Metapost: some sales figures

This might have been a Bank Holiday special if I'd posted in time, but instead let's treat it as a prelude to the new album I'll start next month.

Recently, posters on the online chart forum Haven have been trying to estimate sales of each album in the series. I wasn't able to contribute much expertise but with permission I'm able to reproduce some of the figures. Special thanks to Andy, Shireblogger, Gezza76 and Robbie.

Now 1 – 1,000,000    [1983/2008]
Now 2 – 680,000       [1984]
Now 3 – 975,000       [1984]
Now 4 – 1,050,000    [1984]
Now 5 – 750,000       [1985]
Now 6 – 1,020,000    [1985]
Now 7 – 670,000       [1986]
Now 8 – 1,130,000    [1986] 
Now 9 – 660,000       [1987]
Now 10 – 1,400,000 [1987] 
Now 11 – 720,000    [1988]
Now 12 – 760,000    [1988]
Now 13 – 910,000    [1988]
Now 14 – 650,000    [1989]
Now 15 – 450,000    [1989]
Now 16 – 700,000    [1989]
Now 17 – 300,000    [1990]    
Now 18 – 800,000    [1990]
Now 19 – 250,000    [1991]
Now 20 – 790,000    [1991]
Now 21 – 425,000    [1992]
Now 22 – 400,000    [1992]
Now 23 - 1,060,000  [1992]
Now 24 – 480,000    [1993]
Now 25 – 350,000    [1993]
Now 26 - 1,020,000  [1993]
Now 27 – 490,000    [1994]
Now 28 – 680,000    [1994]
Now 29 - 1,320,000  [1994]
Now 30 – 1,000,000 [1995]
Now 31 – 550,000    [1995]
Now 32 - 1,190,000  [1995]       
Now 33 – 630,000    [1996]
Now 34 – 880,000    [1996]
Now 35 - 1,300,000  [1996]
Now 36 – 580,000    [1997]
Now 37 – 590,000    [1997]
Now 38 - 1,090,000  [1997]
Now 39 – 670,000    [1998]
Now 40 – 564,000    [1998]
Now 41 - 1,160,000  [1998]
Now 42 – 725,000    [1999]
Now 43 – 661,000    [1999]
Now 44 - 1,647,000  [1999]
Now 45 – 674,000    [2000]

Now 50 – 1,350,000 [2001]

Now 69 – 833,000    [2008]         

All dates are, of course, for the release of the respective album, some will have continued to notch up sales into the next year. The one consistent pattern you'll notice is that the last album of each year sells most thanks to the Christmas gift market, but beyond that some of the orders are quite surprising.