Stevie Nicks Album Sales
 

So after some debate on Stevie's album sales a few weeks back, I decided to "Ask Billboard" which they update every Friday and luckily my question was picked. Other than TISL and SA, all the others were released prior to SoundScan, that is why their numbers are so low. It is only how many they have sold since 1991. Remember, SoundScan counts them at Point of Sale where as RIAA certification counts shipments. But it is kinda uplifting to see that Crystal Visions sold 348,000!


http://www.billboard.com/column/char...2.story?page=2

NICKS OF TIME

Hi Gary,

The legendary Stevie Nicks is releasing a new album soon. Could you please provide up-to-date sales totals for her albums?

Thanks,

John Irving
Austin, Texas
__________________________________________________________________________________
Hi John,

Nicks releases "In Your Dreams" May 3. The Nicks-written, Dave Stewart-produced first single "Secret Love" is bubbling under the Adult Contemporary chart.

In what should be a tour bursting with beloved hits, Nicks and Rod Stewart's "Heart & Soul" trek runs March 20 through April 23 (although the pair's April 15 show in Phoenix is the closest they'll come to Austin ...)

Here is a look at Nicks' album sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan:

46,000, "The Soundstage Sessions" (2009)
348,000, "Crystal Visions... The Very Best of Stevie Nicks" (2007)
663,000, "Trouble in Shangri-La" (2001)
172,000, "The Enchanted Works of Stevie Nicks" (1998)
231,000, "Street Angel" (1994)
1,543,000, "Timespace: Best of Stevie Nicks" (1991)

Sales for albums released prior to the advent of SoundScan in 1991:
79,000, "The Other Side of the Mirror" (1989)
99,000, "Rock a Little" (1986)
200,000, "The Wild Heart" (1983)
855,000, "Bella Donna" (1981)

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), here are the certifications for Nicks' four pre-SoundScan era studio albums:

Platinum, "The Other Side of the Mirror"
Platinum, "Rock a Little"
2x Multi-Platinum, "The Wild Heart"
4x Multi-Platinum, "Bella Donna"

Nicks has collaborated on several songs with songwriter Rick Nowels, whose deep resume includes hits for Madonna, Belinda Carlisle and Colbie Caillat.

Nowels wrote three of my favorite Nicks songs: "I Can't Wait" (1986), "Two Kinds of Love," featuring Bruce Hornsby and Kenny G (1989), and "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind" (1994).

In an e-mail last year, Nowels called "Two Kinds of Love" (which inexplicably failed to reach the Adult Contemporary chart upon its release as the second single from "The Other Side of the Mirror") "one of my faves too!"

"Madonna, Belinda, Stevie ... all goddesses of pop."

So, according to this, TISL kicked ass. Nice!! :D

So, wait, am I reading this correctly?

For example... according to this, Bella Donna has sold 850,000 copies SINCE 1991?

I know, thats what i noticed too.:thumbsup:

Yes ma'am. There are no SoundScan figures prior to 1991, but from 1991-2011 Bella Donna sold 855,000 copies, Wild Heart sold 200,000, and so on. But the only data we have for what they "sold" prior to 1991 is the RIAA certification, which also includes shipments. That also explains for why Street Angel has only sold 231,000 but was certified Gold by the RIAA in 1997.

Wow, I had no idea Street Angel's sales were so dismal. I always thought it went Gold? :confused:

It did, but...

"We are often asked why we don’t just use sales figures from SoundScan. SoundScan measures over-the-counter sales at music retail locations, while the RIAA®'s certification levels are based on unit shipments (minus returns) from manufacturers to a wide range of accounts, including non-retail record clubs, mail order houses, specialty stores, units shipped for Internet fulfillment or direct marketing sales, such as TV-advertised albums. "

Therefore an additional 269,000 copies of Street Angel were shipped out and never went thru a point of sale system. Some of which are probably still sitting on shelves.

I thought I heard that too. Weird. Doesn't make sense that the 3 cd boxed set sold nearly as many copies as a regular album, even if it was a poorly selling one.

Whats interesting in reading this is that from what I see is that Street Angel has sold more than the Enchanted Box Set???? Am I seeing that correctly. Wow !! To me the box set was better than SA. Doesn't look like Soundstage did very well though either. Looks like Mirror is the 2nd lowest with Soundstage the lowest right now. Very interesting. I wonder how the new 'IYD' will do when it comes out. We'll have to check that out after say 6 months than a yrs time to see. Wonder how FMacs have faired too? Esp those remastered one's?? Thanks for the info!!!:shrug:

What's really kind of odd about the number for Rock a Little is Billboard in one of their "Ask Billboard" responses back on May 30, 2008 pegged the sales at that time being 99,000 since 1991.

Is billboard even looking up the numbers or is RAL out of circulation and just not counted anymore? In 3 years no change? Can't be.

But... her catalogue is a slow seller ie TISL.

August, 2006 the sales were 655,000
May, 2008 the sales were 660,000
March, 2011 the sales are 663,000

In August, 2006 Street Angel was at 229,000 according to Billboard. Timespace was at 1.5 million and Enchanted 168,000.

If I remember correctly, Rock A Little and Street Angel officially went "out of print" somewhere around 2007?

Correction: Wild Heart, Rock A Little, The Other Side Of The Mirror, and Street Angel were apparently all dropped from active status (making them Out Of Print) sometime before 2009.

itunes? Aren't they on itunes? Those numbers count... or they should.

They are on iTunes and physical copies are available on Amazon. :shrug: I'm sure they count them, but I don't know if they have a separate category for digital sales and therefore they aren't lumped in with these. And with Amazon, it is kinda like the whole "what happens if they sell a used copy?" question that arose a few months back.

That's gotta be humiliating for Stevie... she's only sold half the fairly meager amount of copies of Street Angel that were shipped to retailers after TEN YEARS. No wonder she hates that album so badly! It's a monument to failure in her eyes. I still just wish she'd acknowledge there IS some good stuff on Street Angel, though.

I'm really shocked at TISL's numbers. It only sold 3,000 copies in 3 years!? I thought it would be in the 800,000's by now...

You also have to take into account the fact that a 3-CD boxed set cost roughly 2-3 times as much as a single CD. So really, only "serious" fans/buyers will be purchasing a boxed set, as opposed to the casual fans who might have picked up SA when it hit the shelves.

I was initially shocked, but on second thought, I NEVER see TISL in stores anywhere. I always check out Stevie's section and the only albums I ever find that aren't used are Sound Stage, Crystal Visions, and sometimes Bella Donna and TimeSpace.

I've posted this before...maybe 5 times or so over the past month. If you are wondering why people do not buy music anymore its because they don't have to. Smart phones and devices are taking over, making CD's nearly useless. We are in the worst economic time...why would people spend 10 bucks on TISL when they are foreclosing on their house? Why would they spend the $ on Itunes when all of Stevie's music is available on Limewire or youtube. Hell, there are dozens of websites that allow you to DL complete artist albums for free.

Its sad. It really is, but its not that people aren't interested in her music. They simply do not have to pay for it anymore.

Wait...so you're telling me there's stores that people buy music at? :)

Yea, come to think of it, you're right. The last time I saw TISL in any store was in 2005. Right now, Crystal Visions is the bulk of what I see any store carrying. Wonder if it will go gold by the end of this year.

It's funny...I can't really remember the last CD that I bought in a store. Probably Gift of Screws. Don't get me wrong, I still *pay* for music and support the artists...I just prefer to do it via iTunes now.

However, if Stevie/FM are involved, I will continue to buy the hard copy...just because I need to have the booklet and all :-)

Slightly unrelated but store related... did TISL have any singles with b-sides that were released that I'm missing?

One sidenote: Soundscan only accounts for U.S. sales, so these sales figures do not include her worldwide sales.

In regards to Enchanted keep in mind that it counts as a multi-disc album for certification reasons. When you take the number of sales and multiply it by 3 you do get 500,000+, hence its gone Gold.

I think in terms of official certs Nicks is at:

Bella Donna - Quadruple Platinum
The Wild Heart - Double Platinum
Rock A Little - Platinum
The Other Side of the Mirror - Platinum
TimeSpace - Platinum
Street Angel - Gold
Enchanted - Gold
Trouble In Shangri-La - Gold
Crystal Visions - 350K so far
Soundstage Sessions - 68K so far
In Your Dreams - ?

So Nicks is basically 11 million + in sales, which is a hell of a solo career in and of itself

Presume this is just USA! What about the rest of the World?

it is just the US and I could never find figures on that except that The Wild Heart wentSilver in the uk, and Rock A Little and The Other Side Mirror went Gold. There are no other figures. I'm sure that Bella Donna had to have done something in Canada and such, but I can't find anything about any of the other countries.

Fleet Foxes keeps dropping the price of their CD. They are competing with Stevie for chart position this week. There is CD is now at 7.99 on Amazon and they dropped their CD price on iTunes to 9.99. They were thumping Stevie all month with an 8.99 price and then last night and today she surpassed them. Now their price drops a dollar.

I know some of the thread is old
 

But just to add:RE: SA 'low sales'..it was *deleted* as far back as 2000. I remember someone trying to dispute that years ago on here,but that is the fact.It could not be ordered in,new OR imported to stores like HMV.
It was certainly an unusual occurance,for an album to be deleted-as it was with Oasis ' "Be Here Now" CD.They are the only albums I had ever known to be deleted way back,relatively soon after their releases.

However SA remained available through amazon.com. It has been reissued (as in reprinted and made available,not remastered,sadly) along with RAL and TOSOTM as of March 2011.

the price of In Your Dreams has finally lowered to $9.99 on Amazon.

"Bella Donna" hit number 11 in the UK...in 1981 that was a much bigger deal than it is now. So I'm sure she would've got some decent sales from it. "Otherside Of the Mirror" was a big hit here, reaching #3 in the album charts and spawning 2 top 40 singles. TISL did nothing over here, and I haven't seen it in a music store in years. Even when I was in HMV on Oxford Street in London and they had LOADS of Stevie stuff (including Street Angel) but they didn't have TISL. Usually, the only ones they have are Crystal Visions, Soundstage and maybe Bella Donna. Not seen Timespace around for years either.

I'd really like to see Stevie release a boxsett of all her albums, digitally remastered with bonus tracks and demo's all in the 1 set (kinda like the Abba "The Albums" boxsett).