Sales and charts achievements for Mariah Carey

This page includes the sales and chart achievements for R&B singer, Mariah Carey.

Sales

* According to World Music Awards, Carey is the biggest-selling recording artist of the decade (1990-1999) [http://www.claypaky.it/common/press/art_musicaward.htm] . In 2000, she received the Best Selling Female Artist of the Millennium award for being the best selling female artist of the last millennium. [http://web.archive.org/web/20000621043154/http://www.montecarloresort.com/awards/00/w00res00.htm] ref|bestselling In 2003, she became the first female artist to receive the Chopard Diamond World Music Award, for sales surpassing 150 million copies and for being the best selling female artist ever. She sold a total of about eighty million records in the U.S. (63 million albums and 17.5 million singles) [http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp RIAA certifications for Singles and Albums] ] and over 200 million records worldwide in that decade.

* Since 2000, Carey's sales have continued to decline with her only selling 20 million albums from 2000 to 2007, however her last release "The Emancipation of Mimi", sold for an estimated 10 million copies. The decline is partially caused by the imploded market of cd-sales, but was mostly caused by her emotional, and very public, breakdown.

*Carey is the most successful international artist in Japan, with sales of over twelve million. "#1s" is the biggest selling foreign album in that country, and "Glitter" is the first international soundtrack ever to achieve number-one status [http://www.mariahdaily.com/fancenter/rumoriah.shtml] .She has achieved five number-one albums in Japan:

*Carey's album Music Box is 14x platinum in Australia, on par with Delta Goodrem's Innocent Eyes only behind Shania Twain's Come On Over (15x platinum) and John Farnham's Whispering Jack (18x platinum).

*Carey's album Music Box became the first international female album to pass 500,000 legal sales in China. Daydream, Butterfly, #1's and Charmbracelet also sold 500,000 copies or more in the country. Carey's recent album, The Emancipation of Mimi was named the top selling international album of 2005, its legal sales exceed 200,000 copies.

*Music Box was the biggest selling album of 1994 in Japan (int.), Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Greece (int.), Poland, Italy (int.) South Africa, Korea (int.), China (int.), Taiwan, Israel, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil (int.)

*According the RIAA, Carey's 5x Platinum "Merry Christmas" is the second biggest selling Christmas album of all time in the US, second to the 1970 version of the "Elvis Christmas Album", which has been certified 9x Platinum by the RIAA. Worldwide, however, Carey's "Merry Christmas" has sold nearly sixteen million copies worldwide, [http://www.mcarchives.com/] , making it the biggest selling Christmas album of all time.

*Carey has the most platinum singles in the U.S. by a female artist (thirteen platinum singles).

*Carey is the second female artist in history to have three studio albums sell in excess of nine million copies (one spot behind Whitney Houston in the U.S.); "Mariah Carey", "Music Box" and "Daydream" [http://www.bestofmariahcarey.com/mariah/index.php?langue=us&rub=bio] and the second female artist to have two studio albums go Diamond, again after Houston, whose albums Whitney Houston and The Bodyguard had both been certified diamond by January 1994, a year before Mariah's second diamond album Daydream [ [http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=tblDiamond "Diamond Awards] ] . Shania Twain has since gotten a third Diamond album.

*In the U.S., Carey, Madonna, Britney Spears, Céline Dion, Whitney Houston, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chicks are the only female artists with multiple Diamond (sales of over ten million copies) albums.

*With sixteen years in the music industry, Carey has the following RIAA achievements: albums — seventy-seven certifications, singles — thirty-six certifications (as of December 2006), home videos — and twelve certifications (as of August 2005). The overall total resulted in 124 certifications.

*RIAA Certifications:Album: 13 Gold, 13 Platinum, 10 Multi-platinum, 2 Diamond.Singles: 23 Gold, 9 Platinum, 2 Multi-platinum.Videos: 6 Gold, 6 Platinum.

*According to the book "The Top 10 of Everything 2007" from www.hamlyn.co.uk, Mariah is listed in the Category of 'Top 10 female artists with the most gold albums in the UK', she is currently at No.4 with 12 gold albums.

*As of December 2006, Carey's single "All I Want For Christmas Is You" became the largest selling holiday themed ringtone in history with digital sales surpassing 500,000 downloads making it certified gold by the RIAA. [ [http://www.mariahcarey.com/news/news.php?uid=198 Mariahcarey.com news.news ] ]

Charts

Billboard Hot 100 achievements

*Carey is the most successful active artist in Billboard Hot 100 Chart history.
*Carey is the only female to hold the top two positions on the Hot 100 in a single week, with We Belong Together and Shake it Off in 2005.
*Carey has 26 top 10 hits.
*On April 2nd, 2008, Carey surpassed Elvis Presley in number-one hits, with Touch My Body, her eighteenth chart-topper. This puts Carey in prime position to overtake The Beatles, who had a record-breaking 20 number-ones on the chart.
*Carey is tied with Elvis in terms of most cumulative weeks atop the Hot 100. Each artist has spent 79 in the number-one position. [http://www.billboard.com/bb/chartbeat/bonus.jsp]
*Carey is the artist with most Christmas number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Hero" (1993), "One Sweet Day" (1995) and "Don't Forget About Us" (2005). All three of these singles bowed at number-one during the chart week containing December 25.
*Carey wrote or co-wrote all 18 of her number-one hits with the sole exception of I'll Be There. This gives her the record for most number-ones by a female songwriter. By comparison, John Lennon has written or co-written 26 number-ones, and Paul McCartney has composed 32.
*With "One Sweet Day" spending sixteen weeks at number one and "We Belong Together" spending fourteen weeks, Carey joins Carlos Santana and Boyz II Men as the only artists to have two or more double-digit runs at number one on the Hot 100. Carey is one of only ten female acts to have one double-digit run at the top.
*With "Fantasy", "One Sweet Day", and "Honey" all debuting at number one on the Hot 100, Carey is the only artist with more than one single debuting in the top spot.
*Carey has the record for the best career debut on the Hot 100. The first five singles that she released went to number one; ("Vision of Love", "Love Takes Time", "Someday", "I Don't Wanna Cry", and "Emotions"). She later achieved another five consecutive number-one singles ("Fantasy", "One Sweet Day", "Always Be My Baby", "Honey", and "My All"). Both of these streaks exclude tracks released only to radio.
*With twenty-two songs (eighteen number ones, plus: "Can't Let Go", "Endless Love", "Loverboy", and "Shake It Off") that have reached at #2 on the Hot 100, she is only one song behind current record-holder, Elvis Presley, who has twenty-three top-two hits.
*Carey is the only artist to have the lead singles from all her studio albums top the charts in the 1990s.
*Carey made at least one Hot 100 appearance every year from 1990 to 2006. Madonna, whose streak actually began seven years earlier, joins her as the only artist to do this. Interestingly, both women failed to produce a Hot 100 hit in 2007, but returned to the chart the following year.

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay/BDS Airplay achievements

*At fourteen weeks at number one, "We Belong Together" is the longest running single on the Hot 100 Airplay chart by a solo artist. The song is also the second longest running overall single on that chart, tying with No Doubt's "Don't Speak" (1996) and behind Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris", which spent eighteen weeks at number-one in 1998. [http://www.mariahdaily.com/newsdesk.shtml]
*"We Belong Together" officially became the song with the most measured impressions on American radio when it reached 192.3 million listeners and over 23,000 spins in the week ending June 7, 2005. In the following weeks, the single continued to break its own record as it peaked at 195.8 million, 202.1 million, 212.2 million, and 223 million impressions. It is the first song in history to break the 200 million one-week BDS audience barrier. Radio impressions are a rough measurement, formulated by taking the Arbitron-rated listening audience, and multiplying that number by the amount of times a given song is played.
*"We Belong Together" has recorded the best-ever one day listener figure after it registered with 32.8 million listeners on American radio in a single day. (Unlike TV ratings, this figure does not represent 32.8 million separate people; BDS impressions are a rough estimate of the number of times a song was heard by anyone, without factoring for possible multiple hearings per person.)
*Carey is the artist with most weeks at number one on the Hot 100 Airplay charts with a total of 89 weeks. It must be noted that the Hot 100 Airplay chart was first published in the Dec. 8, 1990 issue of Billboard. That means that Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love" never appeared on this tally, because it was a hit before the chart existed. The chart's first No. 1 was "Love Takes Time," which would have had two more weeks at No. 1 had the chart been published earlier. The only other artist with 50 or more weeks at number one is Boyz II Men with 50 weeks. Also bear in mind that if the chart was eastablished prior to 1990, then maybe other big artists like Madonna would have a lot more weeks at number one on that tally.

Other Billboard accomplishments

*In 1999, Carey was named "The Most Successful Pop Artist of the Decade" and "The Most Successful R&B/Hip-Hop Artist of the Decade" by Billboard Magazine [http://www.rockonthenet.com/artists-c/mariahcarey_main.htm] , [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0878678.html] . "One Sweet Day" was also deemed the #1 song of the decade, based on its longest-ever run atop the Hot 100 chart. [http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/top100_1990s.htm]
* Carey has topped the most individual Billboard charts in history with twenty-six charts. She has had at least one number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot 100 Airplay, Hot 100 Singles Sales, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales, the Pop 100, the Pop 100 Airplay, Hot Dance Music/Club Play, Hot Dance Singles Sales, Dance Radio Airplay, Mainstream Top 40, Rhythmic Top 40, Adult Contemporary, Adult Top 40, Adult R&B, Hot Ringtones, Hot Videoclips, Hot 100 Singles Recurrent, Hot 100 Recurrent Airplay, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Recurrent, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Recurrent Airplay, Adult Contemporary Recurrents, Top 40 Adult Recurrents, Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles, and Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles. As the names suggest, many of these charts first appeared in Billboard in the 1990s or 2000s.
* "We Belong Together" held the record for topping the most Billboard charts simultaneously, when it occupied the top position on nine charts on the week ending August 6 2005 but was later topped by Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" when it simultaneously went to #1 on twelve different charts on the week ending December 30, 2006. It went to number one on The Billboard Hot 100, the Hot 100 Airplay, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Pop 100 Airplay, the Mainstream Top 40, Rhythmic Top 40, Hot Dance Music/Club Play, and the Hot Ringtones. The week before, it broke its own record of topping eight Billboard charts. However, it must be noted that the subdivision of Billboard charts has greatly increased over the years, and thus the multiple charts did not exist in decades past. [http://www.mariahdaily.com/corantofiles/news-archive-7-2005.shtml]
* "We Belong Together" also topped the most Billboard charts in history —it had occupied the pole position on thirteen charts altogether, but in 2006 Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" broke the record by topping 14 charts altogether.
* Carey's "We Belong Together" has charted across the most individual genres of music on the Billboard charts. It has charted on nine individual genres which include Pop (Pop 100), R&B (Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks), Rhythmic (Top 40 Rhythmic), Hot AC (Adult Top 40), AC (Adult Contemporary), Urban AC (Adult R&B), Dance (Hot Dance Music/Club Play), Latin (Latin Tropical Airplay), and Jazz (Smooth Jazz).
* "We Belong Together" is the second longest running number-one single on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks (fourteen weeks). It is behind Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You" (fifteen weeks) and tied with Deborah Cox's "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here". [http://www.mariahcarey.com/mariahcarey/news/index.las]

Billboard 200 achievements

* Carey has six number-one albums on The Billboard 200 (four debuts at number one). She is tied with Janet Jackson and behind only Madonna (seven number ones) and Barbra Streisand (eight number ones).

* Carey holds the record for most consecutive top-ten album debuts in the U.S. (ten).

* With the exceptions of "Emotions" (which reached number four) and "Glitter" (which reached number seven), all of Carey's studio albums have reached number three or better on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.

* Carey has had the most consecutive top-five album debuts in the U.S. (nine).

* Carey is one of only three female singers (the others are Madonna, Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson) to have an album reach every position in the top five on the Billboard Hot 100.

References

The singles marks here are based on the Billboard charts. U.S. record sales figures are certified by the RIAA and may be considered reliable. However, no process exists to certify worldwide record sales.