# Pop/Rock Album Sales and Record Labels

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-rock-album-sales-and-record-labels/385378>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 23, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-rock-album-sales-and-record-labels/385378 "2006-12-23T21:02:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-rock-album-sales-and-record-labels/385378/1 "2006-12-23T21:02:00Z")

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I am looking for album sales figures for the following albums:

Duran Duran - Astronaut  
INXS - Switch  
Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel  
David Bowie - Reality  
David Bowie - Heathen  
Sting - Sacred Love  
Tears for Fears - Everybody Loves a Happy Ending  
REM - Around the Sun  
Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor  
Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell III  
U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb  
George Michael - Patience

Also, at what point does a recod label say that sales are too low to keep on going?

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-rock-album-sales-and-record-labels/385378/2 "2006-12-23T21:28:17Z")

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For total sales up to a point you can try the [Gold and Platinum Database Search](http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp).

For example, Duran Duran’s _Astronaut_ returns no hits so it never sold as many as 500,000 units.

But _How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb_ went M3, which appears to mean 3 million sales.

It’s crude but a good approximator