Sting: I agree and disagree with you.
I'm not sure if The Sun is *that* incorrect. We've had this discussion before, where you have stated that you estimated sales of JT to be close to 30 million worldwide (please forgive me if I am wrong). However, I feel your estimate is very high.
I've read numerous reports as well that put JT's sales at 14 million for the first year. Remember, it took almost two years for it to be certified as 5x Platinum in the U.S., so even though it was a top-selling album in the U.S. in '87, it most likely "only" sold between 3 and 4 million copies - much as what ATYCLB will do. As you have stated many times, the sales back then compared to now have changed. Last year, for example, N'Sync's "No Strings Attached" sold over 10 million copies to actual customers. Clearly this didn't happen as often in the 80's.
With 14 million copies sold in one year, that leaves an additional 5 million copies for the 14 years since (1988 through and including 2001). Here is where I agree with you.
I admit, that number does seem low, especially since JT went from 4 million certified copies sold in the U.S. in '87 to being certified as 10 million copies sold in the U.S. in '95. That alone is an additional 6 million copies shipped to the U.S. since 1988. Therefore, one would have to put the total number of copies shipped well above 20 million (14 million in '87 + 6 million more certified just in the U.S. in '95 + extra worldwide sales).
Therefore, either The Sun is just flat-out incorrect in their JT sales figures
OR they are reporting only the number of copies sold to actual customers (that is, perhaps 20+ million copies were shipped, but only 19 million were sold to customers).
