Janet Jackson :: Charts & Sales History

[Bojan]

Thanks, Instinct.

[misteroldsoul]

July 1st... expect an update for those who know.. they know!

?

[Bojan]

What's It Gonna Be?!

[JeremySpears]

She's a bit too legendary if you ask me

[UnapologeticKenny]

She definitely is!

[herb]

+1. Definitely!

[Bojan]

Most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100 as a lead artist — without co-lead artist or featured artist:
61, Mariah Carey
59, The Beatles
34, Boyz II Men
33, Janet Jackson
32, Madonna
31, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston
30, Elton John

(Only artists who spent at least 30 weeks leading the chart.)

[oneofone]

Obviously payola queen at number 1.
The rest truly deserving legends.

[Bojan]

According to Music & Media, Control sold million copies in Europe until 1988.

[2loveDeluxe]

I guess UKmix send out password resets? I don't remember what email address I used to start my account so this will be my new name moving forward.

[Bojan]

I guess UKmix send out password resets? I don't remember what email address I used to start my account so this will be my new name moving forward.

Welcome, newbie.

[Bojan]

I already wrote that, according to Music & Media, Control sold a million copies in Europe until 1988. Any guess how much it sold in Europe from 1988 to date, especially during her peak in Europe, from 1993 to 2001? If it sold on average 10,000 per year in the past 32 years, it would be over 300,000. But it's just a guesswork and there's no way to know that.

[Bojan]

For the first time, Janet Jackson has over five million monthly listeners on Spotify:
More than 2,045,000 followers and 725,000,000 streams

Where people listen
Sydney, AU
Los Angeles, US
Chicago, US
London, UK
Atlanta, US

It's rather surprising that Janet has almost the same number of monthly listeners in Sydney as Kylie Minogue, and slightly more than Kylie in London. Brisbane was also in the top 5 recently.

[2loveDeluxe]

Wow. I'm surprised Janet has more month listeners in London and Australia than Kylie (considering that those are MAJOR markets for Kylie and Janet hasn't done REAL promo in either in over a decade!!!).

Any idea why her listeners keep going up?

[Bojan]

Exposure in the past two years. MTV Europe Music Awards and Glastonbury in the UK, and RNB Fridays Live in Australia. She didn't perform on TV from May 2010 to May 2018, and she released only one album since Spotify was opened. Not many artists would be able to afford this "luxury" without big consequences, especially not after being blacklisted in their main market for four years shortly prior that, but she, obviously, can get away with it. She's just too legendary.

[Bojan]

According to a Rolling Stone Magazine from July 1998, "The Velvet Rope" sold 2.2 million copies domestically and 3.3 million copies internationally. That includes 350,000 to 400,000 of over 500,000 copies sold in France, so with those sales added it's already around 3.5 million sold internationally. After those reported numbers, she continued promoting the album, released two more singles, performed at the 1998 VH1 Fashion Awards, and she was touring in South Africa, Australia and Oceania, and Asia, until the early 1999.

From what we have, 8 million copies worldwide is the best possible estimation for this album, and anything below that number would be an underestimation, whilst anything above that number wouldn't be possible to back up with any reliable data. To be precise and absolutely sure is impossible, of course, and I'll let someone with OCD to have a fun with it.

I can only take rounded off numbers as serious estimations, everything else borders on insanity.

"All for You," sold around 6.5 million, based on data we have. It could be more, but it can't be less than that.

(And all of this because I was reading a Rolling Stone Magazine. )

[Bojan]

In less than three months, “Design of a Decade 1986/1996” sold 4.3 million worldwide (1.1 million in the U.S.). Really impressive. That doesn't include at least 4 million copies sold later in the U.S. and Europe alone. Add to it Columbia House sales and that's already at least 8.5 million even without additional sales in other countries. There's no way that this album sold less than 9 million worldwide to date, and even 10 million doesn't seem as science fiction, especially knowing how big Janet was internationally in the late 1990s and at the start of this millennium.

My current estimations are:
14 “Janet”
12 “Rhythm Nation 1814”
10 “Control”
9 “Design of a Decade 1986/1996”
8 “The Velvet Rope”
6.5 “All for You”

On average, around 10 million copies sold per album release during her prime, from 1986 to 2001; from 1986 to 2004, around 9 million. Career average, 4 million, including all her releases.

Please let me know if you have some info, because I want to put this in the OP with well-reffered data. I already collected a lot of data, but any additional info is more than welcome. For post 2004 albums I'll just use reported numbers because there's no way to estimate those sales. She has definitely sold around 65 million albums, as reported by Universal Music, BBC, Billboard, and many others. Everything flows perfectly following various reports from the early 90s to date, so I think that we have estimates that are closest to the truth.

65 million albums
65-70 million physical singles, digital tracks and videos

Truly impressive, no matter what perspective you take, but it is especially impressive for a Progressive R&B artist who has released only seven studio albums before she was blacklisted in her main market and sales started declining in favour of internet piracy and later streaming.

[Bojan]

The 1993’s highest-selling albums by a female artist in Europe and number of streams on Spotify:

1. Janet Jackson — “janet.” 135 million
2. Tina Turner — “What's Love Got To Do With It” 76 million
3. Patricia Kaas — “Je Te Dis Vous” 8 million*
4. Sade — “Love Deluxe” 143 million
5. Bonnie Tyler — “The Very Best of Bonnie Tyler” 18 million

*Available as “Carnet De Scène / Je Te Dis Vous / Dans Ma Chair / Le Mot De Passe” on Spotify.
I guess that Patricia Kaas has more streams on Deezer.

[Unbreakable34]

Weekly Update 26/06/2020

Spotify

60M
That's The Way Love Goes 65,172,785
Together Again (Album Version) 61,330,885

40M
Got 'Til It's Gone 42,330,899

30M
Scream 38,817,752
All For You (Album Version) 36,418,445

20M
Made For Now 24,642,120
Any Time, Any Place 23,823,377
I Get Lonely 20,824,497

10M
Again 17,543,883
Nasty 15,702,562
Escapade 15,222,499
All For You (Single Version) 14,508,181
BurnItUp! 14,286,732
No Sleeep (feat. J.Cole) 13,086,000
If 12,204,298
When I Think Of You 11,880,035
Rhythm Nation 11,203,312

5M
Call On Me (feat. Nelly) 9,949,747
Miss You Much 9,146,465
Let's Wait Awhile 8,959,066
What's It Gonna Be (feat. Busta Rhymes) 8,011,255
No Sleeep (Solo Version) 8,010,208
The Pleasure Principle 6,850,830
Alright (Remix) 6,665,892
Someone To Call My 6,419,298
Feel It Boy (feat. Beenie Man) 6,324,015
Luv Me, Luv Me (feat. Shaggy) 6,315,326
Go Deep 6,003,639
What Have You Done For Me Lately 5,956,804
All Nite (Don't Stop) 5,641,107
Love Will Never Do (Without You) 5,610,097
Come Back To Me 5,268,347
Doesn't Really Matter 5,160,882
Together Again (Single Version) 5,127,444


YouTube
(Official Channel only)

01 Made For Now 71,993,514
02 No Sleeep 24,500,378
03 Rhythm Nation 21,402,350
04 The Pleasure Principle 14,598,713
05 Escapade 13,908,888
06 Feedback 13,473,455
07 Come Back to Me 12,088,102
08 BURNITUP! 11,551,131
09 Miss You Much 10,256,632
10 Dammn Baby 10,168,919

11 When I Think of You 9,442,910
12 Rock With U 8,827,666
13 Control 8,190,693
14 What Have You Done For Me Lately 7,751,976
15 That's the Way Love Goes (Audio) 7,336,550
16 Black Cat 5,920,173
17 That's the Way Love Goes 4,984,764
18 No Sleeep (Audio) 4,367,715
19 Got 'Til It's Gone 3,629,578
20 I Get Lonely (Audio) 3,441,848

[Bojan]

Once again, Janet has more monthly listeners than ever before.

[2loveDeluxe]

I wish she toured during "Damita Jo". Every TV show she went on broke and set records at the time for best ratings Jay Leno, SNL, Letterman:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-f18231b59470/

https://www.billboard.com/articles/b...s-high-ratings


The general public was interested in seeing and hearing from her despite the medias attempt to ban her (MTV, CBS, Clear Channel).

"Damita Jo" still scanned over 1.1 million copies with no airplay, no tour or video support. At the time "DJ" was the #9 biggest opening week ever by a female despite going #2. Which makes me think had she toured people would have bought tickets because she was THE hottest topic of that year in the pop world, which could have saved her career a little better at that time.

Just think how amazing her HBO concert ratings were. "Velvet" still being the second most watched concert event her. A "Damita Jo" tour concert special surrounded by all the hype around her those two years would have been a huge moment.

[AnderF10]

I still can't believe how her label let this album die when it opened with 381k in the US...

[Bojan]

Not touring with Damita Jo, and cancelling the European leg of the All for You tour were her biggest mistakes in my opinion, not Super Bowl. Super Bowl is a cult thing. Today she benefits from it and it affects negatively only Justin Timberlake, while back then she was nearly 40 and it really affected only Damita Jo. Plus you can't be selling each of your album in over 3 million copies in the States for 20 years. What woman did that? Or a man? Even Michael Jackson couldn't do it. Sales would eventually weaken in the mid 2000s, anyway. So, I'm glad she did that rebellious thing at the SB and rounded up her incredible career with a bang. It makes her culturally even more important. It's history.

Once again, Janet has more monthly listeners than ever before.

Just to be noted, she broke her highest-ever number of monthly listeners record today again.

[Bojan]

Can somebody please tell me what's the source for "The Velvet Rope" sales in France? How do we know for a fact that it sold exactly 525,000 copies? Could somebody give me a link?

[Bojan]

Most monthly listeners on Spotify to date, again: 5,043,117
Album “Control” crossed 60 million streams.

[2loveDeluxe]

I still can't believe how her label let this album die when it opened with 381k in the US...

I think the label did all they could really do.

Radio banned her, MTV and VH-1 banned her. Grammy awards banned her. She did TV and sure the ratings were amazing (which probably helped the album even sell as well as it did) but that's all they had.

The only option moving forward would have been a tour.

[Bojan]

As a singer, composer and songwriter, Janet has over 1,100,000,000 streams on Spotify.

[beredy]

As a singer, composer and songwriter, Janet has over 1,100,000,000 streams on Spotify.

As of 27/06/2020 -> 669,578,220

Where did you come up with the rest of the streams?