Ian wrote:

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I have just stumbled across this. 

Awards are as follows:

	Album	Single	Video
Silver	60,000	200,000	N/A
Gold	100,000	400,000	25,000
Platinum	300,000	600,000	50,000

 

So this is where Pulp fit in:

His 'n' Hers	Gold	100,000
Different Class	4 x Platinum	1,200,000
This is Hardcore	Gold	100,000
We Love Life	Silver	60,000
Hits	Platinum	300,000
Babies	Silver	200,000
Do You Remember the First Time?	Silver	200,000
Common People	2 x Platinum	1,200,000
Mis-Shapes / Sorted	Silver	200,000
Disco 2000	Platinum	600,000
Sorted for Films and Vids	Gold	25,000
	Total	4,185,000

So not even 5 million. Wikipedia claims (based on a dead link) that they had sold over 10 million records by 2002.

I suppose it is remotely possible but unlikely that the non-certified material and non-UK releases would total the near-6 million required to reach the 10 million claim. 

I presume that these are based on retail sales because Wikipedia also claims that "Mis-Shapes"/"Sorted For E's and Wizz" had 400,000 pre-release orders. That said, some copies may have been removed from sale due to the sleeve.

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 That's only UK. Also you could get a silver/gold/platinum based on pre-orders from record stores.  And never actually sell a copy. I would say pulp easily sold 10 million worldwide, but  it would be impossible to verify.

PS Hits being platinum is pretty hard to believe!

Eamonn wrote:

The above are not retail sales, they're trade sales. We Love Life never reached 60k sales nor did Hardcore sell 100k in the UK. We Love Life did 25k in the first week and sadly, bugger-all afterwards. The certs used to be issued based on trade and were expected to translate into people actually buying them.

Yes.  There are numerous LPs that went silver/gold/platinum on release date, but were all in the bargains bins a month later and then sent to be err, pulped.  Actual sales are very hard to quantify, but I would say worldwide, Pulp probably did around 10 million.  Pulps chart success coincided with the CD age so they probably sold more physical copies than an earlier or later act would have. Robson & Jerome sold nearly 2 million copies of their dirge.  So Common People probably wasnt far behind.  Just incredibly unlucky not to have been #1.

 

The point about the certs/awards for units sold is that they were either designated with this status upon release (Hardcore and WLL) due to expectation of wholesale numbers quickly translating into retail - which clearly never happened with those two albums as they've never been certified higher - OR the sales status is updated once each sales milestone is reached, months/years after the album is released.

So you can see in the case of His n Hers, Hits and Different Class, they've passed by the lower milestones and their updated rank (ie quadruple platinum for DC, platinum for Hits) is accurate as its based on people still buying those records years after the release. 

I think there's every chance More has already sold more than WLL but it might be that they don't hand out these designations to albums upon release anymore - you have to actually pass the milestones with physical sales first.