USA Album Sales: Supremes, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles

[jobeterob]

http://www.greasylake.org/the-circuit/index.php?/topic/116321-the-supremes-diana-ross-stevie-wonder-and-ray-charlesusa-album-sales/

[alanbill1074]

Very interesting and if accurate certainly explains why Universal don't want to release CDs anymore, especially on The Supremes.

[florence]

http://www.greasylake.org/the-circuit/index.php?/topic/116321-the-supremes-diana-ross-stevie-wonder-and-ray-charlesusa-album-sales/

I've seen these figures before and they seem plausible enough but the problem is that there is nothing to verify the numbers or where they were obtained from. There has always been a dearth of information on Diana's RCA sales except for the RIAA certifications.

I notice against many of The Supremes' figures it says "Motown Data". That could be significant but agai just what is this and where did it come from?

It's well known that there is a lot of missing Motown documentation.

[jobeterob]

I agree.

This is about the most plausible data I've ever seen.

Randy Tarraborelli initially said he had incomplete data too but he seems to have dropped what he had in his second book which made it all suspect; perhaps it was just dated. I notice the information I found only went to 1988 or some year like that.

[helga]

I agree that these may be pretty accurate. The earlier Hip-O Select releases seemed to have faired pretty well, considering they were limited to begin with. I think part of the appeal with some of the earlier, more successful, Hip-O Select releases was the fact that some of those studio albums were more popular to begin with, and contained a load of unreleased tracks. The newer releases like "At the Copa" and "I Hear A Symphony" are excellent, but I think the appeal is lessened because some of the less hardcore fans don't care as much for alternate tracks of the same songs and live tracks of the same songs already released on other live albums. The truth is that the vault is running dry and most of the things left will only appeal to the hardcore fans. The CD is also dying off. It only makes sense we are only getting digital releases these days.

[jobeterob]

Agree. I wasn't fussy about the Copa re-release or the live stuff on any other release. But still glad to have them. But Baby It's Me is another matter and I will look forward to A Go Go in whatever form it comes.

[RobertZ]

It's very interesting info, and I thank you for posting it. Just curious -why is the info on a Springsteen site?

[jobeterob]

Good question. I have no idea. He seems knowledgeable though. I went looking for a search button to see if he listed the Temptations or Marvin Gaye. But I couldn't find any such button. I goggled the Temptations for a few minutes but couldn't find anything significant for sales.

Stevie Wonder's were quite a lot smaller than I expected.

[RobertZ]

Good question. I have no idea. He seems knowledgeable though. I went looking for a search button to see if he listed the Temptations or Marvin Gaye. But I couldn't find any such button. I goggled the Temptations for a few minutes but couldn't find anything significant for sales

Stevie Wonder's were quite a lot smaller than I expected.

As a big Bruce fan [[not fanatic - just fan) I can testify that Springsteen is a big, true R&B fan. That may have something to do with the appearance of the info there. Re: Stevie – yes, it’s always surprising that the big hits, even for the legends, are frequently out-numbered by non-hits. My theory is that the quality is understood as sometimes outpacing quantity.

[Glenpwood]

Not to pick this apart but... a few questionable figures are included

Funny Girl and Right On sold the same amount of copies?? Highly doubtful

Also, Hip-O Select product bought directly from them wouldn't be scanned by Soundscan so those numbers for the expanded editions so everytime they claim the sets that were limited to 5,000 sold that amount through them means they took sold out as the assumption they actually did and not via Soundscan. Or perhaps Hip-O printed more than the limited amount but its suspect they sold that cleanly via Soundscan.

[jobeterob]

I actually noticed fairly high sales for albums around the time of Love Child, Funny Girl and Live at London's Talk of the Town. That's probably because of the TV specials and the Temptations Albums ~ and the 3 albums with The Temptations are missing. I notice a lot of the albums show "Motown Data".

Mary Wilson has said several times that the albums after Diana left did not sell well.

[jobeterob]

For Florence.

And not any more verifiable than any other source.

But this makes some sense.