6 hours ago, Kathryn24601 said:

It’s very hard to be sure as accurate global sales figures are hard to come by.

Chartmasters has Intensive Care at 6.5 million and Escapology at 7.9 million, but appear not to count a million albums sold in Mexico by being preloaded on to a device (either a phone or an mp3), and I think must either be missing or not counting some other ROW sales as well.

They also have Greatest Hits at 8.7 million as his best selling.

I know Stephen Duffy says that Intensive Care is his best selling album outside the U.K., though.

In any case, it was more than successful enough to make ‘politely written off’ risible, even though it did not do as well in the U.K. as Escapology did.

Well said Kathryn! 👍

I still cannot figure out what happened with the sales figures for BRITPOP, they are dire , Given the reviews & reaction from fans I would have expected the album to have done a lot better.

2 hours ago, Sydney11 said:

I still cannot figure out what happened with the sales figures for BRITPOP, they are dire , Given the reviews & reaction from fans I would have expected the album to have done a lot better.

I think it is just the market at the moment unfortunately. If you compare its first week sales (not streams, pure sales, because we know Robbie fans tend not to stream) to the first week sales of the No1s from 2025, it would rank 8th on the list.

For an artist in the 30th year of their career that is not bad at all.

The only artists who did really huge numbers for their new releases in 2025 were Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter and Sam Fender. And even Taylor Swift’s actual numbers for 2025 are no where near as big as Robbie’s in his prime. Her combined 2025 sales (streams, physical and downloads) were 642000.

Rudebox was deemed a massive failure back in 2006 for ‘only’ selling that many copies. When Robbie was at the stage Taylor is now, he was selling 2+ million copies per album.

I find it terribly sad, because it must mean that casual music fans are listening to a lot less new music and new artists than they used to. They are just not getting exposed to new music from artists they already like because it is not being served to them in an accessible format. The older audience does not stream because streaming is rubbish, but they are also not getting the chance to browse new releases while doing their supermarket shop, there’s very few record stores left, and there’s few opportunities in the telly for new music.

Edited February 5Feb 5 by Kathryn24601

3 minutes ago, Kathryn24601 said:

The only artists who did really huge numbers in 2025 Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter and Sam Fender. And even Taylor Swift’s actual numbers for 2025 are no where near as big as Robbie’s in him prime. Her combined 2025 sales (streams, physical and downloads) were 642000.

They were certainly a lot higher than that, if you are gonna make a statement like that you need to take more than just TLOAS numbers (or word it very differently) as she had multiple albums top 100 of the year 🤣

1 minute ago, 777666jason said:

They were certainly a lot higher than that, if you are gonna make a statement like that you need to take more than just TLOAS numbers (or word it very differently) as she had multiple albums top 100 of the year 🤣

I am talking about sales of new albums to compare like with like, because I can’t be arsed to go back and work out the maths of what Robbie’s albums sold in their subsequent years of release. I thought that was obvious from context but have edited to make it clearer.

Feel free to do dig out the data for a comparison.

Edited February 5Feb 5 by Kathryn24601

Just now, Kathryn24601 said:

I am talking about sales of new albums to compare like with like, because I can’t be arsed to go back and work out the maths of what Robbie’s albums sold in their subsequent years of release.

Feel free to do dig out the data for a comparison.

You worded it combined 2025 sales and going by her albums from top 100 year end 3025 she did combined 1.5 million sales

Also the whole comparison is apples to oranges if streaming was available in Robbies hey day would his physicals have been as high 🤣

1 minute ago, 777666jason said:

You worded it combined 2025 sales and going by her albums from top 100 year end 3025 she did combined 1.5 million sales

Also the whole comparison is apples to oranges if streaming was available in Robbies hey day would his physicals have been as high 🤣

Right, so still less than Robbie in his heyday then.

Would Robbie’s physicals have been as high if streaming had been a thing back then? No - although clearly his streams would also be much higher. But streaming and it’s knock-on effect

has fundamentally damaged the music ecosystem. That is the point I am making.

4 minutes ago, Kathryn24601 said:

Right, so still less than Robbie in his heyday then.

Would Robbie’s physicals have been as high if streaming had been a thing back then? No - although clearly his streams would also be much higher. But streaming and it’s knock-on effect

has fundamentally damaged the music ecosystem. That is the point I am making.

Like i said you worded it badly 😅

And has it really yes overall sales are less humorous but id say music is much more diverse and artists that wouldnt normally get a look in pre-streaming are actually experiencing success they wouldnt normally

44 minutes ago, Kathryn24601 said:

I think it is just the market at the moment unfortunately. If you compare its first week sales (not streams, pure sales, because we know Robbie fans tend not to stream) to the first week sales of the No1s from 2025, it would rank 8th on the list.

For an artist in the 30th year of their career that is not bad at all.

The only artists who did really huge numbers for their new releases in 2025 were Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter and Sam Fender. And even Taylor Swift’s actual numbers for 2025 are no where near as big as Robbie’s in his prime. Her combined 2025 sales (streams, physical and downloads) were 642000.

Rudebox was deemed a massive failure back in 2006 for ‘only’ selling that many copies. When Robbie was at the stage Taylor is now, he was selling 2+ million copies per album.

I find it terribly sad, because it must mean that casual music fans are listening to a lot less new music and new artists than they used to. They are just not getting exposed to new music from artists they already like because it is not being served to them in an accessible format. The older audience does not stream because streaming is rubbish, but they are also not getting the chance to browse new releases while doing their supermarket shop, there’s very few record stores left, and there’s few opportunities in the telly for new music.

Thanks Kathryn, I appreciate your thoughts on it. that data is very interesting. It is really sad what is happening in the music industry. Last week I was in HMV here which has quite a bog store & they did not even have the BRITPOP in stock. I also noticed that they had a huge collection of vinyls for artists going back a number of decades & not a huge amount of CD's , I guess that is where where the market is these days for established artists in particular. We have a few independent record stores here that do well but it's all in the vinyl market. It must be very difficult for new artists coming into the music industry because they make hardly money from streaming & a lot of them cannot afford to go on tour due to the high insurance costs,

1 hour ago, 777666jason said:

Like i said you worded it badly 😅

And has it really yes overall sales are less humorous but id say music is much more diverse and artists that wouldnt normally get a look in pre-streaming are actually experiencing success they wouldnt normally

It’s not my fault your reading comprehension is bad and you can’t pick up context clues.

I think are wrong about the effect of streaming on new artists. Every metric I have seen shows that the biggest beneficiaries are established artists, and that new artists find it harder than ever to get noticed amongst the see of literal AI slop flooding the streaming services.

New artists can’t make money from streaming and find that even when they make it onto a playlist and get a lot of streams their name recognition is still very low, which means they struggle to build an engaged fanbase to sell merch and tickets too. Merch and tickets is basically how artists make money now.

2 hours ago, Kathryn24601 said:

Her combined 2025 sales (streams, physical and downloads) were 642000.

6 minutes ago, Kathryn24601 said:

It’s not my fault your reading comprehension is bad and you can’t pick up context clues.

My reading comprehension is perfectly fine 🤣

7 minutes ago, Kathryn24601 said:

I think are wrong about the effect of streaming on new artists. Every metric I have seen shows that the biggest beneficiaries are established artists, and that new artists find it harder than ever to get noticed amongst the see of literal AI slop flooding the streaming services.

Considering the amount of new artists that have taken off on streaming due to going viral on tik tok etc has increased significantly in recent years

As for established artists and streaming this is proving more and more not to be the case with only the odd "established" artist doing enough to debut high or maintain stability

1 hour ago, 777666jason said:

My reading comprehension is perfectly fine 🤣

Considering the amount of new artists that have taken off on streaming due to going viral on tik tok etc has increased significantly in recent years

As for established artists and streaming this is proving more and more not to be the case with only the odd "established" artist doing enough to debut high or maintain stability

I was literally yesterday just reading this Substack piece about how virality on TikTok fails to translate to ticket sales.

https://open.substack.com/pub/joelgouveia/p/1-million-monthly-listeners-12-tickets?r=6aemn&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

So yeah, a new artist might blow up on socials. But it doesn’t seem to do them much long-term good in itself. The established artists are still far more likely to be earning a decent living, because streaming pays peanuts. Without the investment of a major label for the long term those new artists still struggle.

Edited February 5Feb 5 by Kathryn24601

43 minutes ago, Kathryn24601 said:

I was literally yesterday just reading this Substack piece about how virality on TikTok fails to translate to ticket sales.

https://open.substack.com/pub/joelgouveia/p/1-million-monthly-listeners-12-tickets?r=6aemn&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

So yeah, a new artist might blow up on socials. But it doesn’t seem to do them much long-term good in itself. The established artists are still far more likely to be earning a decent living, because streaming pays peanuts. Without the investment of a major label for the long term those new artists still struggle.

Ticket sales and chart sales are 2 different things you moved the goal past, like Katy Perry can still sell out arenas but her chart success is long gone 🤣

Edited February 5Feb 5 by 777666jason

29 minutes ago, 777666jason said:

Ticket sales and chart sales are 2 different things you moved the goal past, like Katy Perry can still sell out arenas but her chart success is long gone 🤣

Yes. But the point is that artists who cannot sell tickets cannot make money, and most artists who cannot make money can’t afford to continue to do music for their career.

And if new artists can’t get to the point of a Katy Perry, and fill arenas even when they are no longer going viral on TikTok, what is going to happen to the music industry in 20 years’ time?

I know Selfish Disco is getting a lot of attention on the Deluxe Version but my favourite is f***ing Amazing.

I absolutely LOVE it. ❤️

Also the lyrics on Comment Section - bloody genius.

My need to be offended is immensely immense

So give me some content you know it makes sense

I'm tagging all my friend, she'll be here shortly

Her real name's Karen, but she goes by Courtney

On 08/02/2026 at 00:40, Laura130262 said:

I know Selfish Disco is getting a lot of attention on the Deluxe Version but my favourite is f***ing Amazing.

I absolutely LOVE it. ❤️

Also the lyrics on Comment Section - bloody genius.

My need to be offended is immensely immense

So give me some content you know it makes sense

I'm tagging all my friend, she'll be here shortly

Her real name's Karen, but she goes by Courtney

There are so many good songs on this album Laura & those treasures on the de-luxe version could easily have made it on to the main album ..

I ordered the ZINE version with the interviews about the tracks on the album but it has not arrived yet.