Pet Shop Boys Community

One day I heard to a Spanish DJ (Joaquín Luqui) talking about PSB like the best ever selling British duo after Wham. Is it true or false?

Maybe it was true when Luqui said that. I don't know for sure.

However, Luqui is now dead so his words weren't updated facts.

They have sold more albums than Wham both in the UK and globally.

Don't forget that Wham were only musically active for a couple of years.

Mr. Luqui was spinning you a line and I don't know whether his death was a direct result of his mendacity or not.

The best ever selling British duo is Samantha Fox.

jamie1978 wrote:They have sold more albums than Wham both in the UK and globally.

Don't forget that Wham were only musically active for a couple of years.

That's not true because, because Make It Big sold 15 million copies worldwide and The Final has so far sold more than 25m, so with Fantastic having sold around the 2 million mark, Wham!'s total albums sales globally are far higher than PSB's and with several multi-million singles worldwide and The Final Xmas re-issue in the mid-90's, their accumulative sales are *massive*. The Final alone may have even sold more than the total PSB album sales in the UK but I don't have UK figures at hand.

PSB are the biggest British duo of all times in the UK based on single chart entries, not sales or weeks in the chart.

Your figures arent correct there Zeus, I'm afraid.

'The Final' sold nothing like 25 million. It didn't even make number 1 in the US or UK charts. I've tried to do a google search to come up with some definate figures, and total career sales appear to be 20 million or so.

'Fantastic' made 83 in the US charts and only went Gold.

'Music from the edge of heaven' got to number 10 and went 1x platinum.

As the PSB's are currently talking of album sales in excess of 35m, I think its fair to say they have sold more albums than Wham.

I've just checked, and The Final went 1x Platinum in the UK, which is 300,000 copies.

You can check yourself for UK certified awards at the British Phonographic Institute website www.bpi.co.uk.

The BPI site's certifications are very inaccurate, I'm afraid. A lot of record companies have not re-certified their albums for many, many years and the database itself is either outdated or crap. A simple search for 'Kylie' will only give you certifications for Especially For You and Body Language for example.

The 20m figure was the number of albums Wham! had sold by the time they broke up and was quoted in the press at the time (1986), and doesn't include The Final's UK (which believe me are far higher than 300K) or worldwide sales. Also bear in mind, that back then, Platinum was for sales of 500K, not 300K (at least I think so).

The BPI is not inaccurate, you're just not searching correctly.

For Kylie, you need to type in 'Minogue, Kylie' for all certifications to come up (or something like that, because i've done it before).

(edit)
yeah, type in 'minogue' - its all there.

The site is very good, I have to say. And as it is the job of the BPI to certify records, we can be certain of their accuracy.

Oh, OK.

not afraid to admit I loved wham.

although I have to admit I never thought duo's were worthy of getting special mentions simply because there were 2 people. so? what if there were 3? do triplets get mentions for anything?

A lot of the time the benchmark for success is the amount of hit singles they have had.

Hmm, so it all adds up now...this comment finally reveals your true identity.
Hi George, so this is what youve been doing instead of making records... posting here.

Zeus On The Loose wrote:The BPI site's certifications are very inaccurate, I'm afraid. A lot of record companies have not re-certified their albums for many, many years and the database itself is either outdated or crap. A simple search for 'Kylie' will only give you certifications for Especially For You and Body Language for example.

The 20m figure was the number of albums Wham! had sold by the time they broke up and was quoted in the press at the time (1986), and doesn't include The Final's UK (which believe me are far higher than 300K) or worldwide sales. Also bear in mind, that back then, Platinum was for sales of 500K, not 300K (at least I think so).

There was some list about this mentioned here earlier.

Janet Street-Porter wrote:Mr. Luqui was spinning you a line and I don't know whether his death was a direct result of his mendacity or not.

The best ever selling British duo is Samantha Fox.