The new Billboard numbers for album sales for the week are out and The Beatles sold a total of 626,000 “units” from September 8 through September 14. This counts each box set sale as only one sale each even though the box sets contain 14 (stereo box set) & 11 (mono box set) albums each.

The biggest Beatles seller of the week was Abbey Road which sold 89,000 copies which was good for 3rd on the overall album chart (the comprehensive album chart which includes all albums, not just new ones.) But you have to consider the fact that people who bought the Beatles In Stereo Box Set (which sold 26,000 copies, quite impressive considering it’s hefty price) wouldn’t have bought Abbey Road twice, so a more fair total would add in it’s sales from the stereo box set for a total of 115,000 copies of Abbey Road sold for the week.

As I mentioned many times before during Michael Jackson’s domination of the US album charts after his death, the Billboard 200 charts only include new releases so the only Beatles releases that are eligible for the charts are the box sets themselves. The Beatles In Stereo Box Set came in at #15 with it’s 26,000 copies sold and The Beatles In Mono came in at #40 with 12,000 copies sold.

The Beatles actually had five of the top ten selling albums of the week (this is on the comprehensive charts which include all releases, new & old.) All of these album sales totals would be significantly higher if it were not for the box set sales cutting into the individual album sales. In most cases it’s likely the albums would have sold about 30,000 more copies each if not for the box sets (because people who buy the box sets are hardcore Beatles fans who definitely would have bought the albums individually if they were not available as part of the box sets.)

For the albums Please Please Me through The White Album there were actually 38,000 more copies sold than listed here when you count in the box set sales. For Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, & Abbey Road you have to add 26,000 to get the overall total (because they are only included in the stereo set since they were never mixed in mono.)

Beatles In The Top Ten

#03 Abbey Road – 89K
#05 Sgt. Pepper – 74K
#07 The White Album – 60K
#08 Rubber Soul – 58K
#10 Revolver – 46K

Other Beatles Albums Sales #s

Help! – 39K
Let It Be – 32K
Past Masters – 31K
Magical Mystery Tour – 30K
A Hard Day’s Night – 29K
Please Please Me – 23K
With the Beatles – 22K
Beatles For Sale – 21K
Yellow Submarine – 14K

As you can see by the fact that The Beatles In Mono made it into the top 40 on the Billboard 200 charts with just 12K sold, all of The Beatles albums would have charted on the Billboard 200 if not for their stupid rule about only new albums being eligible (the UK doesn’t have this rule which is why they had 16 Beatles releases among their top 75 chart.)

How Many Total Albums Did They Sell?

When you count in the fact that the Stereo Box Set includes 14 Beatles albums and the Mono Box Set includes 11 Beatles albums, how many total Beatles albums were actually sold last week? The number is huge, so buckle your seat belts!

To get the calculation first I subtract the 38K box sets from the 626K total to get 588K. I then multiply the stereo set by 14 to get 364K and the mono set by 11 to get 132K. The final tally? 1,084,000 Beatles albums sold for the week. To make that number even more amazing you have to remember that the box sets have been sold out most places and there certainly would have been many more sales of them if they had been in stock everywhere.

Even that huge 1.08M number is actually lower than the way the RIAA generally counts album sales (one sale for each disc.) Because they would count each sale of the stereo set as 16 sales and each sale of the mono set as 13 sales, and each sale of the Past Masters as 2 sales and each sale of The White Album as 2 sales. Using the RIAA way of calculating album sales the total is over 1.2 million.

The Catalog Album Chart

The Beatles dominated the “catalog album chart” which is for the older albums which are not eligible for the Billboard 200. They had 15 of the top 18 positions with their 13 remastered studio albums, the Past Masters compilation of non-album tracks, and The Beatles 1 compilation of #1 hits. The other three positions were held by Michael Jackson (at #6, #15, & #16.)

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