Mariah Carey's career sales | mcarchives.com

Sunday 18 November 2018

Mariah Carey's career sales

In honor of Friday's arrival of Caution, let's look at the U.S. sales, according to Nielsen Music, of all 20 of Carey's Billboard 200 entries to date. (Note that her first LP debuted nearly a year before the advent of Nielsen data, and, regarding her more recent releases, that overall album sales continue to decline.)

Mariah Carey, 4.9 million (No. 1, 11 weeks; 1990)
Emotions, 3.5 million (No. 4; 1991)
MTV Unplugged EP, 2.8 million (No. 3; 1992)
Music Box, 7.3 million (No. 1, eight weeks; 1993)
Merry Christmas, 5.6 million (No. 3; 1994)
Daydream, 7.7 million (No. 1, six weeks; 1995)
Butterfly, 3.8 million (No. 1, one week; 1997)
#1's, 3.9 million (No. 4; 1998)
Rainbow, 2.9 million (No. 2; 1999)
Glitter, 661,000 (No. 7; 2001)
Greatest Hits, 1.23 million (No. 52; 2001)
Charmbracelet, 1.17 million (No. 3; 2002)
The Remixes, 289,000 (No. 26; 2003)
The Emancipation of Mimi, 6.1 million (No. 1; two weeks, 2005)
E=MC2, 1.3 million (No. 1, two weeks; 2008)
The Ballads, 395,000 (No. 10; 2009)
Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, 555,000 (No. 3; 2009)
Merry Christmas II You, 587,000 (No. 4; 2010)
Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse, 127,000 (No. 3; 2014)
#1 to Infinity, 86,000 (No. 29; 2015)

Carey's career U.S. album sales stand at 55.3 million (led by 1995's Daydream, at 7.7 million), making her the best-selling female album artist, and fourth-best-selling album act overall, of the Nielsen Music era, since 1991. The three acts above her? Garth Brooks (72.3 million), The Beatles (69.3 million) and Metallica (56 million). Directly below Carey, Celine Dion rounds out the top five (53 million).

We'll see if Caution can arrive as Carey's 18th Billboard 200 top 10 - and her seventh No. 1? - on the chart dated December 1. A week before that, Glitter is likely to return to the Soundtracks chart (dated November 24), sparked by the power of the Lambily's #JusticeforGlitter social media campaign.

Another Carey feat to anticipate: Caution's "With You" jumps 14-11 on the latest Adult Contemporary chart. If it can move up at least one more notch (either before or after the annual seasonal takeover of holiday music), Carey will collect her 23rd AC top 10. It would mark her first with an original, non-holiday song since "We Belong Together", which hit No. 3 in 2005.

Carey, thus, could soon be unwrapping multiple chart presents just before Christmas. "People think I'm making this up, but this is actually true: I have real reindeer come to my house," Carey said this week of her holiday habits. "I don't play around."

(Billboard)



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