Individual total record sales?

[Ilovezeppelin]

Hey everyone,

I'm doing an informative speech on none other than the almighty zep for my public speaking class and I really want to include how many copies of each studio album they sold and how many total worldwide. I have been searching google and cannot find anything other than over 100,000,000 in the U.S and over 300,000,000 worldwide and I'm not even positve they are true. Anyone happen to know or know of a site where I can find these stats? thanks in advance

[cabal200]

Hey everyone,

I'm doing an informative speech on none other than the almighty zep for my public speaking class and I really want to include how many copies of each studio album they sold and how many total worldwide. I have been searching google and cannot find anything other than over 100,000,000 in the U.S and over 300,000,000 worldwide and I'm not even positve they are true. Anyone happen to know or know of a site where I can find these stats? thanks in advance

The only thing I know of is how to check for U.S. album sales through the RIAA's website. That site is www.riaa.com but even then I don't know if you will get EXACT figures on that site.

Good Luck!

[swandown]

Riaa.org will have stats for U.S. sales, but the numbers have not been updated in several years. Wikipedia has limited stats on UK and worldwide sales numbers.

[cabal200]

Riaa.org will have stats for U.S. sales, but the numbers have not been updated in several years. Wikipedia has limited stats on UK and worldwide sales numbers.

Most of the time wikipedia is not an acceptable source for a school/college project... but I don't know where else you could get the info other than the riaa which may not be accurate.

[ninelives]

Most of the time wikipedia is not an acceptable source for a school/college project... but I don't know where else you could get the info other than the riaa which may not be accurate.

Wiki isn't always accurate so I'd not trust them, not to mention what you said that schools won't accept them as a source. It should be obtainable through the RIAA.

[PlanetPage]

Most of the time wikipedia is not an acceptable source for a school/college project... but I don't know where else you could get the info other than the riaa which may not be accurate.

...I do quote wike BUT at my own discretion if Info. is correct to begin with, but never for Educational/Research purposes....It is not allowed, along with any other Internet sites, only the scholastic Research Sites are allowed at the Universities here...

BUT my only other suggestions would be the Record Stores/Unions, SoundScan might have some sources too, at last maybe the Guiness world record books...just some ideas...I am sure there are other expert ideas ....but that is what I can think of :D

Edited April 3, 2009 by PlanetPage

[Page_Maniac]

The information on Wiki is often referenced with a legit source. Then you can go to that to confirm what Wiki has posted.

Wiki gathers information from a variety of places and condenses it for quick reference. If there's no sourced reference, take it with a grain of salt. If so, and your research is important, then don't count on it. But you can still get information that may not be officially made available by a recognized source, and for that it's also invaluable. Sometimes individuals have information the masters don't.

Again, with that, research-research-research if necessary.

....or you could ask Steve A Jones

[SuperDave]

....or you could ask Steve A Jones

As good of a source as any. Always states the facts.

[Bong-Man]

http://www.classicbands.com/bestsellers.html

[SuperDave]

http://www.classicbands.com/bestsellers.html

Thanks for the info. It's quite possible that this may be a bit out of date. Totals should be higher. Heard a couple of years ago, The Beatles album sales were in excess of 160 million, while here it's 106 million.

[Joe Bloggs]

Wikipedia is the last place to look for reliable information (run by fascists and edited by the clueless). Hanbo's figures often mentioned on the internet looks dubious too - he only takes into account some, not all, countries. Many countries also take years, even decades, to update sales figures. The UK figures and certifications for Led Zeppelin for example are so old it's disgraceful.

[Soccerzubs]

Wikipedia is the last place to look for reliable information

Majority of the time, information is cited from another website so if you follow the citation it should lead you back to the original site.

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

Here at....

http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0151020.html

Bonzolikedrumer

[LEDCPA]

http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=tblTopArt

The link is for total sales. Hit the back button and you can see other categories. Hit the searchable database link and then you can just type in Led Zeppelin as artist and only see their certifications.

From what I can tell the second box set is gold, everything else is atleast platinum, over 1 million copies sold in the US.

This should be the official sales for the US as it is from the RIAA's website.

Edited April 25, 2009 by LEDCPA

[LEDCPA]

This is the detail by album per the RIAA website.

I 8 million

II 12

III 6

IV 23

HOTH 11

PG 16

Presence 3

TSRTS 4

ITTOD 6

Coda 1

Total of 90 million through Coda

Box Set 1 10

Box Set 2 Gold

Remasters 2

Early Days 1

Latter Days Not listed

E & L Days 1

Mothership 2

HTWWW 1

BBC Sessions 2

Complete Studio 2

Total of 21.5 million for the box sets and everything else released after Coda.

That equals the total of 111.5 million listed on the total by artist per RIAA

Also WLL (single) is listed as Gold and LZ Video long form (which must be the DVD) is listed at 10 times platinum. I can't remember what constitutes platinum for DVD's. It's not an actual million.

Also double discs (such as PG) count twice. So actually only 8 Million copies of PG have been sold but since it is two discs it is listed as 16 million. I assume between 2-3 million actual copies of the box set have sold since that is 4 discs.

Edited April 25, 2009 by LEDCPA

[euro]

This is the detail by album per the RIAA website.

I 8 million

II 12

III 6

IV 23

HOTH 11

PG 16

Presence 3

TSRTS 4

ITTOD 6

Coda 1

Total of 90 million through Coda

Box Set 1 10

Box Set 2 Gold

Remasters 2

Early Days 1

Latter Days Not listed

E & L Days 1

Mothership 2

HTWWW 1

BBC Sessions 2

Complete Studio 2

Total of 21.5 million for the box sets and everything else released after Coda.

That equals the total of 111.5 million listed on the total by artist per RIAA

Also WLL (single) is listed as Gold and LZ Video long form (which must be the DVD) is listed at 10 times platinum. I can't remember what constitutes platinum for DVD's. It's not an actual million.

Also double discs (such as PG) count twice. So actually only 8 Million copies of PG have been sold but since it is two discs it is listed as 16 million. I assume between 2-3 million actual copies of the box set have sold since that is 4 discs.

You are correct the RIAA counts mutiple discs in its certifications so PG may be 16X platinum but 8 million copies were shipped

2.75 million of Box Set 1 were sold in USA .

DVD is platinum with sales of 100,000 units. The Zeppelin box set scanned about 1.2 million in USA making it 24Xplatinum(it is a two disc set) if the certification process were up to date

Adjusting for mutiple disc releases(i.e counting copies sold instead of units) Zeppelin sold about 100 million in USA and another 60 million in the rest of the world.

Edited April 26, 2009 by euro

[LEDCPA]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin

This says worldwide sales are 300 million and there are four references that support that. But if there were 110 million shipped in the US, where are the other 190 million coming from? LZ is not in the top ten albums in the UK, with number ten having sold only 3 million copies. Say LZ has 10 albums that sold 2 million each in the UK, thats another 20 million. Still short 170 million from the 300 million number worldwide which is claimed in more than one place.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6151050.stm

Excuse me for being an anal accountant with this number crunching.

[euro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin

This says worldwide sales are 300 million and there are four references that support that. But if there were 110 million shipped in the US, where are the other 190 million coming from? LZ is not in the top ten albums in the UK, with number ten having sold only 3 million copies. Say LZ has 10 albums that sold 2 million each in the UK, thats another 20 million. Still short 170 million from the 300 million number worldwide which is claimed in more than one place.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6151050.stm

Excuse me for being an anal accountant with this number crunching.

300 million albums sold number is absurd. BBC and Wikipedia are way off, There is no official body that certifies worldwide sales,the best you can do is extrapolate

Your UK sales are vasty overstated Led Zeppelin IV was certified 6X platinum by BPI recently which is 1.8 million copies.Zeppelin II was certified 4X platinum last year as well.

Only Queen and the Beatles have sold that many records in UK and Zeppelin are not in the same league in terms of sale in the UK with respect to those two bands

Zeppelin sales in UK are more like 10 million

Some good work done on www.ukmix.org search under Led Zeppelin

Edited April 26, 2009 by euro

[LEDCPA]

where are the other 190 million coming from?

That was my point. EVEN IF sales were 20 million in the UK, we are still way short of the 300 million worldwide number which was stated in multiple places.

Therefore it appears CNN etc. got the 300 million number from somewhere that was not backed up by any proof. Shoddy reporting.

[Joe Bloggs]

Some good work done on www.ukmix.org search under Led Zeppelin

ukmix stresses it is not an official forum concerning sales figures. I believe the 300 figure is not absurd at all if you consider the figures listing 100->200 do not take into account all countries (only a select few are used in the total. Even ukmix only has less than a handful of countries in their total (and the users there don't even link to where they got the sales figures from). 300 million is about right as a global estimate. It should also be pointed out UK sales figures are not updated on a regular basis. Many of their sales figures predate the 21st century.

[Joe Bloggs]

Majority of the time, information is cited from another website so if you follow the citation it should lead you back to the original site.

Isn't it odd how a new user here brings up the sales figures and a few days later a known punk rock fan and vandal on wikipedia removes all the citations and downgrades the sales figures from the Led Zeppelin article and replaces it with two links, one of which doesn't work and the other not updated since the page was created years ago? Further proof wikipedia is not a reliable source.

Edited May 3, 2009 by TeaBob

[greenman]

What I'v always suspected with world wide sales figures number are either low when people only use legitmate data or high when they use a lack of legitmate data to exaggerate. The latter tends to vary depending on the band, for acts with many big albums like Zep it would probabley be total sales, for the likes of ADC(Back In Black) and Meatloaf(Bat Out of Hell) there most famous album.

[euro]

ukmix stresses it is not an official forum concerning sales figures. I believe the 300 figure is not absurd at all if you consider the figures listing 100->200 do not take into account all countries (only a select few are used in the total.

Global sales for english music is not evenly distributed so extrapolation estimates by population are misleading; English music sales are skewed towards USA,UK,Canada and Australia for obvious reasons.

A country like. Japan while a large music market in its own right,favour their own artists over international acts(such a distincition for Zeppelin is not made in the english speaking countries). Brazil may have 6X times the population Canada but the latter is a much bigger market for groups like Zeppelin and Floyd(Remember music is very expensive in Latin America in real terms)

Edited May 3, 2009 by euro

[Joe Bloggs]

Global sales for english music is not evenly distributed so extrapolation estimates by population are misleading; English music sales are skewed towards USA,UK,Canada and Australia for obvious reasons.

A country like. Japan while a large music market in its own right,favour their own artists over international acts(such a distincition for Zeppelin is not made in the english speaking countries). Brazil may have 6X times the population Canada but the latter is a much bigger market for groups like Zeppelin and Floyd(Remember music is very expensive in Latin America in real terms)

Do you realise the sources quoting 200 million units takes into account sales from only 6 countries or less for each album, and some of these countries haven't updated sales figures since before Mothership? That figure regardless of how people try to put a spin on it, is less than what has been actually sold.

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

I'd think the exact figures would likely be recorded at BMI, ASCAP or who ever takes care of Atlantic and there own label Swan Song's sales figure's and royalties payment's.

I also was wondering witch system that info is all based on, the old with 1 million for gold? Or the newer system putting 500,000 as gold?