The U.S. sales figures for PSB albums
Beginning in 1991, Nielsen Media Research began implementing the computerized SoundScan system to track music sales. On two separate occasions, Keith Caulfield of "Ask Billboard" (at billboard.com) has provided the official SoundScan tallies for U.S. sales of the Pet Shop Boys albums released since 1991. These figures are accurate as of October 2004 and May 2006 (except for those for Fundamental and PopArt, which are from October 2006). I've also included in the tallies the minimum U.S. sales figures for the pre-1991 albums based upon RIAA gold- and platinum-record awards (as described in the previous list). Pre-1991 albums are listed in chronological order; post-1991 albums are listed in descending order according to sales figures, which are rounded to the nearest thousand:
Pre- 1991 |
Please | More than 1,000,000 units sold1 | |
| Disco | Less than 500,0002 | ||
| Actually | More than 500,0003 | ||
| Introspective | More than 500,0003 | ||
| Behaviour | Less than 500,0002 | ||
Post- 1991 |
As
of Oct '04 |
As of May '06 except where noted |
|
| Discography | 691,000 |
719,000 |
|
| Very4 | 416,000 |
418,000 |
|
| Bilingual | 149,000 |
149,000 |
|
| Nightlife | 139,000 |
139,000 |
|
| Disco 2 | 130,000 |
131,000 |
|
| Release | 71,000 |
73,000 |
|
| Alternative | 67,000 |
68,000 |
|
| Disco 3 | 38,000 |
42,000 |
|
| Essential | 39,000 |
39,000 |
|
| Fundamental | -- |
46,0005 |
|
| PopArt | -- |
3,0006 |
|
| Yes | -- |
39,0007 |
|
1Since the RIAA has awarded Please a platinum album, it must have sold at least one million units in the U.S. Since it has not, however, received a double-platinum award, it must not yet have sold at least two million.
2Since the RIAA has awarded Actually and Introspective gold albums, they must have sold at least a half-million units each in the U.S. But since they haven't been awarded platinum albums, they must not yet have sold at least a million.
3Since the RIAA has not awarded Disco and Behaviour gold albums, they must not yet have sold at least a million units.
4The RIAA has awarded Very a gold album because at least a half-million copies have been shipped to stores in the U.S., although the SoundScan figures for actual sales are somewhat less.
5Fundamental: As of early April 2009.
6PopArt: As of late October 2006. If the PopArt sales seem unbelievably low, keep in mind that its U.S. sales suffered terribly from the fact that it wasn't released in the States until nearly three years after it was released in Britain and elsewhere, by which time the vast majority of Americans who wanted it had already bought it as an import. The rationale—if rationality was involved at all—behind the decisions to delay the U.S. release for that long and to release it at all in the U.S. after such a lengthy delay is one of the great mysteries in the history of the handling (and mishandling) of PSB product by the recording industry. Yes, I understand that the Boys having had more than one U.S. record company had something to do with it. But you'd think the legal wrangling could have been overcome in a much more timely manner for the mutual financial benefit of everyone involved. Greed, greed, greed. I sometimes suspect record industry executives still think we're living in the pre-Internet age, when it was genuinely difficult to buy imports and consumers were at their mercy. Then again, I suppose the existence of the Internet is, much to their chagrin, an escapable reality of their lives.
7Yes: As of late September 2009.
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