Responding to a post by Ian S in "The Jazz Age" thread.



Spookily, I had only recently been looking into sales figures for Roxy/Ferry albums/singles, when I saw Ian's question.

Actual sales figures are hard to determine - maybe Bryan, or his office have records? There is information relating to chart positions and sales awards available, but this is patchy. I have gathered what information I can over the years.

For now here is some Roxy overseas album chart positions/awards:

Roxy Music
Norway 23

For Your Pleasure
Austria 9
Norway 15
USA 193

Stranded
Norway 14
New Zealand 37
USA 186

Country Life
Austria 10
Norway 15
New Zealand 8
USA 37

Siren
Holland 9
New Zealand 33
Norway 15
Sweden 8
USA 50

Manifesto
Austria 25
Holland 5
New Zealand 8
Sweden 11
USA 23

Flesh & Blood
Austria 15
France 3 (certified Gold for 100K sales)
Germany UNK (certified Gold)
Holland 8
New Zealand 1
Norway 6
Sweden 7
USA 35

Avalon
Australia 1
Austria 5
France 5 (certified Gold for 100K sales)
Germany UNK (certified Gold)
Holland 1
New Zealand 1
Norway 1
Sweden 1
USA 53 (certified Platinum for 1M sales)

I have not been able to find data for some albums and countries. There is little available info on the major European markets of Germany, France & Italy plus Australia & Japan.

If any fellow forum members have any additional information, could they kindly add it to the above.

didn't see any stats for Canada eh?

Thanks for all that info,Blank Franc. Very interesting. I was in Paris when Jealous Guy was released and that got to No.5 while I was there. Avalon certainly sold a few copies i!! The next 2 releases, Boys and Girls and Street Life - 20 Great Hits both got to No 1 in the UK as well.

Bizarrely, I think The Ultimate Collection is the highest selling RM/BF album in the UK as it is certified triple platinum here. Hard to believe any other single album elsewhere in the world would have shifted more copies than the highest on home soil.

Sales awards are given to albums, not for sales to the public, but for units shipped to retail outlets. So for any award it is possible that the album/single never actually sold that amount.

Platinum awards for albums in the UK are given for sales of 300,000. Therefore at least 900,000 copies of the ultimate collection have been shipped to retailers in the UK.

Surprising maybe, but Avalon went platinum in the USA in 1992 for sales of 1 Million, and is almost certainly the biggest seller both in an individual country and Worldwide.

Boys & Girls is the only other Roxy/Ferry album to be certified in the USA - Gold for sales of 500,000.

My own 'guesstimate' was around 30 million albums sold. Although, not stated as such, I imagine the figure above includes the various compilations released over the years.