homeland, achieving over 1.8 million copies sold, and receiving a 6× Platinum certification by the BPI on 5 December 1997. In the UK, it spent a total of 147 weeks inside the top 200, 99 of them on the top 75, and 35 of them on the top 10 (including 23 consecutive weeks). The steady sales of the album were the result of good promotion market and the release of six hit singles throughout a two-year period. All of these singles (except for the one for the title track) were released and promoted as EP's, in two available formats, most of them containing previously unreleased material (including live tracks, alternate versions and, in the case for the Spinning the Wheel EP, two new studio recordings of brand-new George Michael compositions). None of these singles were promoted with live performances at Top of the Pops only music videos were recorded for the four first singles and were played there. All of this helped to push the album sales from one week to another, with the album usually returning to the top 10 in the British charts. For example, when "Star People '97" was released in mid-1997, Older achieved a 21–14–10–7 progression on the charts. Very much the same happened when "You Have Been Loved/The Strangest Thing '97" was issued as the sixth single (sixteen months after the original release of the album), and Older showed a 24–14–7 move on the UK charts. In all, Older currently sits as the 97th best-selling album of all time in the United Kingdom. In the United States, however, the album somewhat stalled and was received with lukewarm success. There (and in Canada), the album release was particularly notable as it was the first album released by the now-defunct DreamWorks Records. Despite leading singles "Jesus to a Child" and "Fastlove" reaching the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, debut sales for the album were disappointing. The album debuted and peaked at on the Billboard 200 the week of 1 June 1996 with 99,000 units sold, the next week it dropped to and remained on the chart for 24 weeks, it was certified platinum by the RIAA on 21 August 1996 for shipments of one million units. As of October 2006 it has sold 881,000 copies in the US according to Nielsen SoundScan. By February 1997, the album is said to have sold 5,000,000 copies worldwide,