To get lost and to be found, these two senses can be felt with the bittersweet taste of a good music. As people differ from each other, so the genre they mostly love changes either. It might also be not quietly right to criticize artists by their sales. However, there are some albums that even if some might not like them, almost all have respect for them. In this article, we are going to go through those albums.
Here are the 10 bestselling albums of all time:
10 – Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, 20 Million
As one of my all time favourites, Rumours is a masterpiece that released in 1977. Its release followed by worldwide tours and the top of almost all lists that time. In 1978, it won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and the album considered as the best album of the band. Although it was planned to be as a pop album, it eventually became more of a soft rock album.
More interestingly, songs that were written for the album actually contains the rage, the passion, the anger and the love of the band members for each other. Especially, relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckhingham affected most of the lyrics and it kind of turned into a duel between them. It is not so hard to realise that when you listened the album. There were also other personal issues of the rest two members while recording the album so it can be easily said that this is actually what makes this album successful and powerful since they are all real.
9- Hootıe & The Blowfısh, Cracked Rear Vıew, 21 Mıllıon
Cracked Rear View is the debut album of Hootie & The Blowfish that released in 1994. A year after, in 1995, it became the highest selling album of the year and is still considered as the most successful album of all time and of the band as well. The following year, in 1996, Hootie & The Blowfish won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best New Artist and the song “Let Her Cry” won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.
The album contains songs such as “Let Her Cry,” “Time”, “Drowning”, “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You” while dealing with heartbreak, death, racism and love while the genre of the album is considered as soft rock or alternative rock.
8- Garth Brooks, Double Lıve, 21 Mıllıon
Double Live released in 1998 as the first live album of Garth Brooks recorded during Brook’s 1996-1998 World Tour. Later, it became the bestselling live album of all time. Studio versions of the songs were released as well, however, the atmosphere that Brooks created during the concerts make the live album one of the bestselling albums of all time.
The album also includes three news songs as “It’s Your Song,”, “Wild as the Wind” and “Tearin’ It Up (And Burnin’ It Down)” while also including extra verses of some songs as well.
7- AC/DC, Back In Black, 22 Mıllıon
Towards the end of 1970s, AC/DC already began to gain some popularity over the world after a series of successful albums. However, their breakthrough came with Back In Black as it released in 1980. Lead singer of the band, Bon Scott had died after the beginning of the recording of the album but the band continued with Brian Johnson as lead.
Back In Black became one of the bestselling albums of history reaching number one of numerous lists as it released and Rolling Stone called the album as “an exceptional showing for a heavy-metal album”. NME journalist, Mark Beaumont, said “the biggest selling hard rock album ever made” about the album. The album is still considering as a milestone in the music history.
6- Pınk Floyd, The Wall, 23 Mıllıon
A total masterpiece again. As Roger Waters considered album as a “rock opera”, The Wall was released as the eleventh studio album of Pink Floyd as a double album, both released in United Kingdom and United States in 1979. Besides being one of the bestselling albums of all time and the band’s second bestselling album, the album also is one of the most well-known concept albums of all time.
Focusing on isolation and abandonment, the songs written for The Wall are more like stories rather than lyrics which also gives the album its uniqueness. The album have several wonderful songs, as to name them, some are called “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1,2 and 3)”, “Hey You”, “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”, “Comfortably Numb” and “Is Anybody Out There?” and so on.
5- Led Zeppelın, Led Zeppelın IV, 23 Million
Even including “Stairway to Heaven” is enough to make an album a legend. The untitled forth studio album of Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV, recorded between December 1970 and February 1971 and produced by Jimmy Page, the album became one of the bestselling albums of all time.
As its genre can be considered as “hard rock”, Led Zeppelin IV reached the first place in several charts while receiving praise by all critics. In his album guide to heavy metal, Spin magazine’s Joe Gross cited Led Zeppelin IV as a “monolithic cornerstone” of the genre.
4- Bılly Joel, Greatest Hıts – Volume I & Volume II, 23 Mıllıon
Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits – Volume I & Volume II was released in 1985 and certified double diamond by RIAA while being tied with Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV for bestselling album of all time while also for third most certified album of all time in the US.
Including wonderful songs such as “Piano Man”, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and “The Stranger”, Greatest Hits carries a retrospective effect of the Billy Joel’s carrier and shows the greatness of the song writing skill of Billy Joel has.
3- Eagles, Hotel Calıfornıa, 26 Mıllıon
Being ranked number 37 by the Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, Hotel California still carries its significance in music history. Eagles’ fifth studio album sold millions over worldwide and reached at least top three on numerous charts.
The theme for the album receives its name from the song also called “Hotel California”. Henley, the drummer and the co-lead vocalist of the band, defined the theme of the album as “loss of innocence, the cost of naiveté, the perils of fame, illusion versus reality and the fading away of the Sixties dream of ‘peace, love and understanding’”.
2- Mıchael Jackson, Thrıller, 33 Mıllıon
One of my personal favourites, Thriller changed the history of music, especially pop, for good. It was released in 1982 and until 2018; it was the bestselling album of all time. In 1984 Grammy Awards, the album broke a record receiving eight awards, including album of the year. All singles that came out of the album became hits including “Billie Jean”, “Beat It”, “Wanna Be Startin’ Something”, “The Girl Is Mine” and “Thriller”. The music video of Thriller was also included in the National Film Preservation Board’s National Film Registry of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films”.
It is no wrong to say that, with this album, Michael Jackson became “the” pop icon of all time and pop music industry began to be called as “before” and “after” Michael Jackson.
1- Eagles, Theır Greatest Hıts 1971-1975, 38 Mıllıon
Here we come. At the top of the list, there lies the legendary Eagles and its “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)”. In 2017, the Library of Congress chose the album for preservation in the National Recording Registry as it is “culturally, historically, or artistically significant”.
The album consists of songs from the Eagles’ first four albums from 1971 to 1975. It became the first album to receive the RIAA platinum award then it became the bestselling album of the 20th century in the United States.
Azize Serde Caferoğlu
Project Management School Blog Editor
