By StingBeeLee (155.139.68.10) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 03:58 pm:

During the death of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, practically every media article (including the Detroit media) stated that TLC was the biggest selling female group in Rock and Roll history, with 27 million albums sold. Am I out of my mind, or aren't the Supremes the biggest selling female group of all time? Weren't the Supremes the biggest selling group in the sixties after the Beatles? I mean, even a casual count of Martha and the Vandellas and the Marvelettes hits would indicate a count of more than 27 million records. Didn't the statement seem just a little silly that TLC sold more records than the Supremes, or am I just doing a lot of wishful thinking here that the media would accept the publicist's story and not check into a story like that?

By Livonia Ken (136.2.1.153) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 04:59 pm:

There's the albums vs. singles thing.

...then there's the fact that during the Golden Years, Berry Gordy was reluctant to open up the books as would have been required for RIAA sales certification of Gold records, etc..

...then there's the massive distribution network in place today to move albums quickly in enormous quantities.

...then there's statistics: The art of torturing data until it confesses to whatever you want it to say.

Regards,
Ken

By Bob Olhsson (68.32.101.228) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 06:47 pm:

I always understood the reason Motown wouldn't open the books to the RIAA was because they wanted to be able to overstate sales when that became necessary in order to get records into the stores.

By StingBeeLee (155.139.50.14) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 01:05 pm:

Regarding statistics and lies: When they put out the info regarding TLC, and stated they were the biggest sellers, wouldn't that lead someone to at least do a comparison with someone like Destiny's Child and En Vouge? Wouldn't you ponder about the other girl groups that have been around? I mean, it seems like a logical first step and not a great leap to wonder if they outsold the other girl groups like the Crystals or the Shirelles or the Supremes. I have read many and varied opinions regarding why Berry wouln't open his books in the '60's to RIAA; (1)He wanted to understate sales so as to not pay artists, (2) He was a gangster and didn't want an outsider to look at records, (3) He didn't trust the RIAA, (4) He wanted to overinflate sales (as what Bob stated above) to move records, (5) He didn't think RIAA could do a legitimate count, (6) He wanted to keep the info to himself and etc.