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Severance Hall Update


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"Looks like I'll be able to catch the Slim Whitman concert that night. He's sold more records than The Beatles you know."

While that may be a slight exaggeration, I don't recall the Beatles music saving the world, a la

Slim's "Indian Love Call" in the movie "Mars Attacks!" (when the Martians heads blew up when they heard that song......)

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Hmmm. Maybe it meant "artist" as opposed to "group"? Where's Don Krider when we need him? :-)

In response to LC's inquiry, "Here I am!" (and thanks for asking, LC).

To answer the question, there is no one organization that tracks all the record sales in the world (the RIAA only tracks U. S. sales), so sales reports by artists are often estimates at best.

But, http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists has an unofficial list of best-selling artists, with The Beatles and Elvis Presley tied at #1 with 500 million units sold worldwide each, and Streisand is in the lower half of the Top 100 sellers with 80 million units sold, which is probably pretty accurate.

There's another site, ClassicBands.Com, at http://www.classicbands.com/bestsellers.html , that shows "The Top Ten Artists in U.S. Album Sales" with The Beatles at #1 and Streisand at #7 in U. S.-only sales.

Same page at http://www.classicbands.com/bestsellers.html , under "Artist Awards," shows U. S. gold (500,000 units sold), platinum (1 million units sold) and multi-platinum awards --- Streisand has more gold records than The Beatlles, but The Beatles lead her in platinum and multi-platinum awards, according to that site.

There was a Fox News report October 6, 2005, at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172235,00.html , which indicated (half-way down the page under "McCartney, Stones, Streisand: Few CD Sales") that Streisand's last album sold 150,000 copies in its first month of release...

Don smile

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Ahhhhh, Don has supplied us with the key to understanding the statement on Barbra's website. The website states only that she has more GOLD records than the Beatles. BUT, one PLATINUM ALBUM (1,000,000 sales) is equal to two GOLD ALBUMS (500,000). So if Barbra's albums sell 500,000 copies and the Beatles albums sell 1,000,000 copies, Barbra would have "more gold albums than the Beatles, though her albums would have sold HALF as many copies. If the Beatles records have gone MULTI-PLATINUM (2,3, 4, 5 million copies etc.) Barbra can still say she has more GOLD albums. So, the website "suggests" she has been more successful than the Beatles, while knowing full well that is not the case. Very, very sleazy. ec

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Eric,

I really think you shoud look into auditing Raspberries sales figures. Since the RIAA changed the requirements for certification I believe Raspberries should have at least a couple more Gold Records! I heard they they honor the new smaller sales figures when auditing older single and album sales for certification. What have you got to lose -- more wall space for Gold Record plaques?

:-)

Bernie

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Do people like "Barbra" have ANY moments of reality like when they wake up to pee at 3:00 a.m. and realize -like most of us 50-ish people who aren't TOTAL narcissists- SOME cold,hard truth about themselves? Sheesh-she's a parody-a "Bill Murray SNL" sketch.-Ira.

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Regarding albums, it would be clearer to say how many separate titled albums Babs recorded, then compare that by saying that she has recorded more separate titled albums than any artist or group, except for Elvis who did record alot of albums, too. I would guess that she has recorded more albums than The Stones, and maybe The Beatles? That about 50 albums went "Gold" is quite a feat for anyone in music. I didn't know that she had recorded that many albums. Someone got a little extra enthusiastic there, (in the record tally totals), and should have said what they were comparing, which was "Separate Titled Albums". She has recorded thirteen platinum albums, according to the RIAA.

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Well....there is no way that Blabs has more fans than the Beatles or has sold more records than they have, although there is an unconfirmed rumor that George Soros has personally purchased at least 50% of the total Blabs sales figure. Al Gore purchased another 0.0005% before he invented the internet, but suspended his purchasing program when global warming distracted him.

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yeah...whatever...I don't care how many metallic platters she has...I won't ever pay those ticket prices...I know there are those who will. To me, paying for the gas, or plane tickets and hotel and meals and tickets to the Raspberries was worth something special to me. And the boys, crew and Overdubs made us all aware of how appreciative they were that we were there.

I doubt Babs would understand any of the EC.com/Raspberries.net phenomenon anyway.

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My understanding is it's up to the label's discretion on whether they have the R.I.A.A. do an audit on U.S. record sales to determine gold or platinum awards. I believe there is a fee involved for both the audit and the awards so I doubt Capitol would be interested in auditing Raspberries sales unless someone else paid for it. Perhaps someone is more familiar with the process but that is how it was explained to me a while back.

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Art,

Hey, watch what you say about Al Gore! I love Gore (sorry, Tony C). IMHO, he's that rare politician who has integrity and ethics---and he's a smart guy too. That whole "I invented the Internet" thing got misinterpreted and blown out of proportion.... :-)

But back to the issues at hand.... Babs apparently has no problem misinterpreting things to her advantage. I would guess it was some copywriter in the Babs Publicity Camp who got a little creative without caring too much about little things like facts --- but she should be aware of such things.

Re: Kathy Lee's comment: Ditto. Now we have more time to offer "free advice" on what Eric might perform. How about the entire Eric Carmen (1976) album as one half of the concert (a la Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds tour) to celebrate its 30th anniversary --- and then a set of career-spanning hits and "album cuts"?

And next year, a follow-up Cleveland show could take the same approach, but in celebration of Boats Against the Current....

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This is good news for me. They just announced my 30 year class re-union for October 7th. I was picturing all my former classmates seeing me and saying "Nice guy, but he looks like he has Jet Lag." Now I'll be able to make a weekend of this thing like I originally planned.

Hard to knock Barbara with her wonderfully powerful voice and spectacular 40 year career. I wonder if she'll be doing "Stoney End." Love that one.

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