Michael Cohl made that statement in 1997 during the POPMART tour when the bands performance was being unfairly criticized. Michael Cohl pointed out that the only band that could do better business worldwide than U2 was the Rolling Stones.
Unless I see confirmed attendance figures for every Guns N' Roses date for their last tour that shows them having an attendence level of 7 million, then I will consider that figure to be an overestimate. I looked up and found the exact figures from amusement business for many of the North American dates and discovered that several shows in Toronto were actually arena size shows instead of Stadium size shows and several other shows had attempted to play to a full house but fell 1,000 or 2,000 seats short of the level required for a complete sellout! But the shows were close enough to a full sellout that obviously no backdrop was used at that particular show.
In addition, I have never consider any touring act that stays on the road for an unusually long time to alone be evidence of superior demand to another band. If Band A is more popular, but only tours for 100 shows because of other reasons having nothing to do with the business, then it would be rather easy for Band B with only 80% of the popularity as Band A to a do a tour over 200 dates and end up with a total attendance that is in excess of the more popular band.
The Amusement Business information I found for the Guns N' Roses tour supported what I had suspected origionally before seeing all the information.
But the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium tour in 1992 turned out to be a more heavily attended tour than you or I estimated. But once again, it was a tour with two popular headlining acts with a platinum level opening act all for the price of one band. Despite its success, the tour did not show that either band could do a stadium tour by itself and the attendence level from the tour should not be used to inflate either Gun N' Roses or Metallica's respective totals for their solo tours.
On to Pink Floyd. I don't consider Pink Floyd to be a band anymore. I understand you think they are. But to me, they are no more an active band than THE POLICE or the old GUNS N' ROSES. All three groups technically could tour again despite what ever has happened in the past.
In any event, I have never seen an Amusement Business figure showing that Pink Floyd Grossed 185 million dollars on the Division Bell tour. Nor have I seen official attendence figures from Amusement Business for the European portion of that tour. In addition, the band never played outside of Europe and North America on this tour and has never played in South America or South Africa, so it is difficult to accurately state with all this missing information that the band is the top drawing act in the world. Michael Cohl essentially says they are not and I agree. Their US tour in 1994 had perhaps the most impressive attendance figures for any North American tour in history, but it would be wrong to take those figures and extrapolate them all over the world.
In addition, the reason I feel that the band had stronger attendence figures on the 1994 Division Bell North American tour was because of the lower ticket price for upper level seats in the stadiums. This price was often as little as $22.50 which is less than the average ticket price for the tour in 1987 once adjusted for inflation. The 1987 price of 20 dollars adjusted for inflation is $26.34 in 1994. The band charged $60 and $75 dollar tickets for seats they new would be easy to sell to die hard fans. This was a smart pricing system and in my view is the reason for the unusually strong attendance for the 1994 North American tour.
Based on album sales of the new album, the band was not any more popular in 1994 than they were in 1987 as the Division Bell album did not sell as fast or as much as Momentary. What is fact, is that hard to sell seats at the back of the stadium were cheaper in 1994, than they were in 1987, once the figures are adjusted for inflation.
What Pink Floyd's catalog sales in 2003 or 2005 is irrelevant to my criteria for determining the most popular band at the current time. The criteria that most in the industry use is the album sales of the latest album and the concert sales of the latest tour. How many albums Pink Floyd sold in 1973, 1980 or 1988, is irrelevant to how popular the band truely is in 2005. I understand you don't agree with that criteria, but that is what I and most other people use in determining popularity. Your only as hot as your latest product.
As far as sales go for the catalogs, I realize Dark Side of the Moon is a big seller, but unless you have RIAA, IFPI, or Soundscan system type figures to substantiate your claims that Dark Side Of the Moon sells more worldwide every year than U2's entire catalog, then I would say that is an overestimate. I don't use record company information when I'm looking for confirmed figures, but figures from firms like RIAA, IFPI that do an official audit or something like Soundscan which tracks actual sales every week. Once again, I'm thinking in terms of global sales, not just the USA.
If you go to
www.bpi.co.uk you will come to the British version of RIAA which certifies sales for the UK. There you will notice that as of 1993, Joshua Tree had roughly the same sales level in the United Kingdom as Dark Side Of The Moon. By June 1992, Joshua Tree had sold 1,800,000 copies in the UK for a 6 times platinum sales level and by May 1993, Dark Side Of the Moon had reached the 7 times platinum mark for 2,100,000 copies in sales in the UK. Of course, certifications for multi-Platinum albums in the UK had just really kicked in for older titles around that time, but it appears that full certifications for Dark Side were complete by May 1993, as there has been no certifications sense then. The Dark Side album may be re-certified in the future for increased sales levels in the UK, but at this time it has not been, nor has the Joshua Tree.
So from a catalog standpoint in the United Kingdom, the bands appear to be roughly equal. I'd also add that despite the fact that Pink Floyd has more albums, U2's total weeks on the UK album chart are more than Pink Floyds overall total according to the Guinness Book of the UK album charts which compiles that information.
I've found that the sales pattern in the UK to be more representive of the pattern of sales in other foreign countries outside the United States.
As far as Pink Floyd's tour attendance increasing over the years, the only way you could make that claim is through the difference in North American tour numbers from just two tours of North America. It can be very inaccurate to take such a small piece of information an extrapolate over the whole world for the next ten years. I don't have any confirmed amusement business figures for Pink Floyds tour dates in Europe on either tour, so any estimate about increases in attendance there over the last tour are unconfirmed for the individual dates. We do know that Pink Floyd played less shows outside the United States on the Division Bell tour and only Arena shows in England and a show in Ireland that was cancelled do to low ticket sales.(the information about the Irish show came from a Pink Floyd tour history book). In addition, the increase in attendence at the shows on Division Bell tour I feel are from the smart pricing of the tickets, with hard to sell tickets in the back half of the stadium priced below market value and the easy to sell tickets dramatically increased in price.
In North America on the 1987 tour, its easy to get a nearly exact comparison of U2 and Pink Floyd in the individual markets. Both bands would play many of these markets within days of each other. In particular, more people went to see U2 on September 25, 1987 at JFK stadium(Philadelphia) than went to see Pink Floyd on September 19, 1987 at JFK stadium(Philadelphia). A little over 86,000 people went to see U2 on September 25, while only a little under 81,000 people went to see Pink Floyd 6 days earlier. This is the perfect type of comparison between any two groups in determining which one has the stronger drawing power in that particular market. U2 actually played the Spectrum Arena 13 days earlier, but I'll leave that out of the equation.
Now its true that Pink Floyd would return to many of these markets including Philadelphia 8 months later, but to add those figures to ones 8 months earlier and then compare them to the single U2 dates is not accurate. If U2 had decided to hit these markets again in April and May of 1988, based on the results of September and October of 1987, everything indicates that their figures would match or exceed those for Pink Floyd. But the band started recording a new album in January 1988 as well as getting a movie ready for release in October 1988. This is why the only accurate way to compare artist, is to compare individual sales levels in comparable markets instead of simply going with a tour ending lump sum total which is often more reflective of a particular artist choice to tour more or anothers choice to return to the studio, family, other activites etc.
There are lots of facts and figures to look at but in determining who is the most popular band or artist currently will depend on the criteria one uses. There is no official criteria used, but the one that is more popular in the media and industry is using the latest original album of new material's sales level + the level of demand to see the artist on the road from the latest tour.
Based on that criteria, U2 has been the most popular band and artist since 1987. I realize you probably disagree with that criteria or even that assertion, but based on what I have seen and looked at, including your information and others, that is what I think, even during lean times for the band on POPMART and POP.
I consider Pink Floyd to have stopped in December of 1994, but would agree that U2's lower sales levels on POP would put them behind Pink Floyd in the late 1990s if one consider Pink Floyd to still be an active band.
But since ATYCLB was released in 2000 the sales for U2's latest album figure doubled and demand to see the band on tour increased, despite the scaling down of the tour to Arena's to insure industry sellouts at every show. So from that point on, even if one consider Pink Floyd to still be active, U2 would be ahead of them by virtue of the fact that the latest album had sold around twice as many copies as Pink Floyds latest and the demand to see the band in concert, while not as high as perhaps Floyds level in 1994, was still more than half that level if that band had chosen to play a stadium tour.
Now U2 has released the fastest selling album of their entire career with "HTDAAB". As ROLLING STONE magazine currently says, "if anyone had any doubt that U2 are the biggest band in the world, there is none now". I realize what "general media" says is to be taken with a grain of salt, but I have not seen any publication in over a decade, if ever, make the claim that Pink Floyd at the CURRENT time was the most popular band in the world. If you know of one recently I'd like to read it.
So based on what I have seen and read, the above is what I think on the following questions or issues. I realize your criteria for assessing things is different as well as your conclusions. But having looked at all that, this is what I conclude. There are many other people in the forum that have different conclusions and different criteria as well. Many will and have agreed with me on somethings others have not. But the conclusions I have are honest ones supported by accurate information.