Latest Billboard Album Charts & Sales

Yes thats right, iits all a conspiracy by Billboard. How ridiculous. Elvis fans, OMG.

dgirl you are dead wrong on this! Freedom101 I am in total agreement with you . This may be tied to the Kennedy assination! Please investigate & advise your findings asap. We will be in contact with our Dick Tracey 2 way radios.

The day 'My Ding-a-ling' kept 'Burning Love' out of the number one spot was the day I stopped paying attention.

I believe the only rule is not commenting about someone's opinion on the song of the day. When you give your opinion to the news or an article, that rule does not apply as long as you do not personally attack the person. I love the Afternoon in the Garden CD, but there is no way it has been close to the #1 selling CD in America. The fact that it is closing in on 500,000 copies and still charts is impressive. Billboard magazine does not have a conspiracy against Elvis. In fact, they were kind in their reviews of the LP "Harum Scarum" in '65 and the singles "Long Legged Girl" and "Let Yourself Go" (many reviews in other magazines for these records were not kind at all and a lot of Elvis fans do not praise them). Elvis has the most charted LP's and singles and the most top 20 singles and LP's on their charts not to mention tons of country hits on the Billboard country chart. Was he pushed off the R&B charts in '64? Yes, but that was because they renamed them the Black charts. So it is understandable. If they have an conspiracy against Elvis, they have down a lousy job executing it.

Just adding to that, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan have never had #1 singles in Billboard. Is that Billboards fault also? With their avid fan base and years of success, I doubt their fans would think like an Elvis fan(who would?) and offer a conspiracy theory by Billboard. Bruce just released a great new song, We Take Care Of Our Own. A powerful song that in my opinion should automatically shoot to #1. I doubt it will.

Elvis had 53 Gold singles and 18 number 1's. The Beatles had 22 gold singles and 20 number 1's. The Dianna Ross & the Supremes had 3 gold singles and 12 number 1's. Burning Love sold 1 million records and My Ding-a-Ling sold 500,00 records but Chuck berry's record made number 1 and Elvis' number 2. You can look it up at RIAA.com

It is true that "Burning Love" outsold "My Ding-a-Ling", but you have to understand how Billboard ranked records from 1958 until 45 rpm records quit being the main source of new music purchases. Billboard used sales in combination with airplay on top 40 radio stations (about a 50/50 split) and generated the Hot 100 chart. Before 1958, Billboard had the Top 100 (1955-58) which combined jukebox play, radio play and sales. They also published three separate charts showing the jukebox favorites, most played by DJ's and one for sales. This explains why some people count "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" as a #1 hit and others don't (It peaked at #3 on the Top 100, but #1 on the sales list, lower on the DJ and jukebox charts). So the "Burning Love" comparison to a modern day CD release is comparing apples and oranges. The Billboard LP chart has always been sales based and today Soundscan is used to track each individual sale. Does Billboard always get it right? Probably not, but they have done a darn good job. Also, don't always look at the peak of an LP and try to decide an LP's total sales, look at the weeks on the chart. For instance, "Girl Happy" and "Harum Scarum" both peaked at #8. So at first glance you would figure their sales were about even, but GH spent 31 weeks on the charts and HS only 23. This meant that GH moved about 50,000 more units (a substantial amount in 1965) than HS during the time each LP charted. Of course, since that day GH has gone gold (it stayed available in RCA's line-up) while HS was discontinued in 1971. The amout of gold records listed by Lou actually is beared out by Billboard's charts (using the point system by Joel Whitburn in his Billboard books). According to this point system, Elvis is the #1 single artist and #1 LP artist in the rock era (1955 - present). The remix single "A Little Less Conversation" has also been mentioned as an Elvis slight by Billboard. True it was the #1 selling single when it was released. Unfortunately, sales only determined about 10% of a songs popularity on the Hot 100 sales chart of the early 2000's. The reason ALLC did not chart higher on the Hot 100 is simple, it received almost no airplay on radio in the big markets.

Can anyone explain to me why airplay figures at all... I can understand jukeboxes counting back in their day as people paid to listen but airplay is merely the choice of a relatively small number of execs and djs who can no doubt be encouraged to push certain records... and if a record is the top seller without airplay that is even more impressive. And for sales to only account for 10% stuns me... so theoretically if I had enough money to bribe enough radio stations to get a number one without selling a disc. I think the UK charts may be sales based which seems much more logical... I am genuinely interested so if anyone can explain the Billboard rationale I would love to hear, thanks JSH

jimsayshello, the procedure you describe (bribing discjockeys to get airplay) is a marketing strategy dating back to the fifties. The technical term is payola.

'An Afternoon In The Garden' drops out of the Billboard Top 200 Album Charts (w/e 17th March, 2012) selling some 3135 copies. Total sales to date: 441,329 copies. The album which was No.200 sold one copy more than AAITG. The following also appeared on the Catalog Album Charts: 'Elvis: Best Of Love' selling some 2989 copies. Total sales to date: 243,709 copies. 'Elvis: 30 No.1 Hits' (Digital Sales Only) selling some 2040 copies. Total digital sales to date: 132,251 copies. 'Elvis Country' (Compilation) selling some 1935 copies. Total sales to date: 97,473 copies. 'Elvis Rock' (Compilation) selling some 1899 copies. Total sales to date: 153,629 copies. 'Elvis Gospel/ An Evening Prayer' (Compilation) selling some 1766 copies. Total sales to date: 142,531 copies. 'Elvis Inspirational' (Compilation) selling some 1500 copies. Total sales to date: 74,739 copies. 'Elvis Christmas' selling some 15 copies. Total sales to date: 599,387 copies. 'It's Christmas Time' selling some 10 copies. Total sales to date: 1,385,243.