The remaining 4 releases from 1967 to 1970 all moved similar numbers, from 4.6 million to 7.1 million globally, with the classic Morrison Hotel leading the way.īoth Other Voices and Full Circle pale in comparison to their predecessors, which is expected, as they were recorded and released without the contribution of Jim Morrison, who was dead by this point. While it only managed around half the sales of The Doors‘ in the US, it is just as strong in Europe with both records around 4.7 million sales. Woman is their second biggest album at 10.1 million.
Woman close to a million, a figure that no pre-1972 album ever reached there, local releases included. The 6 legitimate Doors studio albums, average an insane 565,000 units, with both The Doors and L.A. In France for example, no Beatles studio album has sold more than 425,000 units to date. This is all the more impressive once we consider that the UK is one of the worst markets for the band, relatively speaking. The best illustration of that is the UK, where the album sold over a million without even hitting charts in first place, ultimately debuting and peaking during 1991 thanks to The Doors movie, at a modest #43. They have been achieved thanks to steady catalogue sales over the past 50 years. The Doors does the best with a stunning 13.8 million sales to date. With this in mind and knowing that from 1970 a relevant compilation came out nearly every year for the Doors, these sales appear to be extraordinary.
The biggest LPs from this era, albums which managed to sell 20m plus copies through retail, clubs etc are traditionally the ones that didn’t face competition from a compilation for many years, while the albums that did, are often more around the 5m to 10m mark. We have already encountered many huge bands from the late 60s to early 70s, such as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Rolling Stones and when looking at their biggest albums, a pattern emerges. Now let’s get into the artist’s sales figures in detail in order to apply this concept and define the act’s true popularity! If you are a mathematical person, and want to know the full method as well as formulas, you can read the full introduction article. If you are unaware of the CSPC method, you will get the full idea within just a pair of minutes. In the first place, there is this Scribe video posted below. There are two ways to understand this revolutionary concept. The Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept (CSPC)
Of course, if you are a regular visitor feel free to skip the video and get into the numbers directly. I fully recommend watching it before getting into the sales figures. If you are not yet familiar with the CSPC method, below is a nice and short video of explanations. In fact, it will also determine their true popularity.
This concept will not only bring you sales information for all Doors‘ albums, physical and download singles, as well as audio and video streaming. If you want to find out what the full picture does look like, once everything is painted, then please read on.Īs usual, I’ll be using the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept in order to relevantly gauge their results. This, along with a career of only 4 years and success mainly concentrated to the US, at a time when the market was low, all point to a less than stellar sales total…but that’s not the full picture.
Their albums likewise performed moderately to poorly on the whole and have spent far more time off the charts, than on them. Their performance abroad has always been less successful, never scoring a Top 5 hit in the UK, Australia, Germany, France or Japan, as well as many other territories. Their early hit Light My Fire was a #1 smash in the US and pretty soon after, Hello, I Love You followed it to that position. They were hugely successful from the off in the US, with their first two albums The Doors and Strange Days both sitting inside the Top 5 at the same time. During this time frame they barely broke into the mainstream in most markets. So, just how successful is this band?įrom their breakthrough to the passing of their singer, the career of the Doors lasted a mere 4 years. Their lead singer, Jim Morrison, is still regarded as a demigod by many some 47 years after his passing but if we look at their chart history, we notice that none of their studio albums even made the UK Top 10.
The Doors are arguably one of the most iconic rock bands of all-time.