sold at least 250.000 copies worldwide, i think the figures shown are US sales only, the rainbow children did quite well in japan so i think we can safety say it sold a lot more than shown.

blackboab said:

Lovesexy was his worst selling album since Dirty Mind at that time (i may have read that in the Nude Tour programme, i'm not sure), the figure looks right to me.

SOTT did only sell around 4m too, a travesty.But that's still great for a double album IMO.

Hang on though, Maybe TRC and all other NPGMC releases did better than that.

Prince has never revealed how many members there are for NPGMC (probably for tax purposes), so if an NPGMC member bought "NEWS" for example, does that sale get counted for on soundscan's chart?

Or is this chart for what got sold in retail?

If that's the case, these figures could be much larger than what's stated here...or am I just trippin here?