Iron Maiden Billboard Numbers

SirRobbins

SirRobbins

Ancient Mariner
So many ask about maiden's sales, chart performances, ect. I have spent months searching, verifying and chatting via email with members of Billboard and have both discovered/been sent "their" numbers for the USA chart performances as well as world wide album sales as of 2005. So..... here we go.

USA Billboard charts for the albums that were available
The first 4 albums seem to have no USA Billboard charting documented. The last 2 albums have no official sales records that have been verified. 2005 was the last verification of sales for their studio albums (+ LAD). Their sales numbers are probably bigger now since their resurgence in popularity over the last decade but as of 2005, this is what was actually official.

Somewhere in Time was their most successful album in the states based on chart performance until 2006.
Number of the Beast is their most successful album based on sales world wide.
Live After Death is their best selling live album ever.

Album ----------------------------Peak Chart ---#of weeks on chart ------World Wide sales
Iron Maiden ---- --------------------NA --------------NA--------------------- 2.8 Million
Killers ---------------------------------NA --------------NA ---------------------4.0 Million
Number of the Beast ----------------NA -------------- NA ---------------------14.2 Million
Piece of Mind -------------------------NA --------------NA ---------------------5.0 Million
Powerslave ----------------------------21 ---------------34 ---------------------4.5 Million
Live After Death ---------------------- 19 --------------- 22 --------------------- 5.5 Million
Somewhere in Time ------------------11 --------------- 39 ----------------------4.5 Million
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son -------12 ----------------23 ---------------------- 4.5 Million
No Prayer For the Dying -------------17 ----------------18 ---------------------- 3.0 Million
Fear of the Dark ----------------------12 -----------------13 ---------------------- 3.5 Million
X Factor -------------------------------NA ----------------NA --------------------- 1.2 Million
Virtual XI -----------------------------NA ----------------NA --------------------- 700,000
Brave New World -------------------- 39 ----------------10 ---------------------- 2.0 Million
Dance of Death -----------------------18 -----------------4 ----------------------- 1.5 Million
A Matter of Life and Death ---------- 9 -----------------6 ------------------------ NA
The Final Frontier --------------------4 -----------------8 ------------------------ NA
 
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Too many live albums, LAD is the definitive live release. The Real Live/Dead One/Donnington media saturation in 1993 was too much too take in, especially.
 
Perun said:
What happened in the 21 years after 1993?
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I can certainly get the figures for all of their live albums but honestly, there are just as many live ones as studio as it seems and this was a chart performance focused thread. I threw the sales in for kicks. A Real Live one had over 1 million sales as did Rock in Rio. I just tried to steer clear of every damn live album they have done lol
 
Not a troll post, an opinion, and a constructive one. You guys are such fan boys, and easy to piss off. Just because i dare critique the mighty Maiden in a post, doesn't mean im not a fan. Grow some balls.
 
Except that this list has nothing to do with lots of live albums. If this was a thread, say, about live album histories, yes. But LAD was included as a footnote, pretty damn much.
 
Ziggyplayedguitar said:
Not a troll post, an opinion, and a constructive one. You guys are such fan boys, and easy to piss off. Just because i dare critique the mighty Maiden in a post, doesn't mean im not a fan. Grow some balls.
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I was remarking on the fact that you hold something that happened in 1993 to still be relevant and up-to-date. And seeing how your posts always seem to revolve around anything that happened after 1993 to be irrelevant, I find them pretty lame and uninteresting.
 
It is expected that older albums have sold more, because they have had more time. But still interesting to see figures, I would not have expected SiT to be the longest charting album in the US. Big drop off during the 90's there, although I think FOTD was a #1 album in the UK - clearly just an American thing ;)

Re: Live Albums, I do think that for both live and compilations they are overdoing it. Since 2000 there have been 4 studio albums and 4 live iirc? There is nothing to say that you MUST buy them, but a large amount of fans will do simply to stay 'complete'.
 
Maiden has such great live quality that I can't see them releasing as many live ones as studio ones as a bad thing. Except if releasing lives/DVDs postpones releasing studio albums.
 
It should be noted that their last 2 albums probably did so well on the charts (for the brief time they were there) because most artists don't focus on albums now like Maiden still does and everyone downloads singles.... Maiden fans still buy albums because, well, the whole album is always worth buying and I support my favorite band in every way. Powerslave and Somewhere in Time are not to surprising that they were topping for so long considering Powerslave was the first big Maiden album for the states and Somewhere in Time followed up. Americans love that commercial sound and SIT had that with the synths.
 
I'm very surprised by the sale figures (and I'm not expressing any doubt on your work, SirRobbins). I've always been interested in that kind of statistical data, and the result is puzzling. I've always thought that Powerslave was their major success, and I would never have thought that The Number of the Beast was such a big seller. And the Blaze era was definetely a failure from a commercial point a view. It would be great to know the figures per year : Number must have been bought on a regular basis long after its release, plus it's an album most of us have bought in vinyl when it was released, then on CD (it was my first ever, even before I had the gear to listen to a CD), then in CD again when it was remastered. Post 1988 albums didn't benefit this multi-releases factor.
Anyway, thanks for that.
 
Number of the Beast has long been Maiden's signature album, especially in the US. I think that if you ask any casual hard rock fan in America to name an Iron Maiden album, it will almost certainly be that one. It's probably got to do with the massive controversy and moral panic that surrounded it in the eighties.
 
Number of the Beast was the most commercial album they've ever done. It was televised a lot due to devil worshipping crap, being Bruce's first album, ect. I too was surprised that Powerslave wasn't huge due to the World Slavery Tour and was really the album that put them on the international map...... Rock in Rio 1985 was in front of over 300,000 people and so on. These figures were from the USA Billboard as a reminder. They are supposedly accurate and may be USA sales only.... I will go back and ask if those were USA or WW sales.... I was lead that it was WW
 
Did you notice how far these figures are from the global figures often used by the press and the band itself ("Iron Maiden have sold 70 million album worldwide blabla") ?
 
harrisdevot said:
Did you notice how far these figures are from the global figures often used by the press and the band itself ("Iron Maiden have sold 70 million album worldwide blabla) ?
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Maiden's own website claims over 80 million sales worldwide.... I'm seeing around 60 million with live albums included. Around 50 with studio.....
 
harrisdevot said:
Did you notice how far these figures are from the global figures often used by the press and the band itself ("Iron Maiden have sold 70 million album worldwide blabla") ?
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They're not far. The total of this list is around 55 million, some live albums are not included in this list also there are no worldwide sale numbers for the last two albums.
 
Thanks for the precision. I didn't notice it was that high. Maybe they are taking into account all the formats.
 
The Flash said:
They're not far. The total of this list is around 55 million, some live albums are not included in this list also there are no worldwide sale numbers for the last two albums.
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A Matter of Life and Death was at 650,000 sales in 2007
Final Frontier was at 460,000 in 2011 (not including USA sales) I imagine the total is much bigger considering they played to 2 million people on the supporting tour
 
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