The History of The Best Selling Album of All Time | Is Michael Jackson STILL №1?
In 2009, Michael Jackson’s New York Times obituary, credited the singer with achieving the best-selling album of all time, with a hundred million copies sold of his 1982 record, ‘Thriller’. However, music-industry sales figures are notoriously a complex subject, not excusing the fact that they are often exaggerated for public consumption. And since ‘Thriller’ was released over 40 years ago, the numbers attached to the iconic album and Jackson in general have always been particularly outlandish. Reading Jackson’s record producer’s memoir, Quincy Jones, ‘Q on Producing,’ you’ll read that ‘Thriller’ sold a hundred million copies — and then, a few pages later, that it had also sold a hundred and twenty million.
Having the title of the best-selling album of all time was, and continues to be, an incredibly important achievement for the legacy of Michael Jackson and those around him. Symbolic of his global superstar status that his King of Pop title hinges on. As one would expect that you can’t be called the King of Pop, when sales figures show another artist is categorically more pop-ular than the current reigning king. However, this is unfortunately not a simple case of tallying up the figures and announcing a winner. Several issues make exact figures difficult to calculate due to a lack of historical data before the 1980s, unreliable statistics outside the US, and today’s figures being adapted to take into account modern streaming means that comprehensive data remains incomplete.
It may be hard to believe today, but the desire to specifically maximise album sales hasn’t always been a priority for record labels. Some of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the Supremes had great success primarily selling singles and greatest hits collections. With the Beatles releasing in the US no less than five compilation albums in 1964 alone. Standalone albums were typically attached to a popular single and upsold to the record buying public eager for more. It wasn’t uncommon for multiple albums to be released in any given year and therefore their individual sales weren’t prioritised over the talent’s music sales overall. You can see this with Michael when he was part of the Jackson 5, as they released their first four albums in just one calendar year.
During this time, Motown records refused to have its sales audited by the industry, so there are no official gold and platinum figures from this era. Which made the documentation of music sales near impossible outside of figures the record company released themselves. However, the title of ‘best-selling album of all time’ wasn’t likely to have been achieved by a recording artist or group during this period anyway, with the biggest sales coming from soundtracks of popular musicals and movie adaptions. Which would make sense given how universal regular cinema attendance was at the time, and Hollywood’s pervasive influence on fashion, celebrity, dance and music globally. In 1963, the original Broadway cast recording of ‘My Fair Lady’ was considered the best-selling album of all time, with sales of 4 million. This was in till ‘The Sound of Music’ took top position, racking up sales of 7 million units by the end of the decade. It wasn’t in till the 1970s that rock ’n’ roll took over, with Carole King‘s 1971 album ‘Tapestry’ becoming the first record to achieve sales of over 10 million units. Then Fleetwood Mac would take over the title selling 16 million copies of ‘Rumours’ shortly before the Bee Gees soundtrack for the film ‘Saturday Night Fever’ caused a cultural shift, spawning sales of 25 million albums. Which isn’t surprising really, combining a Hollywood blockbuster film with a perfectly pitched pop album that its success ignited a global disco craze. It was at this time, Michael watched as the Bee Gees sound and moves swept the nation, an inspiration to him ever since.
Having moved from Motown to Epic due to their desire to sell more albums rather than singles, in his most formative years record sales became a primary focus for the young Michael Jackson. With an already favourable royalty rate in situ with his brothers, Michael embarked on a solo music career with Epic starting in 1979 with ‘Off the Wall’. The record broke new ground, becoming the best-selling album by a black artist up in till that point, and the first album to release four top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Don’t Stop till You Get Enough’, ‘Rock with You’, ‘She’s Out of My Life’ and ‘Off the Wall’, the first two reaching the no. 1 slot. The success meant Michael Jackson amassed a considerable fortune and he set his sights on new heights, hoping to achieve the best-selling album of all time with his next release. He sort to do this by releasing an album full of smash hit singles, questioning why each track can’t just get better and better. Channelling popular genres at the time, he conquered RnB, synth-pop and even rock for the first time. Truly creating an album with universal appeal with mesmerizing music videos attached and dance moves that caused a sensation.
By the end of 1983 Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ was fast approaching the sales figure of 25 million units needed to be granted the title of best-selling album of all time. In February of 1984, CBS spent $250,000 on a lavish industry party to celebrate the incredible accomplishment. Unlike when previous sales records were broken, the milestone was made into a grand press opportunity with 100 police officers outside the New York Museum keeping back several thousand fans chanting “We want Michael”. Amidst an explosion of confetti Michael Jackson took the stage and was saluted by CBS Records president, Walter Yetnikoff, who said that Jackson “defines the spirit of the times”. A letter from President Reagan congratulating Michael was read to the glitzy crowd filled with celebrity pals, industry folk and New York society. In gratitude for Jackson’s unprecedented sales figures, his record company presented him with a giant gold album and a $12,000 illuminated globe, “I still feel like I’ve just begun” Jackson said to the crowd of 1500, “But for the first time in my entire career. I feel I’m accomplished”. ‘Thriller’ is said to have sold another 10 million copies worldwide by the end of 1984, making the album’s total sales at 35 million units, Michael Jackson amassing a large fortune of approximately $50 million as a result of album sales alone. Everyone at CBS and who had worked on the album were thrilled with its incredible success and dumbfounded how it swept the nation, everyone but Jackson himself. Who has since revealed that he only envisioned incredible success and willed it into existence.
However, 35 million units sold didn’t necessarily mean 35 million albums purchased by customers in store as you would have initially thought. When you hear the words ‘platinum’ and ‘gold’ in relation to record sales, they are based on certifications from the Record Industry Association of America, or the R.I.A.A. The group audits shipments of music formats (CDs, vinyl, cassettes) and gives those awards based on boxed shipments, not music actually sold. In the pre-digital era, it was pretty common for an album that had sold, say, eight hundred thousand to get certified platinum — and then have the extra two hundred thousand returned unsold to the label and end up in the cutout bins. In the 1970s and 1980s, the official Billboard chart was merely compiled by phone surveys of record-store employees, who were just asked ‘what was selling.’
Over the years, naturally many challenged themselves to take on the record set by Michael Jackson, the first serious attempt being released during the heights of Michael-Mania, Prince’s 1984 album, ‘Purple Rain’. A soundtrack attached to his hit film release of the same name, Prince took the formula set by other blockbuster pop musicals like ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Grease’, updating it for audiences in the 1980s. The record made Prince an overnight superstar but didn’t quite meet the heady sales of ‘Thriller’. Whitney Houston would ultimately achieve the title of best-selling soundtrack album of all time with the release of ‘The Bodyguard’ in 1992. Michael’s own sister let it be known she was also gunning for his title, Janet releasing ‘Rhythm Nation’ in 1989 as her answer to ‘Thriller’. The perfectly constructed pop album again achieved great commercial and critical success, but ultimately didn’t come close to knocking Michael off his throne. The gloved one also competed with himself to outdo his previous album sales, famously writing ‘100 million albums’ on his mirror for him to look at every day while recording his follow up release, 1987’s Bad. A huge promotional bonanza occurred marking its launch, and although an incredible success, spawning a record 4 Billboard Hot 100 no. 1 hits from a single album, and by 1991 achieving second place in the best-selling album of all time behind ‘Thriller’, Michael would never quite outdo himself. Later accepting awards for music sales, Jackson was unique to most stars of rock ’n’ roll before him by proudly flaunting his impressive numbers. Attaching his King of Pop status to sky high chart positions, sales and his widespread commercial appeal.
Album releases became less frequent as anxieties grew to measure up to his previous sales accomplishments in an ever-changing music landscape. Not only was the music changing, but so was the manner its sales were recorded. Since 1991, album sales in the U.S. have been counted by Nielsen SoundScan, which record the actual purchases of music sales in stores. SoundScan showed that traditional charts overlooked genres like country and gospel, which were ringing up massive sales. Nielsen also learned that billboard charts didn’t have an accurate picture of buying patterns, as before it was extremely rare for an album to debut at №1 on the charts. After, real figures showed it was in fact routine. To this day, anticipated releases by major stars open at №1 and typically have their highest sales that first week. However, Nielsen didn’t count sales that occurred at concerts or through artist and label websites unless they were reported, nor did they track sales from TV marketing, mail orders or record clubs until later in its existence.
It wasn’t until 2016 that the R.I.A.A. agreed to tally on-demand audio and video streaming to its data, with 1500 streams counting as one instore sale. This change giving ‘Greatest Hits’ compilations an advantage under the new criteria. In 2018 the R.I.A.A updated its tallies, which resulted in a reshuffling of the best-selling album of all time. Unseating Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and placing The Eagles ‘Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975’ in top position, in the US at least. The two records had been battling it out for the title for decades up in till this point. The Eagles album receiving its first platinum certification a week after its release in 1976, it was certified 12× platinum in August 1990, 14× platinum in 1993, and 22× platinum in 1995. The album was certified 29× platinum on January 30, 2006, and, in August 2018, it was certified 38x platinum under a new system that tallies album and track sales as well as streams, reportedly surpassing Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ by more than 4 million in sales.
However, there was scepticism of the album’s RIAA certifications as sales of just over five (rather than 17) million copies were recorded from 1991 to 2006. In 2018, Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer stated the album only sold 2.3 million units from 2006 to 2018, yet it received certifications for nine million additional units. Warner Music, who distributed The Eagles ‘Their Greatest Hits’, claimed the figure came from newly discovered sales dating back to 1976, but John Branca, a representative from Michael Jackson’s estate, noted sales audits are usually restricted to three years and said, “The notion that they can go back 10, 15, 20 or 30 years and find units that were never counted before is absurd, they reviewed these records before. Why didn’t they find those uncounted records then?”
That being said, even if the figures are true and ‘Their Greatest Hits’ is the best-selling album of all time in the United States. What actual cultural capital does that hold? Does this make the Eagles by default the most important group in all recorded music? Does that mean they automatically leave a more significant legacy than Michael Jackson or any other group for that matter?
Some would argue that a compilation album shouldn’t even be included in the list of highest selling records, as the title should be given to an original body of work that can be attached to a particular time and an era when the artist’s impact was at its peak. In today’s fragmented music listening landscape, some might be thinking who even cares what is the top selling? In the age of personal autonomy, commercial popularity is surely no longer a useful barometer of the national condition. The monolithic mass media culture of the 1980s and 90s is now truly dead and due to streaming, no musician is likely to experience the sales Michael Jackson saw with ‘Thriller’. So, is the title of ‘the best-selling album of all time’ an outdated accolade that does a disservice to talent releasing music today? Surely ‘the most streamed album of all time’ is a more coveted title to hold considering the way modern audiences consume music. At the very least, “‘Thriller’ remains the sales leader worldwide”, said John Branca. “Today, the United States accounts for only 30 percent of Jackson’s sales and streaming, when you look at it on a global basis, it’s not even a fair conversation,” he said. “No album comes close.”