Post by blackcat on Dec 22, 2013 1:20:41 GMT 1
His famous and highly successful Christmas record, "White Christmas", is being featured a lot on all radio stations at this time of year, and so I thought that I might post for the first time on these forums an appreciation of the great crooner. Much of the information on this thread is copied from an appreciation I did of the man a few years ago on another pop forum, a forum that I still post on quite regularly, under various different usernames!!
I have even left in a reply I received on the subject from last time, with MJDangerous's figures of particular use, of course. MJD is very much an active member of the Haven forum, so I am sure that he would not mind me re-iterating his figures on this forum.
So here goes - please note that some of the youtube clips and website links mentioned may no longer be functionable now:
"No one has ever done a thread on him, which surprises me somewhat, given the number of times his name has cropped up on the historical threads on here. Hard to estimate his Worldwide sales, the US was the only major market at the time of Bing's peak success that had charts, record sales figures, etc.
Here is the Wikipaedia entry for him:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Crosby
As one can see when you scroll down to the statistics section, he had an unprecedented chart career, with 383 top 30 entries, 41 number one singles, and a career total of 1,700 recordings. Worldwide sales figures are difficult to estimate, I have seen estimates from 500 million to 900 million -probably both extreme exagerrations!
He was the top artist of both the thirties and forties in the US, and was also one of the top film stars of all-time. In fact that is where I remember him best from, his films, especially his "Road To" films with Bob Hope.
One of his singles, White Christmas, is still, of course, thought of as one of the biggest selling, if not THE biggest selling, singles Worldwide of all-time.
It should be noted that Bing achieved all this success at a time when the US was still in depression, and at a time when the Second World War broke out! Luxury items like 78 records and the big stationary record players needed to play them were not the kind of things most average people were spending their hard earned money on at the time. And yet Bing still chalked up some good sales figures.
Also there were less people about to buy records, of course - the population of the States was much lower in Bing's peak career time, the 1930's and 1940's, than it was in Elvis's or the Beatles or Michael Jackson's time.
Obviously Bing's Soundscan figures would be less impressive than other megastars, the album was not even invented when Bing made his breakthrough in the thirties and forties, and soundscan only came into existence in 1991. However, his White Christmas album has still chalked up an impressive soundscan figure of 1,755,000 up until December 2009, impressive that such an old recording has chalked up nearly two million sales over the last nineteen years, especially when one bears in mind that such an album would only tend to sell at one time of the year, the lead up to Christmas.
Of course, I know how these threads work on here, and there will already be people out there ready with their knives out to try and argue the case that Bing was not a big megastar! Well, let me try and pre-empty some of those arguments now.
It is fair to say that there was far less competition about in Bing's time. Elvis had to cope with other big selling rock and rollers like Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and then he had to cope with the British invasion and motown. And The Beatles had to cope with other British acts, motown, American groups like The Beach Boys and the Doors, soul acts, manufactured acts like The Monkees, and singer songwriters like Dylan.
And Michael Jackson had a whole multitude of big selling eighties and nineties megastars to cope with when he had his peak years.
Bing Crosby had some competition from The Glenn Miller Band, and one or two other male vocalists like Al Bowley, but it does seem like, generally speaking, the field was left clear for Bing and his crooner style. The industry certainly seemed less competitive in Bing's time than in other later eras, it would seem, at first glance.
It should also be noted that prior to Billboard's "hot 100" arrival in the fifties an effective national chart did not really exist in the States - record sales were monitored and determined by a combination of regional charts and kind of semi-national charts. Things were not organised as well chart wise before the fifties in the States as they were at the advent of rock and roll and Elvis in the mid to late 1950's.
One major problem I have with megastar arguments is the song writing one, and here, on this examination, Bing is maybe found to be wanting a little. Most of his songs were written for him, a bit like Elvis in that respect. Neither Bing nor Elvis could hold a candle to the Beatles or indeed to Michael Jackson in the songwriting field, although they were creative in other ways, of course.
I could only find a handful of songs written or co-written by Crosby, he quite clearly depended a good deal on others to write songs for him. The Beatles, in this area, quashed Crosby!
It could also be argued that home entertainment at the time was somewhat more limited during Bing's peak years. TV was in its infancy, while cinema and radio were arguably at their entertainment zenith during Crosby's era. And Bing used both radio and cinema extensively - again, that would have given him a big advantage over later artists such as Elvis. In Britain, for example, in the mid 1950's, rock and roll music was not even played on national radio! It was only ever played on Radio Luxembourg, a few hundred miles from Britain, via a weak signal which flittered in and out over the airwaves!
Bing, as far as I know, had no such problem when promoting his records.
Nevertheless, Bing was maybe the first ever megastar, and deserves a thread on here. I am very surprised that no one has ever posted a thread on here about Bing before.
He was a very innovative artist as well, it should be said - he certainly helped shaped the development of the magnetic tape medium:
adcop.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/bing-crosby-pioneer-for-recording-tape.html
The man deserves a lot of credit, this industry owes a lot to him. When one talks about megastardom on these forums, the names of Elvis, The Beatles and Michael Jackson invariably crop up - Bing should always be mentioned as well, he is just as important a figure as any of them. He was big selling, he was innovative, he was versatile, dominating music, films and radio in economically hard times - few, if any artists, can claim to have done this. It is unfair to keep saying that it was Elvis, Beatles, Michael who were the three big selling and important megastars in history, indeed I have been guilty of doing that myself - you have to consider other acts, and Bing certainly belongs in that category.
A few youtube links are in order here - here's one of my favourite Bing songs, the Van Heusen and Burke composition "Swinging On A Star":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rATftJiWdkw
That song is still well known today.
Another excellent offering is this one, which he made with the Andrews Sisters:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMnLoOnrwbg
Cole Porter's Don't Fence Me In, sung smoothly, as usual, by Bing.
In the unlikely event that this thread is still around at Christmas, then I will also post Bing's Christmas songs, such as White Christmas, Silent Night, and the duet he made with David Bowie of Little Drummer Boy.
And what about that duet with Bowie? David knew what an important figure in music culture Crosby was, he would never have worked with him otherwise.
If only more people knew................
Let's give Crosby his due, instead of just banging on about the Beatles, Elvis and Michael all the time - Crosby deserves admiration and gratitude as well.
by blackcat » Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:36 pm
by MJDangerous » Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:00 pm
As you should remember blackcat I once estimated his US single sales and came up with over 100 million copies sold as a result.
His yearly sales of US singles are as follow according to calculations taking into consideration chart runs, known figures and yearly market size:
1927 - 2,240,000
1928 - 2,710,000
1929 - 2,950,000
1930 - 1,750,000
1931 - 4,250,000
1932 - 1,940,000
1933 - 2,090,000
1934 - 2,340,000
1935 - 1,540,000
1936 - 2,000,000
1937 - 3,390,000
1938 - 4,510,000
1939 - 3,590,000
1940 - 3,250,000
1941 - 2,490,000
1942 - 5,000,000 (including 3,230,000 for 'White Christmas')
1943 - 6,370,000
1944 - 10,350,000
1945 - 7,700,000
1946 - 6,600,000
1947 - 5,980,000
1948 - 2,970,000
1949 - 8,220,000
1950 - 4,180,000
1951 - 1,970,000
1952 - 780,000
1953 - 980,000
1954 - 1,020,000
1955 - 790,000
1956 - 1,680,000
1957 - 680,000
Add about 10 million for his Christmas singles that were selling well "off the radar" during all those years (off the radar may mean a lot of sales - at the beginning only a top 10 is available, so even the 11th seller was off the radar).
After those years his sales were resumed on catalog Christmas singles selling 100k-ish or 200k-ish at the end of the year.
His worst year from 1927 to 1951 was in 1935 when he sold "only" 1,5 million singles - the entire US singles market during that year was only 14 million (even though that isn't a 100% comprehensive figure). During that year he had 3 chart toppers and cumulated 75 weeks inside the top 10, not bad for his worst year, don't you think?"
Ballards and crooners are still very much in demand now, and I just thought that it was worth re-iterating this appreciation of Bing. Hope that you all enjoyed it!
I have even left in a reply I received on the subject from last time, with MJDangerous's figures of particular use, of course. MJD is very much an active member of the Haven forum, so I am sure that he would not mind me re-iterating his figures on this forum.
So here goes - please note that some of the youtube clips and website links mentioned may no longer be functionable now:
"No one has ever done a thread on him, which surprises me somewhat, given the number of times his name has cropped up on the historical threads on here. Hard to estimate his Worldwide sales, the US was the only major market at the time of Bing's peak success that had charts, record sales figures, etc.
Here is the Wikipaedia entry for him:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Crosby
As one can see when you scroll down to the statistics section, he had an unprecedented chart career, with 383 top 30 entries, 41 number one singles, and a career total of 1,700 recordings. Worldwide sales figures are difficult to estimate, I have seen estimates from 500 million to 900 million -probably both extreme exagerrations!
He was the top artist of both the thirties and forties in the US, and was also one of the top film stars of all-time. In fact that is where I remember him best from, his films, especially his "Road To" films with Bob Hope.
One of his singles, White Christmas, is still, of course, thought of as one of the biggest selling, if not THE biggest selling, singles Worldwide of all-time.
It should be noted that Bing achieved all this success at a time when the US was still in depression, and at a time when the Second World War broke out! Luxury items like 78 records and the big stationary record players needed to play them were not the kind of things most average people were spending their hard earned money on at the time. And yet Bing still chalked up some good sales figures.
Also there were less people about to buy records, of course - the population of the States was much lower in Bing's peak career time, the 1930's and 1940's, than it was in Elvis's or the Beatles or Michael Jackson's time.
Obviously Bing's Soundscan figures would be less impressive than other megastars, the album was not even invented when Bing made his breakthrough in the thirties and forties, and soundscan only came into existence in 1991. However, his White Christmas album has still chalked up an impressive soundscan figure of 1,755,000 up until December 2009, impressive that such an old recording has chalked up nearly two million sales over the last nineteen years, especially when one bears in mind that such an album would only tend to sell at one time of the year, the lead up to Christmas.
Of course, I know how these threads work on here, and there will already be people out there ready with their knives out to try and argue the case that Bing was not a big megastar! Well, let me try and pre-empty some of those arguments now.
It is fair to say that there was far less competition about in Bing's time. Elvis had to cope with other big selling rock and rollers like Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and then he had to cope with the British invasion and motown. And The Beatles had to cope with other British acts, motown, American groups like The Beach Boys and the Doors, soul acts, manufactured acts like The Monkees, and singer songwriters like Dylan.
And Michael Jackson had a whole multitude of big selling eighties and nineties megastars to cope with when he had his peak years.
Bing Crosby had some competition from The Glenn Miller Band, and one or two other male vocalists like Al Bowley, but it does seem like, generally speaking, the field was left clear for Bing and his crooner style. The industry certainly seemed less competitive in Bing's time than in other later eras, it would seem, at first glance.
It should also be noted that prior to Billboard's "hot 100" arrival in the fifties an effective national chart did not really exist in the States - record sales were monitored and determined by a combination of regional charts and kind of semi-national charts. Things were not organised as well chart wise before the fifties in the States as they were at the advent of rock and roll and Elvis in the mid to late 1950's.
One major problem I have with megastar arguments is the song writing one, and here, on this examination, Bing is maybe found to be wanting a little. Most of his songs were written for him, a bit like Elvis in that respect. Neither Bing nor Elvis could hold a candle to the Beatles or indeed to Michael Jackson in the songwriting field, although they were creative in other ways, of course.
I could only find a handful of songs written or co-written by Crosby, he quite clearly depended a good deal on others to write songs for him. The Beatles, in this area, quashed Crosby!
It could also be argued that home entertainment at the time was somewhat more limited during Bing's peak years. TV was in its infancy, while cinema and radio were arguably at their entertainment zenith during Crosby's era. And Bing used both radio and cinema extensively - again, that would have given him a big advantage over later artists such as Elvis. In Britain, for example, in the mid 1950's, rock and roll music was not even played on national radio! It was only ever played on Radio Luxembourg, a few hundred miles from Britain, via a weak signal which flittered in and out over the airwaves!
Bing, as far as I know, had no such problem when promoting his records.
Nevertheless, Bing was maybe the first ever megastar, and deserves a thread on here. I am very surprised that no one has ever posted a thread on here about Bing before.
He was a very innovative artist as well, it should be said - he certainly helped shaped the development of the magnetic tape medium:
adcop.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/bing-crosby-pioneer-for-recording-tape.html
The man deserves a lot of credit, this industry owes a lot to him. When one talks about megastardom on these forums, the names of Elvis, The Beatles and Michael Jackson invariably crop up - Bing should always be mentioned as well, he is just as important a figure as any of them. He was big selling, he was innovative, he was versatile, dominating music, films and radio in economically hard times - few, if any artists, can claim to have done this. It is unfair to keep saying that it was Elvis, Beatles, Michael who were the three big selling and important megastars in history, indeed I have been guilty of doing that myself - you have to consider other acts, and Bing certainly belongs in that category.
A few youtube links are in order here - here's one of my favourite Bing songs, the Van Heusen and Burke composition "Swinging On A Star":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rATftJiWdkw
That song is still well known today.
Another excellent offering is this one, which he made with the Andrews Sisters:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMnLoOnrwbg
Cole Porter's Don't Fence Me In, sung smoothly, as usual, by Bing.
In the unlikely event that this thread is still around at Christmas, then I will also post Bing's Christmas songs, such as White Christmas, Silent Night, and the duet he made with David Bowie of Little Drummer Boy.
And what about that duet with Bowie? David knew what an important figure in music culture Crosby was, he would never have worked with him otherwise.
If only more people knew................
Let's give Crosby his due, instead of just banging on about the Beatles, Elvis and Michael all the time - Crosby deserves admiration and gratitude as well.
by blackcat » Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:36 pm
by MJDangerous » Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:00 pm
As you should remember blackcat I once estimated his US single sales and came up with over 100 million copies sold as a result.
His yearly sales of US singles are as follow according to calculations taking into consideration chart runs, known figures and yearly market size:
1927 - 2,240,000
1928 - 2,710,000
1929 - 2,950,000
1930 - 1,750,000
1931 - 4,250,000
1932 - 1,940,000
1933 - 2,090,000
1934 - 2,340,000
1935 - 1,540,000
1936 - 2,000,000
1937 - 3,390,000
1938 - 4,510,000
1939 - 3,590,000
1940 - 3,250,000
1941 - 2,490,000
1942 - 5,000,000 (including 3,230,000 for 'White Christmas')
1943 - 6,370,000
1944 - 10,350,000
1945 - 7,700,000
1946 - 6,600,000
1947 - 5,980,000
1948 - 2,970,000
1949 - 8,220,000
1950 - 4,180,000
1951 - 1,970,000
1952 - 780,000
1953 - 980,000
1954 - 1,020,000
1955 - 790,000
1956 - 1,680,000
1957 - 680,000
Add about 10 million for his Christmas singles that were selling well "off the radar" during all those years (off the radar may mean a lot of sales - at the beginning only a top 10 is available, so even the 11th seller was off the radar).
After those years his sales were resumed on catalog Christmas singles selling 100k-ish or 200k-ish at the end of the year.
His worst year from 1927 to 1951 was in 1935 when he sold "only" 1,5 million singles - the entire US singles market during that year was only 14 million (even though that isn't a 100% comprehensive figure). During that year he had 3 chart toppers and cumulated 75 weeks inside the top 10, not bad for his worst year, don't you think?"
Ballards and crooners are still very much in demand now, and I just thought that it was worth re-iterating this appreciation of Bing. Hope that you all enjoyed it!
