Meatloaf Dead..

[tonyo]

Very sad news, RIP.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

[LP]

Australia’s biggest selling album ever is Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell” selling nearly 2 million copies here.

I've always felt those stats are a bit dubious, because it seems to depend heavily on the source of the data and a certain level of continuity in management/ownership.

Do you know how they work the cut off for these figures, or how they are calculated?

The thing that alerted me to an anomaly a few years back was an interview I watched with Elton John. He thanked Australia for buying over 1 million copies of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, yet when I looked it up official sales were only 200,000, but that 200,000 was an "at the time" of release figure and there seems to be no update after many decades ago!

I've also heard recent attributes of bands like Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl and Skyhooks selling close to 1 million of their hit albums in Australia but they never seem to appear in official figures.

The "Bat out of Hell" figures seems to be accumulative, as are many others in that list!

btw, I'm not disputing the figures, I'm just curious that there seems to be such a massive differential from some other obviously huge and very commonly found albums.

Years ago when I worked for the newspapers, one of my mates at work was the editor for the music reviews, back then it was a big part of the weekend papers, he'd claim back then which was in the 80s/90s nobody else's sales even came close to ABBA's sales!

[Lods]

I've always felt those stats are a bit dubious, because it seems to depend heavily on the source of the data and a certain level of continuity in management/ownership.

Do you know how they work the cut off for these figures, or how they are calculated?

The thing that alerted me to an anomaly a few years back was an interview I watched with Elton John. He thanked Australia for buying over 1 million copies of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, yet when I looked it up official sales were only 200,000, but that 200,000 was an "at the time" of release figure and there seems to be no update after many decades ago!

I've also heard recent attributes of bands like Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl and Skyhooks selling close to 1 million of their hit albums in Australia but they never seem to appear in official figures.

The "Bat out of Hell" figures seems to be accumulative, as are many others in that list!

btw, I'm not disputing the figures, I'm just curious that there seems to be such a massive differential from some other obviously huge and very commonly found albums.

Years ago when I worked for the newspapers, one of my mates at work was the editor for the music reviews, back then it was a big part of the weekend papers, he'd claim back then which was in the 80s/90s nobody else's sales even came close to ABBA's sales!

Who knows for sure.
I have 'Bat out of Hell'...but I also have two ABBA albums.
At the time the Meatloaf thing was pretty big...as was Meatloaf. ;D

[Wet Willie]

I've always felt those stats are a bit dubious, because it seems to depend heavily on the source of the data and a certain level of continuity in management/ownership.

Do you know how they work the cut off for these figures, or how they are calculated?

The thing that alerted me to an anomaly a few years back was an interview I watched with Elton John. He thanked Australia for buying over 1 million copies of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, yet when I looked it up official sales were only 200,000, but that 200,000 was an "at the time" of release figure and there seems to be no update after many decades ago!

I've also heard recent attributes of bands like Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl and Skyhooks selling close to 1 million of their hit albums in Australia but they never seem to appear in official figures.

The "Bat out of Hell" figures seems to be accumulative, as are many others in that list!

btw, I'm not disputing the figures, I'm just curious that there seems to be such a massive differential from some other obviously huge and very commonly found albums.

Years ago when I worked for the newspapers, one of my mates at work was the editor for the music reviews, back then it was a big part of the weekend papers, he'd claim back then which was in the 80s/90s nobody else's sales even came close to ABBA's sales!

I know what you mean, but I have written two books on this type of music trivia.  I always try to fine two independant sources or quotes before including it.  A lot of figures are based on charts and records from America, England  Australia.  The difficulty happened when Asia built a pirate black market which blew out figures.  I don't include those...

[LP]

I know what you mean, but I have written two books on this type of music trivia.  I always try to fine two independant sources or quotes before including it.  A lot of figures are based on charts and records from America, England  Australia.  The difficulty happened when Asia built a pirate black market which blew out figures.  I don't include those...

Thanks [member=272]Wet Willie[/member]‍ , I'm glad that suspicion is not just my paranoia setting in.

[kruddler]

I know what you mean, but I have written two books on this type of music trivia.  I always try to fine two independant sources or quotes before including it.  A lot of figures are based on charts and records from America, England  Australia.  The difficulty happened when Asia built a pirate black market which blew out figures.  I don't include those...

Just out of curiosity, do you know all those "Australian Idol" BS figures worked?

Rumours of singles going to #1 before they are even released etc.
Suggestions that its the record companies buying up their own stock to inflate those figures etc.

[Wet Willie]

Record companies released press statements that an album has been "shipped platinum", where the albums were shipped to stores only to have them returned at a later date.

These days, sadly, record companies pump up how many streams a song has had.  A million streams is worth about $10,000 to the artist and is killing the viability of music.

It's a bit like journalists quoting social media as a source for a story.  You have to be careful about what you believe...

[LP]

Thanks for the black market thought, not something I'd considered.

Of course when some of us oldies hear or read album we think vinyl, but I appreciate that is not the truth of the matter, but I wonder if it describes a potential source of difference in the figures.

For example, some classic albums I've originally purchased as vinyl, then perhaps tape, followed by CD and maybe even DVD, finally to end with an iTunes download! Don't ask me why, lazy I guess, but it may certainly inflate some figures for identifiably classic albums!

Recently I read about Tones and I, sales some of music histories greats could only dream about, and not a single pressing, ongoing overheads are effectively zero!

[capcom]

And surely Thriller and DSOTM would register similar amounts

[Lods]

....and Gene Pitney's Big Sixteen. ;D