doing the math on the US sales

yohan ([email protected])
Sat, 14 Nov 1998 16:06:21 -0800 (PST)

several days ago, Modsavage wrote:
> U2 sold
> 237,000 in the first week of sales. I take full responsibility for four of
> those albums
> But here is the thing most aren't factoring in.
> Alanis is just one album
> U2 is two albums and costs more.

and...
> So lets do the math shall we
> Alanis x 1 = 469,000
> U2 x 2 =474,000

As far as I know, tallying sales is based on "units," where each double CD
set counts as 2 units. Some news excerpts I've read this week have reported
that U2's Best of set sold 237,000 "units," others have reported 237,000
"copies."

If there truly were 237,000 "copies" of the Best of set sold, there would be
twice as many "units" -- 474,000. However -- chart positions are based on
units, and 474,000 units would have landed U2 in the number 1 spot on US
charts, which is not what happened.

So unless Billboard made a mistake, or decided not to count the Best of set
as 2 units, the "237,000" probably refers to "units" and not "copies."

Under this assumption, the number of copies of the Best of sold is actually
around half of 237,000 -- around 118,500 copies.

yohan
http://u2exit.home.ml.org/exit.html

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