The 20 Best Selling Albums of All Time

[NoWayOut]

I can't believe Shania Twain has the 8th best selling album of all time!

Image trumps talent in the music biz. Been like that for a couple of decades. That said, damn has she got the image part locked down!

[blayze]

Don't get me wrong... I loved Shania... her pictures kept me company on many lonely nights, and her music wasn't too shabby either!

Even more mindblowing is Hootie and the Blowfish at 16th!!! Those guys were one hit wonders haha

[Axeman33]

Don't get me wrong... I loved Shania... her pictures kept me company on many lonely nights, and her music wasn't too shabby either!

Even more mindblowing is Hootie and the Blowfish at 16th!!! Those guys were one hit wonders haha

I think Darius Rucker has had a better country career than Hootie ever had. One big hit means a ton of record sales I guess.

[The Bottlenecker]

Wow, I owned quite a few of them. I didn't own Eagles: Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac: Rumours, Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffitti, Boston: Boston, Whitney Houston: Bodyguard, nor neither Beatles album (I got into them later).

Owned all the rest and still listen to Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses and Metallica.

[Atomic Wedgy]

I took a double take when i saw Boston on the list. Really, really surprised by that. I owned a lot of those records at one time around the time they came out. I have got two music libraries. One on my computer - 50gb! haha I dont listen to it all, but it is comforting to know that it is there if I need it. On my phone I have about 15 gb (2800 songs). My phone is the short list of the music library. Out of that list, I have on my computer Back in Black, Eagles greatest hits, Hotel California, Pink Floyd the Wall, Beatles White Album and GnR. the only ones that are on my phone is Pink Floyd The Wall. I actually listened to the entire thing a couple weeks ago. That album is genius.

[Instant Karma]

Don't get me wrong... I loved Shania... her pictures kept me company on many lonely nights, and her music wasn't too shabby either!

Even more mindblowing is Hootie and the Blowfish at 16th!!! Those guys were one hit wonders haha

Both of those and Alanis Morrisette were all surprises to me. I didn't think that Alanis' 15-minutes lasted long enough for her to have epic album sales.

[Instant Karma]

I took a double take when i saw Boston on the list. Really, really surprised by that. I owned a lot of those records at one time around the time they came out. I have got two music libraries. One on my computer - 50gb! haha I dont listen to it all, but it is comforting to know that it is there if I need it. On my phone I have about 15 gb (2800 songs). My phone is the short list of the music library. Out of that list, I have on my computer Back in Black, Eagles greatest hits, Hotel California, Pink Floyd the Wall, Beatles White Album and GnR. the only ones that are on my phone is Pink Floyd The Wall. I actually listened to the entire thing a couple weeks ago. That album is genius.

Perhaps I'm dating myself here, but it seemed like everyone had that Boston album when it came out.

[Atomic Wedgy]

Perhaps I'm dating myself here, but it seemed like everyone had that Boston album when it came out.

I'm not sure why, but I never thought of that album as high selling. Certainly not 14th highest selling record of all time. That is pretty huge. Maybe its just me. I actually learned a bunch of that album on guitar. I was a big fan in the 80s when I discovered it.

[Godin]

Perhaps I'm dating myself here, but it seemed like everyone had that Boston album when it came out.

Yeah, it was huge and I seen them when they came to the Gardens back in the 70's.

I've owned 8 of them. Elton's greatest hits and the Beatles were probably my most played then but now its more Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Geez, I guess I haven't mellowed yet.

[The Comish]

14. Never got into Led Zeppelin or country music. Thankfully, I never owned the Hootie and the Blowfish album either! lol, but I did play the hell out of Boston.

[pmorrow]

I'm too young for a lot of this music (because by the time I got into a lot of it mp3 downloading was a thing), but I have to proudly say the first album I ever bought was #6 - Metallica's black album.

[Shift Disturber]

I only have one, but I never owned too many albums to start with.

As my kid would say:"what's an album?"

[Rylant]

The fact that not one out of Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, or Master of Puppets made the list makes me weep for humanity. Ok, that's overkill, but still, I am surprised Master of Puppets didn't make the list.

I do understand what you are saying. The thing about Metallica, is that they slowly became huge with virtually no radio play. That is almost unheard of. When Puppets came out, everyone who listened to them knew about Metallica through other means apart from radio. By the time the Black album came out, they were huge. By then, you would hear stuff from Puppets and Ride the Lightning on the radio, but the window to sell tons of their previous albums, had already started closing.

In my opinion, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets are two of the greatest cover to cover albums of all time. The Black album is EVERYTHING that is wrong with what they became. ... And Justice for All is their last brilliant album, in my opinion.

A fun fact that not a lot of people are aware of, and probably the biggest reason I have little respect for Metallica now. Metallica was one of the biggest opponents during the Napster trial, and since they are now huge, they are completely opposed to music piracy. As I said, they became big with virtually no radio air play, which just doesn't happen. So, do you know how they did it? In early copies of Kill 'em All, Ride the Lightning and even during Master of Puppets, Metallica put a piece of paper inside the albums which encouraged people to copy the album and give the copies away, thus building their popularity. Well, that worked and they became huge. Of course, once they became huge, they demanded that people stop copying their music. To me, that is brutal...

Rylant

[Atomic Wedgy]

The fact that not one out of Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, or Master of Puppets made the list makes me weep for humanity. Ok, that's overkill, but still, I am surprised Master of Puppets didn't make the list.

That Black album was the worst one to date when then released it. I disliked it so much that it actually made me stop listening to Metallica. I honestly tried to get into it as I was a Metallica fan. No dice. It was pretty shitty. Justice for me was average. Then Black..... end of. Laters Metallica.

[Thunder]

This is messed up. How Hootie and the whatnots (I honestly can't even recall what their hit was) are in the top ten, but not Sgt. Pepper is mind boggling. An clicking on the link to see the whole list brings in more shockers. I mean, Kid Rock above Nirvana's Nevermind? Really?