Van Halen Album sales stats

[Bad Muthafucker]

Originally posted by ClubDave
how the fuck has balance only sold 3 million copies..........that album rules!!!!!!!!!!!

Scratching head in amazement.....

[Bad Muthafucker]

3 was actually certified gold...if you can believe it.

[DLR7884]

Originally posted by bad_muthafucker
3 was actually certified gold...if you can believe it.

Well it was popular in the gay community.

DLR7884
Ask Jesterstar.

[jero]

If you also put the number of sales worldwide with it (Classic VH in Europe (15 mio) en Van Fag (4mio) New Halen (65, the have a large family here in The Netherlands) then it is so clear!

[DLR7884]

Originally posted by jero
If you also put the number of sales worldwide with it (Classic VH in Europe (15 mio) en Van Fag (4mio) New Halen (65, the have a large family here in The Netherlands) then it is so clear!

Huh?

DLR7884
There was NOTHING clear about that.

[UGS]

The only reason 5150 sold what it did and went number one was because the band was still riding the wave known as 1984, and some misguided fans didn't realize how shitty the band would become w/o Dave. That (along with the uber shittyness of When it's love, dreams, et al.) explains the drop off in sales for 0u812.

[jero]

dlr7884

I know, so why even bother start a topic like this?

:-)

[DLR7884]

Are you the Jero that used to have a Dave website?

DLR7884
I remember visiting it long ago....is it still up?

[Carmine]

Re: ACTUALLY....................

Originally posted by Thetruthbaby

Fair Warning 2 million

That number always shocks me. Only 2 million copies of Fair Warning sold? Blows me away.....

[Bob_R]

Originally posted by UGS
The only reason 5150 sold what it did and went number one was because the band was still riding the wave known as 1984

Exactly. I'm glad someone finally said it besides me.

[Thetruthbaby]

Another interesting thing

Another interesting thing about the numbers is that people all still think that Vhagar had #1 singles. The actual truth is that JUMP is the ONLY #1 hit single VH ever had. WCTBLove did not make it to #1 and neither did WILove. In fact Van Halen had basically as many top 40 singles as Vhagar. I've seen the Billboard Book Of Hits and if memory serves me correct I think they had 1 more top 40 single with hagar than they did with ROTH. People just assume because of the propoganda campaign from Warner & Vhagar at the time that the origianl lineup didn't have many top 40 hits but this isn't true at all. Next time I'm in a bookstore I'll get the info and post it here. Trust me though you will be surprised at just how successful the original lineup was at "Top 40" despite their heavier sound. And again, VAN HALEN's only #1 single was JUMP. Check for yourself if you don't believe.

[jero]

Originally posted by DLR7884
Are you the Jero that used to have a Dave website?

DLR7884
I remember visiting it long ago....is it still up?

Yep that's me. No is not up anymore. Took it offline when I became a moderator for the offical site in 2000.

Nice that you remember it!

[DLR7884]

That was a good site, one of the original DLR sites on the web.

DLR7884
You were a moderator for which official site?

[jero]

Thanx for the compliment Dude!
www.davidleeroth.com was the name, I'm pretty sure you know that one!!!

[academic punk]

Originally posted by Big Troubles
Van Halen outsells Van Hagar for the obvious reason of it being good rock n roll. Cut n Dry. Van Hagar boasts more #1 hits? Simple pimple. When Sam joined the band, thats when they actually tried to capture the #1 spots all the time. They then began making music that was radio friendly and thought about the $$$, instead of thinking about the fan base. They sold themselves to the record industry when Dave left. Dave still did the "shoo bopping" and making ahead of its time music and video despite the industry and their finger shaking at him.
Van Halen gained in popularity and lost their integrity. Remember when Van Halen used to mean something? Remember Dave in interviews saying, "VH music makes you feel like you are apart of the band and its creation- you were Van Halenized!"

Actually, the REAL reason that Van Hagar had more #1s is b/c in the late 80s Billboard switched their chart counting process to SOUNDSCAN.

SOUNSCAN was a database that was installed directly into record stores registers - as you made the sale it was tabulated. Previously, it was trecord companies as well as stores reporting to Billboard with what was selling. The older procedure was obviously much more susceptible to fraud: if a record company had an interest in making an album a hit, they could easily claim it was more popular than it was.

SOUNDSCAN works like movie theater rankings. That's why these days albums - like movies - generaly start at their highest position and then make their way down, as opposed to pre-soundscan when an album would start low and then crawl its way up.

Roth-era VH would've been CONSISTENTLY opening in the top 5 had SOUNDSCAN been in place in his day.

(still, anything from Hagar outselling Fair Warning is pretty disturbing)(then again, FW had NO singles)