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  1. #201
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    I don't understand any need for conspiracy theories regarding Florence Ballard's solo career. Have you heard the album? The material is weak, the vocal performances were just okay, and Florence was still drinking--and add to that the fact that her manager was just a limo driver/husband whom many people didn't like or trust.

    And even if the material was great and right for Florence's voice, and had great management, why would she be guaranteed a hit straight out of the box? The Supremes certainly didn't get that. It took 11 flops before they hit. The truth is, most records bomb. Where is the need for a conspiracy?

    Berry Gordy hated what happened with Flo and the Supremes. He hated it. Even if it was just about the money and the potential hit the group would take if Flo took off, Berry did not want to mess with the formula--but his hand was forced.

  2. #202
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    Quote Originally Posted by Strange View Post
    Anyway, what makes you think that Cash Box and Record World were not airplay-oriented too?

    So were both the Cashbox and Record World chart compiled incorporating airplay?

    For years now I have thought both were sales only with Cashbox late in it's lifespan [[late70s) beginning to use airplay.

  3. #203
    Quote Originally Posted by roger View Post
    A very interesting post there Strange [[Your Post #190).

    I'd be very interested to know where I can find the stated cumulative figure for U.S. singles sales in 1964 of just 99 Million.

    To me this figure seems astonishingly low, especially set against the U.K. figure you state of just under 73 Million [[which is close to my guestimate of 80 Million).

    I would have thought that U.S. singles sales in this period would have been much higher and I've been busy googling trying to find some clues.

    The nearest I've come to any success is an article I've found about Japanese Sales in Billboard, dated 19th December 1970.

    http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m...page&q&f=false

    In this it states that in 1969 "singles sales in Japan were 0.7 units per capita, whereas in the U.S. and U.K. they were about 1.0.

    So, if Billboard in 1970 is to believed the total sales of singles in the U.S. in 1969 were around the 200 Million figure and in the U.K. they were around the 50 Million mark.

    This seems broadly speaking correct with the U.K. figures you quote of between 46 and 47 Million, so it seems logical to assume their U.S. estimate is correct as well.

    However, something seems wrong here as this 1969 U.S. figure is double the amount you state as being the total for 1964, yet the consensus of opinion is that in 1960s America they were in steady decline! Are we all wrong?

    I also found this interesting article on the breaking of THE BEATLES in the U.S. which occurred in 1964 ..

    http://www.pophistorydig.com/?p=3421

    An interesting comments in this is that ..

    "They [[The Beatles) had 15 separate recordings in 1964 - nine singles and six albums - that each sold 1 million or more copies, representing total Beatle sales in the U.S. that one year of more than 25 million copies".

    Which means that at the absolute minimum THE BEATLES sold 9 Million singles in 1964, and as the article states figures for "I Want To Hold Your Hand" as 3.4 Million by the end of March, with "Can't Buy Me Love" selling 2.1 Million at that time it looks like the cumulative total for Beatles singles sold in the U.S. in 1964 is much higher.

    It doesn't leave much for everyone else does it, though the article does state that in the first quarter of 1964 THE BEATLES accounted for a staggering 60% of U.S. record sales.

    One BEATLES record that could give a pointer to the sales of "Baby Love" is THE BEATLES last hit prior to "Baby Love" .. "A Hard Day's Night" which the article states was certified gold for exceeding sales of more than 1 million copies on 25th August 1964.

    Now, in terms of Billboard Chart numbers "A Hard Day's Night" was a lesser hit than "Baby Love" .. here are the figures for their respective Billboard Hot 100 chart runs.

    "Hard Days Night" .. 18th July 1964 .. 13 weeks on the charts, 2 at #1 .. 1st August and 8th August.

    "Baby Love" .. 3rd October 1964 .. 13 weeks on the charts, 4 at #1 .. 31st Oct, 7th Nov, 14th Nov 21st Nov.

    It seems to me incredibly unlikely that a record that was at #1 for two weeks in August of 1964 actually sold significantly more than one that was #1 for virtually all of November 1964, so on that basis alone I would be astounded if "Baby Love" hadn't reached the Million mark in the U.S. by the end of 1964.


    Which brings me back to the original subject of this thread .. the U.S. sales of "Stoned Love" in 1971.

    If the Billboard assertation that singles sales per Capita in the U.S. and the U.K. in 1969 were approximately the same then it seems likely that there was little divergence by early 1971 and maybe we could use my "proportioning" idea to interpolate U.S. sales.

    Florence's list has U.K. sales of "Stoned Love" as 355000, and as it had only one U.K. chart run virtually all of that would have to be in 1971.

    So .. if "Stoned Love" had been just as big a hit in the U.S. as it was in the U.K. then it would seem likely that U.S. sales were in the 1.4 to 1.5 Million range.

    In pure chart terms "Stoned Love" was actually a slightly bigger hit in the U.K. [[13 weeks peaking at #3) than on the Billboard Hot 100 [[14 weeks peaking at #7) but even this to me indicate that U.S. sales in excess of a Million were very likely.

    Interesting thread this isn't it!!

    Roger ..
    Yes, interesting indeed Roger although maybe not everyone’s cup of tea as we’re still only scratching the surface on all this sales and chart stuff. I’ll now attempt to send all but those with the most chronic insomnia condition to sleep….


    The data on US sales that I gave were RIAA industry estimates. I guess you could find them on their site, but they tend to charge the earth for their statistical information at the best of times so no doubt they’d do the same with those. You could ask them nicely to comment perhaps, you never know!

    Yep, 99m is one hell of a surprise to me too Roger for 1964, and yet then again that is only because I, like you, had all sorts of misconceptions foisted on me by the record industry’s hype machine as to what individual hit records were selling. There is no way that we were to know otherwise, I mean who could other than people within the industry? It is only when one looks into things fairly studiously [[sadly, I’ve done rather too much of that!) and realises there were just as many labels that didn’t overstate their figures that the penny begins to drop that while singles were still big business, they weren’t anywhere near the peak years of the mid-50s.

    You’ve alluded to the main culprits for our rose-tinted view of record sales in the mid-60s – the Beatles. Quite simply they were so far ahead of everyone else that if it were a boxing match they would, as they say, stop the contest! More on this later.

    I recalled your link to the Billboard Japanese figures, and again using the proportionality factor the calculations you’ve then made for US [[and UK) numbers of singles sold would be about right and you [[and I) would be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that 200m was therefore about the number for the States. However two things are important to point out about Japanese data here; firstly, it is of course all about production [[not sales to the consumer, which is often assumed, the sloppy use of the wrong terminology by journalists not helping us one bit either btw), and secondly that Japan produced for the entire region. It isn’t something most would consider, but the four or five majors record producing nations were also big exporters, and the data can be skewed dramatically by that factor. For instance, if I remember rightly Germany produced 100m or so records in 1969 for the first time. It was a headline number and generally taken as for their internal consumption. In fact they exported to many of the Germanic-speaking countries too, and that accounted for 20% of the 100m…so you see how the bald facts can be misleading.

    Anyway, I digress, the actual RIAA estimate of unit single ‘sales’ in 1969 was 157m! Now you say “are we all wrong” when referring back to my 99m figure for 1964 against your calculation of 200m for 1969, and I would say “yes, very probably”! There is perhaps a reason why there are more Motown awards from the late sixties Roger, and basically it is because they were selling/producing more singles generally than in 1963/4.

  4. #204
    Continuing on Roger:

    So back to the Beatles, who, as you say, makes it so hard to reconcile the sales of the day. I suppose they should be slung out of the record selling books as they were a law unto themselves, and as I mentioned it makes us misunderstand the basic figures of every other ‘normal’ hit. There is little doubt they had some very large percentages of the market at various times and that first quarter figure of 60% is ground well trod. Of course the veracity of the claim is hard to verify, it is so wishy-washy, but the other numbers, and especially 25m records in total for the year, could well be acceptable. You might not know, but their album sales were well documented in court case responses, and again not wishing to test my memory too much but LP and tape sales were in the neighbourhood of 9m that year, leaving us with 16m for the singles. It isn’t quite right and once more this isn’t perhaps the time and place to elaborate further, but if we go with that figure we also have [[fortunately for my simple brain) an easy percentage of the singles market – 16% or thereby. It seems reasonable when looking at their impact and chart dominance when you say it like that, don’t you think? And equally when that is stripped away the lower [[sub-one million) totals of most of their competitors’ best shots is more readily understood.

    Everything is linked together too. I like the way you looked at ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ by way of what ‘Baby Love’ may or may not have sold. It is in theory a reasonable method, but as Smark21 pointed out in his post there is no way of knowing what the No. 1 record in any given week was selling, and again we do have to appreciate that we are dealing here with a Beatles hit that would simply ship big and fly of the shelves super-fast. Even so, it wasn’t an instant gold disc, was it? By the time it was announced on 25th August the single had been absent from the No. 1 spot for almost a fortnight, and had been on the market for over eight weeks, but most notably it was in its sixth week in the Hot 100 [[seventh in Cash Box, which only kept the single on top for a fortnight).

    By comparison, look back at the previous two Capitol singles and see how the certification announcements for ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ came during its third week in the chart and for ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ in its opening week, so obviously ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in contrast was ‘struggling’ to shift seven figures, which by-the-way were shipments and not sales. The next release, ‘I Feel Fine’, got its award announced in its fourth week in the Hot 100.

    This shipment issue is the crucial thing Roger. As I’ve said to Florence, the likelihood is that Motown shipped one million copies, but after returns all that Universal could show the RIAA auditors was the final net total beneath one million, hence the modern-day gold for 500,000-plus net shipments. Comparing the chart runs is all very well, but what we see is a fairly swift rise to the top in Billboard and then a month at the summit which would appear to have been a close-run thing with its competitors judging by the Cash Box results [[although to be fair it was four weeks in front with Record World too).

    There is no knowing for sure of course, and it will all be very close either way, but what we have is an RIAA gold only 33 years later, and similarly, as I’ve mentioned before, only three other non-Beatle RIAA gold discs in the whole of 1964. It tells me that the ultimate sale to the consumer was not above one million.

    Look at the last of those three non-Beatle golds for the year, the Roy Orbison classic ‘Oh Pretty Woman’. It had three weeks on top and garnered its gold disc in its 10th week in the Hot 100 as it prepared to exit the Top 10. Another example of what it took to just make it to one million shipments for anyone other than the Fab4. The other two awards were the m-o-r Adult Contemporary favourite ‘Everybody Loves Somebody’ from Dean Martin [[gold in its 8th week charted) and ‘Rag Doll’ by the Four Seasons that also took 10 weeks to reach the shipment milestone. But most telling is all the other big hits of the year that didn’t make the million seller grade – and unless you subscribe to the theory that they were all reticent like Motown to bother with the award, well it once more speaks louder than words to me.

    As for ‘Stoned Love’ [[again!), the estimates in Florence’s list are of little value as they are simply the guesses of someone like you and me, so using 355k for the UK to calculate a US total is the equivalent of two wrongs not making a right. Moreover, I’ve shown how the total has to be inaccurate in that particular instance because the single didn’t win a silver disc for 250,000 sales in Britain, so ergo it must have shipped less in 1971. To then get to 355k it has to be reliant on some unbelievably strong sales in its post-chart life and the download era that beggars belief.

    All of that notwithstanding, if we did accept that there is some measure of trustworthyness in population and/or market size proportionality to judge these things, and we use the correct ratios for 1970/1 [[approximately three-fold US-UK) on the less than 250k ‘evidence’, then we are looking at a ‘Stoned Love’ US total of 750k net sales perhaps. That makes sense.

    Of course what they shipped is once more a different thing altogether…

  5. #205
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    Well thank you for all that information. I dozed off before I could read it all but I'll be back.

    Penny

  6. #206
    Quote Originally Posted by florence View Post
    So were both the Cashbox and Record World chart compiled incorporating airplay?

    For years now I have thought both were sales only with Cashbox late in it's lifespan [[late70s) beginning to use airplay.
    Well to be honest with you Florence I just don’t know for sure, which was kinda why I was asking the question of you! I guess it is necessary to track down someone who was active in the Cash Box and Record World chart compilation days of the sixties, or find some other trusted source of information.

    What I would say though is that it would seem bizarre to me that the competitors to Billboard didn’t consider the airplay factor when drawing up their weekly rankings. Indeed, there is evidence that this must have happened, if not to the same weighting extent perhaps. In the case of Cash Box for instance their original existence had been in support of the Juke Box industry [[hence the title), and therefore that alone suggests to me they would factor in other things that influenced popularity. Billboard prior to the Hot 100 commencing in 1958 had, as you know, a Juke Box and Disc Jockey chart along with the Bestsellers chart that stuck with retail numbers, all of these fed into the Top 100.


    I may be completely wrong to assume the others were also savvy enough to not exclude parts of the industry that were valuable to them [[advertising revenue being the primary driver here of course), but there it is!


    Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I think it is all very much a red herring for chart watchers who are considering how worthy the US hit parades are in assessing sales results to allow too much for the impact of airplay. Its benefit was principally to get a record into the lists, and the higher up we go the weight of that particular criteria is obviously lessened, if not entirely negated, as sales take over.

    Certainly once a record has made it to Top 40 radio then the playing field is much more level for obvious competitive reasons, and I doubt there would be much to stop it selling [[and rising in the charts) other than its own ultimate popularity. It is the American way after all!

  7. #207
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    What I am certain about is that Billboard was regarded as much more reliable than Cashbox which was much more reliable than Record World.

    Cashbox might have been airplay only..........but that I am not at all sure of anymore.

  8. #208
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    It was called Ca$hbox for a reason!...lol

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    jukebox plays was calculated in the mix too.

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    All the chart trade mags had periods of payola buying chart positions. For example when Cashbox was having major financial difficulties a few years before it shuttered Wayne Newton or Curb bought him a number one pop single with a cover of the Box Tops The Letter which didn't chart or bubble under on the Billboard Hot 100. In a Morown related note one of the high up execs at Casablanca Records detailed in his memoir how he payed the chart manager of Billboard a hundred grand in cash to make Thank God It's Friday Soundtrack the number one album and cussing him out when he took the money but didn't do it since RSO paid more money under the table to the exec to keep Saturday Night Fever number one. He also discusses sending acts to their conferences as well as coke and cash to keep songs going up the charts in those days to keep dog product from being returned that they had certified gold or platinum. [[ The Kiss solo albums is the main one I recall but I'll have to pull the book out). We are never going to know the true answer since the accounting records are incomplete, there was no Soundscan to count units, and no one was smart enough like Tommy James back in the early seventies when he went after Morris Levy and Roulette Records when he couldn't get an accurate accounting of his royalties to go to the printer who did all the labels for his records to figure out he got underpaid by millions. He never got the money but it was a genius way to get a true figure. Also, the market fluctuates wildly by the week let alone the year so pulling out The Beatles figures mean nothing. It'd be like saying the week this year Lady GaGa sold a million means the week this year Amos Lee sold 40,000 and set the record for lowest selling chart topper was just Blue Note skimming off the top and really did the same as GaGa. The chart every week is supposedly the most played and bought songs in the country and that can vary so a number seven in 1970 could be the same as a number one in 1981 or a number 40 in 2011 so at the end of the day it should be about the fans enjoyment of Stoned Love. I've never let a sales figure or chart position tell me to like something more or less.

    Ok, I've rambled enough lol

  11. #211
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    Quote Originally Posted by Strange View Post
    Well to be honest with you Florence I just don’t know for sure, which was kinda why I was asking the question of you! I guess it is necessary to track down someone who was active in the Cash Box and Record World chart compilation days of the sixties, or find some other trusted source of information.

    What I would say though is that it would seem bizarre to me that the competitors to Billboard didn’t consider the airplay factor when drawing up their weekly rankings. Indeed, there is evidence that this must have happened, if not to the same weighting extent perhaps. In the case of Cash Box for instance their original existence had been in support of the Juke Box industry [[hence the title), and therefore that alone suggests to me they would factor in other things that influenced popularity. Billboard prior to the Hot 100 commencing in 1958 had, as you know, a Juke Box and Disc Jockey chart along with the Bestsellers chart that stuck with retail numbers, all of these fed into the Top 100.


    I may be completely wrong to assume the others were also savvy enough to not exclude parts of the industry that were valuable to them [[advertising revenue being the primary driver here of course), but there it is!


    Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I think it is all very much a red herring for chart watchers who are considering how worthy the US hit parades are in assessing sales results to allow too much for the impact of airplay. Its benefit was principally to get a record into the lists, and the higher up we go the weight of that particular criteria is obviously lessened, if not entirely negated, as sales take over.

    Certainly once a record has made it to Top 40 radio then the playing field is much more level for obvious competitive reasons, and I doubt there would be much to stop it selling [[and rising in the charts) other than its own ultimate popularity. It is the American way after all!
    Can't find anything at all on how Record World compiled its chart but I do believe it was sales only so you pays your money and you takes your choice.

    Couldn't find anything directly on Cashbox but found this article in an Elvis Presley site.

    http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-cash-box.html

    It looks authentic and ties in with what I had always believed - and again I think it was later in the 70s when they began to incorporate airplay.

    It would be interesting if anyone could confirm that the percenatge of airplay:sales on Billboard was 80%:20% [[yes indeed).

    The fact that Billboard and Cashbox in the main didn't have a lot of vast differences would tend to suggest airplay and sales ran along similar lines anyway.

    Generally The supremes charted slightly higher on Cashbox. The biggest difference I think was the showing of Forever Came today which stalled at #28 on Billboard but which made #13 on Casbox.

    Diana Ross' Reach Out And Touch and Remember Me were both top 10 on Cashbox.

    Another thing too about the compilation of the US charts - they had various charts for various markets so if someone was selling majorly in the R&B market would these sales be reflected on the Pop Chart - that could certainly make a difference.

    Couldn't Country Records rack up big sales without showing up in the Hot 100?

  12. #212
    There is no doubt that it is widely believed Cash Box [[and possibly Record World/Music Vendor) did not include airplay in their respective charts, while equally those that bother with such things are aware Billboard did utilise airplay information when compiling the Hot 100.

    I'm with you on this Florence; you pays your money and takes your choice! All I'm saying is the impact of airplay is reduced in importance the higher up the respective charts you go anyway - and as you also say there is not much difference in the peaks and durations in general too - which is really what we are discussing and concentrating on with regard to these sales issues and potential million or near-million sellers.

    Once you slip below the Top 40 then whether airplay is included or just sales will matter little as the lines between positions will become more blurred as they will all be closer together naturally and the reporting [[both number of retailers and disc jockeys/stations) was obviously so much smaller.

    That Elvis site link is bound to be biased btw...and I was amused that they came to the conclusion that Elvis charted longer in Billboard than Cash Box with the examples they gave which showed that records were still getting DJ plays and being reported long after they'd left CB. Nonsense - it was simply the bigger chart in Billboard. But nevermind, lol. Oh, and the 'King Creole' being absent in Billboard might have been something to do with the fact Billboard ran an EP chart that kept it from showing up in the Hot 100...

    So I wouldn't hold much credence to what fan sites say. I would however rely on Randy Price - the creator of the Cash Box chart website - who apparently was told that Cash Box did apply airplay information lower down their listing. Again, it is only those who worked for the paper who are gonna really know, and as I'm not bothered either way as the various listings all seem to pan out very similarly and like I say sales will win out at the top anyway, then it is all superfluous to what we are looking into about big hits like 'Stoned love' etc.

    I have also been amused over the years by the misunderstandings about the genre charts. Sure, there were some records that were too 'country' or too 'black' for many pop stations and so they would have lost out to some extent with their peaks and longevity in the mainstream Hot 100 etc. Eddy Arnold and James Brown were two obvious examples. But once again, if the record broke out of its regional or genre background and went national and above Top 40 then it would have gotten all the airplay [[the stations wanted audiences, and would play what was popular wherever it came from) it deserved. It would have continued up the chart on its merits until demand - both from listeners and buyers - began to ebb.

    It is a fallacy that acts were selling big and not getting the pop chart positions they justified. Joel Whitburn told me in 1977 that if a record was setting the genre charts on fire it would automatically crossover, that was how it worked. Of course there will be exceptions we can point to, but then that applies to the odd difference between the charts as you've also pointed out regarding 'Forever Came Today'.

    Something about them proving the rule!

  13. #213
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    Quote Originally Posted by Strange View Post
    It is a fallacy that acts were selling big and not getting the pop chart positions they justified. Joel Whitburn told me in 1977 that if a record was setting the genre charts on fire it would automatically crossover, that was how it worked. Of course there will be exceptions we can point to, but then that applies to the odd difference between the charts as you've also pointed out regarding 'Forever Came Today'.

    Something about them proving the rule!
    OK Strange .. So? How do you explain "The Turning Point" by TYRONE DAVIS reaching #1 on the Billboard R&B chart on 7th February 1976 and never featuring on the Billboard Hot 100?

    Roger

  14. #214
    Quote Originally Posted by roger View Post
    OK Strange .. So? How do you explain "The Turning Point" by TYRONE DAVIS reaching #1 on the Billboard R&B chart on 7th February 1976 and never featuring on the Billboard Hot 100?

    Roger
    As I said Roger, there will be the odd 'exception that proves the rule'! You have found one, and there are others, yet as with my other comments concerning the occasional big variations between the peaks and lengths of stay in the three major listings, it isn't really of much import and in fact it underlines the weakness of the genre markets which is what Joel Whitburn wrote to me all those years ago. [[Yep, I've been 'involved' in this stuff too long!).

    I didn't elaborate further as it seems I have already sent most to sleep, but seeing as you ask what Whitburn explained was the R&B and Country markets in themselves were way much smaller than the all-encompassing Pop arena. Kinda obvious really, but at the time I was like you and not convinced. I felt that many big hits in those two 'specialist' [[for want of a better word) were probably selling heavier than we were seeing. He said that wasn't the case and any big black or country hit in pure sales terms would crossover into Pop assuming the airplay was also there. The Hot 100 was the lead ranking - again kinda obvious.

    So what he was saying was a hit - even a No. 1 - in the Hot Country Singles or R&B charts would not necessarily even be big enough to make the main Pop list. Yep, I was surprised, but that's what he said. Moreover, in the seventies especially their were plenty of black and country stations that fed the Billboard genre charts that weren't reflected in the pop stations as they had no appeal and equally didn't sell that heavily. Both the R&B and Country markets did not sell heavily to their audiences who preferred to listen on the radio. The economic reality of the time had a lot to do with this too I guess.

    Tyrone Davis did have a history of cross-over Pop hits Roger, as you probably know. He's best known for 'Can I Change My Mind' and 'Turn Back the Hands of Time' which both were also R&B chartoppers and Top Ten in the Hot 100 at a time when genre single sales were buoyant. So much so that both managed to ship one million and attained the RIAA gold disc as a result. From then on his hits could crossover but not until 'Turning Point' did he make it back to the top of the R&B lists, and incredibly, as you say, it failed to reach the Hot 100 - the first R&B No. 1 to miss the main chart since 1955!

    However, as I always say, don't trust in the one list and if we consider Cash Box and Record World we see 'Turning Point' made No. 78 [[6 wks on) and No. 64 respectively which was perhaps more in keeping with the trend and sales strength of a genre-restricted hit with not much crossover appeal. The chances are that the genre charts were more airplay weighted perhaps? Or as I’ve said before there is little difference between the lower rankings so anomalies like this will more easily occur? Moreover, there has been comment that CB and RW were sales-only and so again we can understand it not appearing in the Billboard if it was just a radio smash?
    As Florence says. ‘you pays your money and takes your choice’. All I know is there are these examples of a seeming imbalance between the charts and so on that really do not occur that often and simply ‘prove the rule’!

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    Here are JRT's figures for Supremes' singles from his 1989 bio Call Her Miss Ross:

    Where Did Our Love Go 1,072,290
    You Can't Hurry Love 1,104,012
    Nothing But Heartaches 368,267
    My World Is Empty barely 500k
    Love Is Like An Itching 368k
    Some Things You Never Get Used To 202,963
    The Composer Barely 200k
    No Matter What Sign less than 300k
    Someday We'll Be Together over 2m copies eventually sold**

    **From the book:

    Other Supremes' singles which sold a million copies or more during the time of their release were "Where Did Our Love Go", "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Love Child". "I'm Gonna Make You Love Ne" which they recorded with The Temptations, also sold a million. Though Motown's sales figures are said to be incomplete, it seems that "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", "Stop! In The Name Of LOve" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On" probably all eventually sold a million copies as years of sales were tallied but they were not million-sellers at the time of their original release.

    Despite press hype to the contrary , other famous Supremes' singles like "Back In My Arms Again", "Nothing But Heartaches", "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone" and "Reflections" did not even come close to selling a million, most sold roughly half of that.


    Sales for Diana solo:

    Reach Out And Touch barely 500k
    A'int No Mountain 1,243,748
    Remember Me 540,940
    Reach Out I'll Be There 254,307
    Touch Me In The Morning 1,504,909
    Last Time I Saw Him 643,740
    Sleepin' 46,162
    Do You Know Where You're Going To 882,272
    The Boss approx. 250k
    It's My Turn 434,794


    Some of those figures are so exact that he must have been given them and printed them in good faith. It could be that these were totals shipped before returns were factored in.

    The Universal certifications in 1997 really muddy the waters. If you take them at face value then aside from "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" they had only three singles which sold more than 500k - Someday 1m+, Baby Love and Stop! In The Name Of Love".

    From what has been said it does seem probable that the Supremes' singles sales in the US are not as high as we were always led to believe and million sellers at the time were quite scarce in the market as a whole so not making the million is plausible but without anything concrete in the way of proof I just don't believe that only those three singles passed 500k. I knew about "Returns" but it would seem the scale was quite big. Could Motown for example in 1964 afford to ship over 1m copies of WDOLG and have over half returned to put the figure below 500k?

    Of course, while it is unlikely and why would they? is it all possible Universal decided just to claim on the original standard of 2m for Platinum and 1m for Gold?

    It could also be that their is much sales documentation missing but then you have to ask how come there would be so much missing for The Supremes yet apparently they were able to supply it all for The Temptations?

    Maybe it is just as simple that contary to the perception that The Supremes were Motown's biggest sellers they were actually well outsold by The Temptations.

    It looks to me as if Universal took a decision not to discontinue applying for back cetifications. If the figure for Diana's Touch Me was 1.5m shipped it's hard to believe it didn't do 1m but impossible to believe there could have been 1m returns to put it below the half-million.

    Interestingly JRT supplied no figures at all for Diana's RCA sales so if the figures for Motown were not to hos mind authentic he would probably have given figures for those too!

    Why did he remove the sales from the updated version of the book? Interestingly in it one record he still claims as a million seller is You Can't Hurry Love.

    Off topic but does anyone have any figures for Diana's RCA singles? I have never seen anything at all for them.

    Certainly none of them reached 1m but I somehow think Why Do Fools Fall In Love did over 500k and Mirror, Mirror and Muscles would be near to that.

    Missing You is interesting. It was on the charts for nearly 6 months but spent the early part yo-yoing around the middle of the Hot 100. Depending on what sort of sales this part of the chart generated the accumulated totals over a large number of weeks could be quite healthy so the total for MY could maybe be surprising.

    With regard to Stoned Love in the US I notice BayouMotownMan who apparently has worked out a lot of The Supremes' sales from their chart positions and his knowledge of the American market suggests it did 1.5m.

  16. #216
    Quote Originally Posted by florence View Post
    Can't find anything at all on how Record World compiled its chart but I do believe it was sales only so you pays your money and you takes your choice.

    Couldn't find anything directly on Cashbox but found this article in an Elvis Presley site.

    http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-cash-box.html

    It looks authentic and ties in with what I had always believed - and again I think it was later in the 70s when they began to incorporate airplay.

    It would be interesting if anyone could confirm that the percenatge of airplay:sales on Billboard was 80%:20% [[yes indeed).

    The fact that Billboard and Cashbox in the main didn't have a lot of vast differences would tend to suggest airplay and sales ran along similar lines anyway.

    Generally The supremes charted slightly higher on Cashbox. The biggest difference I think was the showing of Forever Came today which stalled at #28 on Billboard but which made #13 on Casbox.

    Diana Ross' Reach Out And Touch and Remember Me were both top 10 on Cashbox.

    Another thing too about the compilation of the US charts - they had various charts for various markets so if someone was selling majorly in the R&B market would these sales be reflected on the Pop Chart - that could certainly make a difference.

    Couldn't Country Records rack up big sales without showing up in the Hot 100?
    Darn, I spent a fair bit of time last night posting a reply for you Florence on this and when it came to post it logged me out…grrr. It was not bad either, if I say so myself, but now is lost to the ether and I’m sure this won’t convince as much. Lol.

    No seriously, you raise some good points and again many were concerns of mine and I have kinda addressed some of them in response to Roger’s posts. Basically the problem of airplay will always be very minor as, to all intents and purposes, it really only affects the lower reaches of the Hot 100 [[and these positions in most any chart anywhere in the world are pretty much inter-changeable simply because the sales and airplay returns/reports will be very close). The higher we go the more equal Top 40 radio makes the airplay aspect anyway – by its very nature – and likewise the greater impression sales have on the final ranking.

    If you say it was 80/20 in Billboard that sounds fine enough if it was the other way around! I’ve heard/read that before, but even though someone on a fan-centric website like the Elvis-link you gave says that Cash Box was sales-only, I would not rely on it very much over what Randy Price said [[the creator of the Cash Box Archive I’m sure you know). He has apparently been told that Cash Box did allow airplay factors in the lower half of their Top 100 in the sixties. I don’t know but I would think that was simply because they wouldn’t have been able to separate much of the sales-only positions that low as I’ve already suggested. I mean, the UK has the great reputation for sales reporting but it is well known that back then the picture became blurred even below the Top 20 – and I bet the NME or MM were probably monitoring more shops than even Cash Box were in the US!

    So anyway, what is the crux of this imho is do the charts really have much airplay bias among the higher placings that most of us are interested in [[i.e. ‘Stoned Love’ which is the thread topic, lol), and I’d say ‘not much’. Equally, are we concerned that there are wild variations among these same higher placings and length of stay between the three main charts? Again I’d have to say ‘not much’.

    That Elvis page I read further down and found some glaring bias/errors in reporting – again not surprisingly I guess. For instance, they have decided that ‘King Creole’ not being present in Billboard singles chart but in Cash Box is evidence of ‘differences’ but seem to not be aware that BB were running an EP chart at that time which was what ‘King Creole’ came from…

    Then they address the problem of shorter chart runs in Cash Box and suggest that the longer runs in Billboard show the singles were still getting airplay from DJs long after they’d left CB, as if it was some kind of proof that CB were therefore sales-only. It didn’t seem to occur to them to just look at the shorter length of the CB charts at that time which explained the discrepancies…

    As for genre issues, I have explained these above in reply to Roger and that is definitely as much of a red herring from self-interest groups like fans and label marketing departments than the reality. There will be a quirk here and there in the statistics that’ll show a rogue Country smash not getting its just desserts in the main Pop listings – a bit like the Tyrone Davis R&B chart-topper I covered – but otherwise no, there weren’t big selling Country records strangely missing from the pop lists.

  17. #217
    Thanks for the JRT stats Florence. Really interesting and I think I can give a full and longwinded [[boring) analysis of what they are and how realistic they are over the next couple of days. My first impressions are most favorable...don't be so surprised!

  18. #218
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    Well then, I'm certainly finding this a very interesting thread, yet are we anywhere nearer to actually answering the original question about how many copies "Stoned Love" actually sold?


    In spite of what has been written here by Strange I can't help but feel that something is hugely wrong. Basically, I have great difficulty in believing the figures given for cumulative US record sales in the '60s, they same way too low to me.

    I also find difficulty in believing that US total sales and/or production of singles actually rose by 60% between 1964 and 1969 from 99 to 157 million, when conventional wisdom has this as a period when sales of 45s were either flat or decreasing.

    In Britain at that time unit sales of LPs were increasing every year and those of 45s were decreasing every year, and I find it difficult to believe that the US was so different.

    Anyway, after some extensive googling I've found a book called "An International History Of The Recording Industry" by Pekka Gronnow and Lipo Saunio. Published 1998. This might shed some light on this.

    http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p...20peak&f=false

    If you follow the link and scroll down a bit you should find a table of worldwide record sales in the 1960s and 1970s. Confusingly, the US figures are expressed only in million dollar values up to 1972, and there is no split between sales of singles and LPs.

    For those who don't wish to trawl through the pages in the link, here are the relevent figures for the US and UK.

    All figures are in millions. The colums are year, US $value, US Units, UK Units.


    1961: 640 --- 76.4
    1962: 687 --- 77.5
    1963: 698 --- 85.5
    1964: 758 --- 101.2
    1965: 862 --- 93.8
    1966: 959 --- 84.9
    1967: 1173 --- 90.2
    1968: 1358 --- 98.9
    1969: 1586 --- 106.4
    1970: 1660 --- 114.0
    1971: 1744 --- 126.0
    1972: 1924 --- 148.3
    1973: 2016 616.0 177.9
    1974: 2200 539.9 198.4
    1975: 2391 533.3 202.1
    1976: 2737 591.6 223.7
    1977: 3500 698.2 231.6
    1978: 4131 762.2 195.9
    1979: 3676 683.0 187.0
    1980: 3682 649.0 170.4

    Its a pity the figures don't show the split between LPs and singles [[and cassettes later on) as it makes it very difficult to see what is happening.

    However, I can believe the UK figures, for example with 1969 the singles figure quoted in this thread of 47 million would leave LP sales at around 59 million [[sales of EPs, 78s, etc. would have been minimal) which seems about right to me.

    Similarly if the UK figure for 1964 includes about 73 million singles that would leave 28 million for LPs and EPs, which sounds quite feasible.

    As to the US dollar based figures, do these equate to the published RIAA estimates if retail prices of singles and LPs are factored in?

    If so, there is an interesting footnote at the bottom of the international figures ..

    "Note: For most countries, the figures refer to sales by IFPI member companies only."

    Now, the IFPA mentioned here is the "International Federation of the Phonographic Industry", of which bodies such as the RIAA [[in the US) and BPI [[in the UK) are affiliates.

    So .. it looks like these figures are for RIAA and BPI members only.

    And yet Motown [[along with a lot of other American "independent" record labels) weren't in the RIAA in the '60s, which means that if the total US figures are only for RIAA members they are being seriously underestimated.

    It would be extremely interesting to know what percentage of US singles sales were from companies NOT affiliated with RIAA in the 1960s and early 1970s.

    I think this actually highlights a crucial difference between the UK and US recording industries in the 1960s. In the US there were a whole host of independent labels capable of generating big selling hits.

    In the UK the 1960s recording industry was dominated by EMI, Pye and Decca, all of whom were essentially electronics companies with record divisions. Then there was Philips [[a Dutch based electronics company) and US outfits such as RCA, CBS and Warner Brothers.

    Very few UK chart hits in the mid '60s were on labels that that were not owned or operated by these large corporations, whose main business was more about making radios, televisions or movies rather than selling records. In contrast most of those 1960s US record companies were just that .. record companies!!

    There were some British independents .. Oriole for example, which for a while distributed Motown, Sue .. which released R&B and Soul aimed at "Mods" and labels such as Bluebeat and Island that issued Jamaican Ska recordings, but none of these had many major sellers.

    Things did change somewhat after 1967 when independents like Major-Minor, Island and President started to get chart hits, and when the German Polydor label made inroads [[largely through its licensing material from Atlantic records in New York) and even more in 1969 when a number of Rocksteady/Reggae records on independent labels such as Trojan made the UK charts.

    The point I'm trying to make is that the 1960s UK recording industry was a lot more "Corporate" than the US one. Maybe this is why the sales figures are considered a lot more trustworthy.

    Roger

  19. #219
    Quote Originally Posted by florence View Post
    Here are JRT's figures for Supremes' singles from his 1989 bio Call Her Miss Ross:

    Where Did Our Love Go 1,072,290
    You Can't Hurry Love 1,104,012
    Nothing But Heartaches 368,267
    My World Is Empty barely 500k
    Love Is Like An Itching 368k
    Some Things You Never Get Used To 202,963
    The Composer Barely 200k
    No Matter What Sign less than 300k
    Someday We'll Be Together over 2m copies eventually sold**

    **From the book:

    Other Supremes' singles which sold a million copies or more during the time of their release were "Where Did Our Love Go", "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Love Child". "I'm Gonna Make You Love Ne" which they recorded with The Temptations, also sold a million. Though Motown's sales figures are said to be incomplete, it seems that "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", "Stop! In The Name Of LOve" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On" probably all eventually sold a million copies as years of sales were tallied but they were not million-sellers at the time of their original release.

    Despite press hype to the contrary , other famous Supremes' singles like "Back In My Arms Again", "Nothing But Heartaches", "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone" and "Reflections" did not even come close to selling a million, most sold roughly half of that.
    Ok Florence, let’s chew over these figures from the JRT book that you’ve kindly sourced for us. As I said yesterday, my first impressions are entirely favorable on the whole but, as they say, it all depends on the small print and the exact definitions before we can really be certain of anything. In that regard it’s a pity the guy didn’t feel inclined to reply to you when you contacted him…

    So, my first concern would be are we certain that we have just US-only numbers here? Second of all, I’d want to then ascertain if the figures were gross or net for, as I’ve tried to explain, there is a big difference and Motown and other labels/companies were very good at talking about the former and ignoring the latter.

    Thirdly there is what is perhaps best understood as ‘net net’! This is the bottomline total for royalty purposes and is where many folk are easily led into the realms of conspiracy theories about artists being ripped off as they simply don’t understand that contracts are complex things and rarely does anyone get a straight royalty on every record ‘out there’. If ever!

    So within all these categories we need to realise that there are media and marketing department-friendly sales numbers [[overseas inclusive and/or total gross); basic net sales numbers [[i.e. after returns) and finally ‘net net’ which deducts from the net sales numbers the number of records issued as freebies. This might seem unfair to the act/artist in question [[and is basically what most of the law suits and claims of skullduggery have always been about in the industry over the years, but that was the sixties [[and before of course) for you. Like the poor old boxers, they were stitched up! Oh, and within the worse contracts the artists would only get 90% of the gross and be paying for recording studio time, session musicians and goodness knows what else before they saw a dime…

    From what we know of RIAA awards and other realistic sales reports of the time, the first list is clearly very feasible:

    Where Did Our Love Go 1,072,290
    You Can't Hurry Love 1,104,012
    Nothing But Heartaches 368,267
    My World Is Empty barely 500k
    Love Is Like An Itching 368k
    Some Things You Never Get Used To 202,963
    The Composer Barely 200k
    No Matter What Sign less than 300k
    Someday We'll Be Together over 2m copies eventually sold**

    But which category of the three I’ve outlined would they fall under? Well we have to go back to the RIAA awards of 1964 and the later Universal belated certifications from the late nineties to make an informed judgement. As I’ve pointed out, just seven singles were able to qualify under the [[still) strict rules criteria the auditors had to work under in 1964. We’ll ignore the four from the Fab4 because they were – I think we can agree – a law unto themselves in terms of record sales and popularity. So we’re then left with ‘Rag Doll’ by the Four Seasons, ‘Everybody Loves Somebody’ from Dean Martin and finally ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ by the great Roy Orbison.

    If only these were able to make the grade then again I would suggest that we need to understand that it was a tough ask to reach one million shipments gross, and accordingly these three will have been before returns were factored in. Leaping forward thirty-odd years to the Universal RIAA certifications it entirely supports the gold records granted for ‘Baby Love’ and ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’ for net shipments between 500,000 and 999,999 copies.

    So, logically thinking, the likelihood to me is the JRT list above consists of gross totals, and most likely they were up-to-date too as at the time of the book – 1989.

    Now we are only discussing RIAA award concerns here as at 1964, and not how things would have been viewed when the late-nineties awards were considered. In other words, there would almost certainly be free records ‘out there’ that you and I might consider ‘shipments’, and that the RIAA do now, but in all likelihood the paperwork for these could be ‘missing’, for want of a better word. To put it bluntly, if as a label you were trying to both launch a new act and also keep payments down you would offer inducements to One Stops and retailers that were not going to be paid a royalty on. If that was the case, it would equally be in your interests to not keep the records on such give-aways beyond the statutory minimum for IRS or whatever.

    This, in my opinion, is the most obvious reasoning behind the failure of Universal in both achieving the expected platinum awards and why they then swiftly decided to pull the plug on the programme.

    So for instance, ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ has to be a gross total or else surely the act would have won a belated platinum award for this release? Either that or the information JRT has provided is not the same as that the RIAA auditors were considering for ‘Baby Love’ and the others, or if it was then for some reason it was deemed insufficient. Equally if these details were net it is hard to imagine a problem!

    Anyway, as I’ve said before the way I look at all this is there can be no doubt the majority of the Supremes No. 1 hits shipped one million at the time as a total gross, and to me therefore they should all be considered platinum winners. To argue otherwise is being both churlish and harsh in the face of popular approval as measured by the charts, regardless of the niceties of the rules of the RIAA. If we were to go down that route then we would find quite a few old gold discs were never true million-sellers, and that too is spoiling things too much.

    The one ‘figure’ [[as it isn’t as such) I would take issue with Florence is the ‘over two million copies eventually sold’ statement for ‘Someday We’ll Be Together’. It would be possible I suppose to make a case for this globally, but in 1969 – even with good Xmas trade – I can’t imagine it exceeding this figure. Again, if it did where is the 2xP RIAA award for starters? There is the Beatles smash ‘Come Together’ that made that grade about the same time, but it was only because it was supported by ‘Something’ on the flip – a double No. 1 in some listings. At a push there would be some demand in later years for such a sentimental parting lyric I guess, but like I say this would still not get it above 2m unless we’re talking gross US or worldwide. I’m happy to listen to any other theories.

    Lastly on the Supremes, it is revealing what he states about the other big hits such as ‘Reflections’ [[a personal fave) etc. “did not even come close to selling a million, most sold roughly half of that”. It is pretty much what I have been proposing about the size of mid-sixties single sales generally, is it not?

    More next time on La Ross.

  20. #220
    Quote Originally Posted by florence View Post
    Sales for Diana solo:

    Reach Out And Touch barely 500k
    A'int No Mountain 1,243,748
    Remember Me 540,940
    Reach Out I'll Be There 254,307
    Touch Me In The Morning 1,504,909
    Last Time I Saw Him 643,740
    Sleepin' 46,162
    Do You Know Where You're Going To 882,272
    The Boss approx. 250k
    It's My Turn 434,794

    Some of those figures are so exact that he must have been given them and printed them in good faith. It could be that these were totals shipped before returns were factored in.The Universal certifications in 1997 really muddy the waters. If you take them at face value then aside from "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" they had only three singles which sold more than 500k - Someday 1m+, Baby Love and Stop! In The Name Of Love".

    From what has been said it does seem probable that the Supremes' singles sales in the US are not as high as we were always led to believe and million sellers at the time were quite scarce in the market as a whole so not making the million is plausible but without anything concrete in the way of proof I just don't believe that only those three singles passed 500k. I knew about "Returns" but it would seem the scale was quite big. Could Motown for example in 1964 afford to ship over 1m copies of WDOLG and have over half returned to put the figure below 500k?

    Of course, while it is unlikely and why would they? is it all possible Universal decided just to claim on the original standard of 2m for Platinum and 1m for Gold?

    It could also be that their is much sales documentation missing but then you have to ask how come there would be so much missing for The Supremes yet apparently they were able to supply it all for The Temptations?

    Maybe it is just as simple that contary to the perception that The Supremes were Motown's biggest sellers they were actually well outsold by The Temptations.

    It looks to me as if Universal took a decision not to discontinue applying for back cetifications. If the figure for Diana's Touch Me was 1.5m shipped it's hard to believe it didn't do 1m but impossible to believe there could have been 1m returns to put it below the half-million.

    Interestingly JRT supplied no figures at all for Diana's RCA sales so if the figures for Motown were not to hos mind authentic he would probably have given figures for those too!

    Why did he remove the sales from the updated version of the book? Interestingly in it one record he still claims as a million seller is You Can't Hurry Love.

    Off topic but does anyone have any figures for Diana's RCA singles? I have never seen anything at all for them.

    Certainly none of them reached 1m but I somehow think Why Do Fools Fall In Love did over 500k and Mirror, Mirror and Muscles would be near to that.

    Missing You is interesting. It was on the charts for nearly 6 months but spent the early part yo-yoing around the middle of the Hot 100. Depending on what sort of sales this part of the chart generated the accumulated totals over a large number of weeks could be quite healthy so the total for MY could maybe be surprising.

    With regard to Stoned Love in the US I notice BayouMotownMan who apparently has worked out a lot of The Supremes' sales from their chart positions and his knowledge of the American market suggests it did 1.5m.
    Right, fed and watered and on to the Diana Ross figures from JRT. Again they appear to be gross in the most part, and I see you have a feeling that is the case when you comment they could be shipments before returns are factored in.

    I’ve hopefully explained that had Motown been inclined to back in the day they probably would have been inviting the auditors down regularly for a peak at their books to confirm gold certifications for one million singles shipped. But as with so many, many of the actual awards of the time, they would then have dipped back beneath the required plateau and no-one would have been any of the wiser.

    Sadly Berry Gordy preferred to keep his business his business and, as they say, the rest is history. We’ll never know for sure which of their number ones truly would have merited a gold disc at the time. I am generous and for the sake of posterity I’d say all of them should stand as modern day platinum awards, but there is no doubt under the rules in place at the time and even today [[because of lack of freebie paperwork most likely) that would not really have been what happened. To get a proper perspective again about the appallingly low level of most single sales you need to look no further than the lack of a gold disc for ‘Ticket To Ride’ by the Beatles. For even one of their No. 1’s to fail to make the grade underlines how difficult it was – as I keep saying…

    And yes, returns were quite big Florence. Sometimes scarily so! There are examples where as much as 40% of the total shipment came back for gold discs winners…so while it might be hard to register that the Supremes first major hit was brought below 500k [[especially as a staunch fan, but even as a staunch-but-fair fan), it is not impossible.

    As things stood in the summer of 1964 when ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ was released, Motown had to be pretty anxious that Berry’s ‘favourites’ weren’t getting the breakthrough hit after quite a few tries going back over two years. I would imagine the label were aware they had a really good number and simply had to make it a smash or else…so there would be little doubt that ‘the free’ would have been necessary to get the attention of the dealers and wholesalers after the poor performance of the group’s other releases. That would have meant the maximum 3-for-10 deal [[it was commonplace) and as I’ve said these would not enjoy royalties nor, it seems, would the paperwork be kept so readily for the same reason.

    If you then understand that when records are returned the more unscrupulous manufacturers would remove them from the paid-for side of the ledger, well, even if your arithmetic is as bad as mine you’ll realise that it wouldn’t be long to have the ‘net, net’ total slip under that 500k level. JRT is actually telling us that in his other comments about ‘Reflections’ etc. in a roundabout, coded way – and quite brave of him too I might add – and most likely it was realised in the right [[wrong?) places and the re-prints had the figures pulled.

    This isn’t a conspiracy theory as it is based on the structures and methods of the time and the comparable award winners and so on as I’ve shown. Proving it is another thing and absolutely why time and time again all these matters are settled out of court – no-one would win, and the Motown name is very valuable to this day not to be assoicated with such sordid practices in the dim and distant past. My poor math says of the 1,072,290 gross for WDOLG, 321,687 were given as freebies, and then of the remaining 750k or so a further 40% might have come back to register a below half-million ‘net, net’ total – around 450,000 – and not even a modern-day gold disc.

    That’s how it can work Florence, and ultimately all you and I can do is way up the pro’s and con’s and decide the most likely reason why we do not have more certifications from the Universal programme…for me we can only look at the rivals in 1964 and see that singles didn’t sell as we all imagined and draw the conclusion that neither did Motown. The dot-joining might make a ragged sketch rather than a perfect drawing, but I hope you get the picture!

    Your thoughts about the Temptations and Supremes certifications and/or missing papers, depending on your point of view are interesting. I think there is little doubt that the black audiences in the States accepted the Temps more than the Supremes, and consequently the sales to those communities would have been stronger for the former while the latter garnered better airplay results in that all important Top 40 radio land we’ve discussed before. Certainly that is a view that would support the RIAA awards so heavily favouring the Temps, apart from simply the lack of documentation…so you may have hit upon something there. As long as we aren’t looking for reasons to fly in the face of what we seem to now know it can’t be dismissed in my view.

    ‘Touch Me In the Morning’ is a big total but again perfectly in-keeping with the way things were going crazy in the seventies as each label sent out more and more singles, both to get the upper hand on the competition [[freebies again) and also to have the product on hand should the hit ‘break’ big. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the US is unique in size and distribution terms and the product has to be ready when the public want it. None of this little island and ‘wait and see’ mentality that is the norm in the British market for instance! But the figure for TMITM will be gross for exactly the same reason as I outlined above – Motown needed it to be a hit after some ‘flops’ and shipped and induced accordingly. I can almost guarantee it!

    Oh, and the same would be the case with ‘Ain’t No Mountain’ too, except the push was of course to stabilise the faltering launch. The other aspect of all this is of course the personal factor between Diana and Berry that may have meant paperwork was treated differently at the time, or in later years treated less kindly. That is conjecture that is emotional so I wouldn’t stand by it necessarily but as you say it is weird no Diana retrospective awards, isn’t it? There should be a handful of golds and maybe the odd platinum from her Motown work in the 70s – possibly including TMITM, though I sense not.

    I saw BayouMotownMan's 1.5m for 'Stoned Love' and his knowledge of the US market might be good at other times but not on this occasion. If you go with him you have to ignore all I've just said and what JRT has let slip...

    As for RCA, I can’t help and I suspect from what I’ve just read elsewhere Hotspurman for one won’t be able to either!

  21. #221

    Radio industry knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by jobeterob View Post
    What I am certain about is that Billboard was regarded as much more reliable than Cashbox which was much more reliable than Record World.

    Cashbox might have been airplay only..........but that I am not at all sure of anymore.
    I have perhaps a less interesting post than the ones above me regarding the JRT sales figures, but I wanted to address Jobeterob's point about Billboard. I worked in radio for several years and worked with some old-timers from the real days of Top 40 radio in America, and actually Cash Box was considered the magazine that was the most reflective of real sales, and therefore the ones that PD's looked to in determining their playlists. Billboard was NOT - I repeat, NOT - considered the end-all be-all. The only reason it won out over time was its excellent branding and management. Record World went defunct in April 1982, and Cash Box started to wane at this time as well, finally ending in 1996, but was irrelevant years before that, as Radio & Records arose to become Billboard's closest competitor.

    The days that Cash Box reigned were definitely the 60s and 70s. And Cash Box did NOT factor radio airplay until the mid/late 70s from what I've been told by actual industry people. Cash Box was a combination of sales and JUKEBOX play, until the Juke Box medium finally waned. [[Crazy to think of a bunch of mom-n-pops diners and such reporting their top played jukebox records to Cash Box, but it's true! This would explain why Motown and other labels put out special jukebox singles and EPs.)

    Recall too, that the first radio airplay-only based chart was introduced in 1974. That would be Radio & Records. This publication kept things going until a couple of years ago, when they were bought out by Billboard. Now, we just have Billboard. But it wasn't always so, and in its formative years, Billboard was the underdog.

    Lastly, people referencing the genre-specific charts should know a couple of things. Again - this coming from someone connected to the radio industry.

    The first thing everyone needs to know is that every chart, including the Hot 100, was in fact genre-specific. The Hot 100 NEVER included genre stations outside of CHR [[Contemporary Hit Radio, aka what we call "Top 40" or "Pop") until 1999. [[Yes, 1999. In that year, they introduced a number of genre stations added to mix of BDS/Soundscan data, including Latin stations, as that was the year of the "Latin explosion.") The only sub-genre it included was "Churban" [[CHR, but heavily slanted towards youth-oriented R&B) added at the height of the New Jack Swing era, in 1990/'91. These CHuRban stations [[one of the pioneers was B-96) differentiated themselves from Urban stations [[aka "Black") in that they did not play the Urban Adult Contemporary songs and focused on rhythm. The other name for this radio genre was "Rhythm Crossover". So basically, these stations would play TLC but not Regina Belle, for example.

    Now, The "Hot" or "Power" radio genre in the mid-to-late 80s focused on pop-oriented dance music. Artists like Madonna and Michael and Janet Jackson were mainstays of this genre and actually drove the format, and it was pop [[i.e. "white") focused.

    In regards to C&W, the Country charts have been an airplay-only chart for a LONG time, since around the mid-80s. Country singles were never a huge market, and actually largely regional in the 60s and early 70s. The goal was to sell albums. So, a #1 C&W single was pretty much based on airplay, and since those stations reported to the editors of the Country charts and NOT the Hot/Top 100 [["Pop") charts, that airplay, combined with minimal singles sales, would not make a song a crossover hit unless that song got played on CHR/Pop stations. What was required for Country hits to become big crossover Pop hits, was to be recorded by big name stars who appealed outside the very conservative, largely regional [[at that time) C&W audience. It wasn't until the late 70s that we saw the rise of Country stars who became crossover Pop stars: Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, etc. who were able to do that.

    Back to the R&B charts, the biggest time for non-crossover R&B #1s wasn't the 70s, but the mid-to-late 80s, and the songs that were the usual culprits were Urban Adult Contemporary songs [[slow jams, quiet storm); hence the rise of the afore-mentioned "CHurban" format.

    Now, as for R&B singles sales, what Billboard used in its reporting for the Soul/Black/R&B chart, until the early 90s, were a list of only about 60-100 independently-owned record stores [[many of which were Black-owned) located specifically in Urban areas. What that means is that a #1 on the Black Singles chart didn't necessarily sell a lot of singles either, because the buyers were mainly Black, specifically inner city record buyers who frequented these independent music stores. There were no chains like Sam Goody or Title Wave reporting to the Black/R&B Singles editor at Billboard. This is why, back in the day, I had to shop at these stores to get the singles and often albums I wanted, because you usually couldn't find those titles at the mall or at a major chain. Even 20 years ago, a non-crossover #1 R&B single probably sold less than 100K.

    What we've seen in the last 20 years in the U.S. is the corporate consolidation of just about everything. It's in the endgame of real-life monopoly, hence why we see less choices for what we actually want to listen to.

  22. #222
    A fantastic contribution earlier Roger, and I’m glad you have found it interesting enough to delve deeper into the topic of record sales generally, even if we are straying far away from those of ‘Stoned Love’ or even Motown itself. I expect to be ejected at any minute for being totally off-topic, but here goes!

    Quote Originally Posted by roger View Post
    Well then, I'm certainly finding this a very interesting thread, yet are we anywhere nearer to actually answering the original question about how many copies "Stoned Love" actually sold?
    No, we’ll never be able to answer that conundrum precisely Roger, but I am most certain that what I have suggested is the nearest to the answer that we are going to get.

    Quote Originally Posted by roger View Post
    In spite of what has been written here by Strange I can't help but feel that something is hugely wrong. Basically, I have great difficulty in believing the figures given for cumulative US record sales in the '60s, they same way too low to me.

    I also find difficulty in believing that US total sales and/or production of singles actually rose by 60% between 1964 and 1969 from 99 to 157 million, when conventional wisdom has this as a period when sales of 45s were either flat or decreasing.

    In Britain at that time unit sales of LPs were increasing every year and those of 45s were decreasing every year, and I find it difficult to believe that the US was so different.
    Equally it is perfectly fine to doubt what I’m saying, and I’d be concerned if someone, somewhere, didn’t think something was ‘hugely wrong’! We are often easily blinded by facts and figures from representative industry associations and their allies in the media; it is the also in our nature to exaggerate and admire success. When these things basic human traits are combined and added to misinformation overload, well the outcome is logic and reality become blurred if not suspended.

    Now, the data you have successfully googled is quite well known in circles who contemplate this sort of stuff, and similar breakdowns were part of another epic analytical synopsis of the record industry by the well respected expert Simon Frith. Which originated first I’m not sure, but basically they are the same and sourced from the various worldwide recording industry bodies under the auspices of the IFPI, so for want of trying we are not going to get much more detail than this all these years later. Luckily, and maybe you feel the same, all I’m bothered about really are the US and UK statistics and these were collected to an acceptable standard for the day.

    But it is there that we really need to understand who is supplying the figures, how they might be trying to ‘spin’ them, and ultimately to cut through all the propaganda fog and break the numbers down so we can see what they really mean. For instance, the RIAA are very keen to speak in dollar terms as you noted, but have you noticed that they prefer to use the recommended dollar list price in their totals? In other words, they are choosing to promote the highest value possible for the industries products when attributing income value, when no-one at retail ever pays anywhere near these prices, let alone the actual figure paid by One Stops or Rackjobbers. The brutal truth is the RIAA dollar statistics have always presented a very false picture of the actual value of the recorded music industry in the US, some claim over fifty per cent to the upside! But more of that later.

    For now, all I can tell you is the 1964 and 1969 unit numbers I gave you were from the RIAA. You are right to find it hard to believe because, as you say the conventional wisdom denies that there was a growth of 60% or so in single sales, but then Roger you and everyone else are thinking in the terms the industry want you to think by looking at the figures for what they are and thinking in terms of sales and not shipments. Although there were over-shipments and returns in the early days of the rock era, the rise of the album and the need to promote the single to draw attention to the more expensive LP meant by the late sixties the practice was getting out of hand.

    That aside, the RIAA awards programme evidence is again more than clear about the growth in the singles market during those five years. As I’ve mentioned 1964 saw just seven gold discs awarded, whereas by 1969 the total had steadily risen to a new height of 64 singles that were confirmed as shipping one million units. Again I could expand laboriously on this but I’m not gonna get paid for writing a thesis so without a specific question I’ll refrain for everyone’s sake!

    As for the UK, the singles market did decline markedly but the circumstances in 63/4 were entirely unique as I’ve mentioned before. All that was happening was a return to the more staid levels prior to the Merseybeat and group explosion which, being homegrown, was even more dramatic in unit sales than the US. The album market in Britain grew as it did in the States, but the UK did not have the marketing or geographical pressures that required massive over-shipments which was the main reason single shipments did do the opposite to what you suspect.

    Ok, back to the RIAA and their figures that admittedly are annoyingly presented in most instances as dollar values. As I mentioned the plain fact is they are a trade organisation out to promote their members and the wider industry so they perhaps can’t be blamed for presenting their statistics in the best light possible. Cash Box wrote a very revealing piece about this in February 1976 headlined ‘How Large Is the Recording Industry? New Figures Indicate a $2.2 Billion Myth’ in which they showed how the 1974 data [[$2.2b) was in fact only worth some $850-950 million at manufacturer’s realised prices. The point is this is still not the whole truth as the RIAA deals in shipments as we know, and the data therefore takes no account of returns, and in the case of many albums they can simply sit on the dealer’s shelves unsold to be returned in later years. The phrase smoke and mirrors comes to mind!

    Now, your table indicates the units shipped came to 539.9m, which is again annoyingly made up of albums and singles. It is also incorrect – probably a typo – as the total for 1974 was in fact 593.9m units shipped. Well I can tell you the singles shipments out of this number were 204m, just shy of the all-time high of 228m in 1973, while the LPs accounted for 276m with 8-track cartridges an impressive 96.7m and other tapes coming in at 17.2m. Meanwhile, gold singles had not risen much since 1969 with 68 awarded in 1974.

    All of which numerical gobbledegook means that where it counts – at least for observers like me and not the money-men – we can see that unit production of singles were still increasing and were now 100% above 1964. The equivalent album [[and tape) production in 1964 had been 146m, and was by 1974 about 170% higher.

    The UK calculation you’ve made of 59m for albums in 1969 is correct [[actually 59,565,000), but once again as I said before these are Board of Trade figures that cover all the records manufactured in Great Britain, so unless you know the exports it is only an indication. Further, the total by then is increasingly reflecting the budget album sector [[as of course is the US number) and this will skew the comparison with 1964. And again as I mentioned elsewhere, the singles total in 1964 is for all 45-rpm production so while you are right that EPs weren’t much of a factor in 1969 Roger, they very much were five years earlier. The 28m is just LPs.

  23. #223
    Quote Originally Posted by roger View Post
    As to the US dollar based figures, do these equate to the published RIAA estimates if retail prices of singles and LPs are factored in?

    If so, there is an interesting footnote at the bottom of the international figures ..

    "Note: For most countries, the figures refer to sales by IFPI member companies only."

    Now, the IFPA mentioned here is the "International Federation of the Phonographic Industry", of which bodies such as the RIAA [[in the US) and BPI [[in the UK) are affiliates.

    So .. it looks like these figures are for RIAA and BPI members only.

    And yet Motown [[along with a lot of other American "independent" record labels) weren't in the RIAA in the '60s, which means that if the total US figures are only for RIAA members they are being seriously underestimated.

    It would be extremely interesting to know what percentage of US singles sales were from companies NOT affiliated with RIAA in the 1960s and early 1970s.

    I think this actually highlights a crucial difference between the UK and US recording industries in the 1960s. In the US there were a whole host of independent labels capable of generating big selling hits.

    In the UK the 1960s recording industry was dominated by EMI, Pye and Decca, all of whom were essentially electronics companies with record divisions. Then there was Philips [[a Dutch based electronics company) and US outfits such as RCA, CBS and Warner Brothers.

    Very few UK chart hits in the mid '60s were on labels that that were not owned or operated by these large corporations, whose main business was more about making radios, televisions or movies rather than selling records. In contrast most of those 1960s US record companies were just that .. record companies!!

    There were some British independents .. Oriole for example, which for a while distributed Motown, Sue .. which released R&B and Soul aimed at "Mods" and labels such as Bluebeat and Island that issued Jamaican Ska recordings, but none of these had many major sellers.

    Things did change somewhat after 1967 when independents like Major-Minor, Island and President started to get chart hits, and when the German Polydor label made inroads [[largely through its licensing material from Atlantic records in New York) and even more in 1969 when a number of Rocksteady/Reggae records on independent labels such as Trojan made the UK charts.

    The point I'm trying to make is that the 1960s UK recording industry was a lot more "Corporate" than the US one. Maybe this is why the sales figures are considered a lot more trustworthy.

    Roger
    Moving on, if I understand your comment about the US dollar based figures I have already addressed that by explaining about the RIAA choosing to use list prices when calculating the industry’s earnings. It is thoroughly misleading. If that isn’t what you were asking please re-state it.

    As for the note about the figures relating to IFPI members only, well that is quite astute and would be relevant if we were considering somewhere like Italy or Mexico but not again the US or UK. Both did not have complete membership by any stretch of the imagination, but the coverage was very high [[I have lists) and what they didn’t have they made allowances for as appropriate. It only matters for the RIAA really during the sixties as you say with Motown, because the BPI is only relevant from 1973 and prior to that ALL companies were required to provide data to the relevant Government department – the aforementioned Board of Trade. I believe I said elsewhere it was on a monthly basis if you recall.

    Consequently the RIAA estimates for US record domestic shipments [[interestingly they did eliminate exports, probably because they weren’t a disinterested Government Dept.) took account of non-reporting companies, and in 1964 it came to 245m units made up of 99m singles and 146m albums at a total list price value of $758m. They gave this a weighted total of 166m, which compares with the 1969 equaivalent of 338, although that is probably not of much use to us.

    So while you are correct that there were differences between the two countries in terms of the number of independent labels, the final published results in the States took account of this and it is actually other problems with the data that need to be addressed. How accurate they were is an entirely different matter Roger but I have been providing the correct relevant figures from the respective organisations. What you have to remember is despite the fact there were dozens more record companies in the States, they were indeed not only small outfits who never [[or seldom) had a big selling hit, but more importantly they often had their records pressed by the majors. That data was available for the RIAA to use.

    So even though the UK was more ‘corporate’ as you say, the quality of the statistical information from both sides of the pond is both satisfactory and suspect to the same degree. It is all we have, and all things considered it is probably, faults and all, a good representation of the markets at the time.

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