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Hi btoafy and Janetisterribleflop!
It's not like you can't buy physical albums in China, it's just that very few people do it these days. Her physical album sales there (which are fully counted into her Asian album sales total already) are more like 500k, not millions. Although this doesn't sound like too much is it utter massive for a western act there in this day and age. None of her contemporaries are even close to half of this number.
1989 (TV) is her first album since (ironically) 1989 (the original) to not be available for digital purchases in China. As of now is it only available to stream for paid subscribers there .
I wonder if Lover and 1989 TV will sneak into the Top 10 Album Chart of the IFPI
While 1989 TV beat the first week of Britney's OIDIA Fearless also just passed it in total sales (25m). It will likely pass the Eagles' debut album (27m) to become the 3rd biggest country album oat.
1989 itself has a good shot at becoming the biggest synthpop album ever (currently Madonna's Like A Virgin at 40m).
Who has the record for most ten million sellers? Ts11 will reach there too. Anyways even without rerecordings her albums were assured to be ten million sellers. The consistent success is remarkable. People can point out European singles chart to cheery pick, but charting multiple albums in European countries is way more impressive. As point of song is to sell album and her whole catalog is getting consumed. People can keep their faves quick lil singles. Whereas Taylor will have the overall eas record! And 150 date stadium tour record.
Hi Gdhdhdgddlunddo!
This comes from a database query grouping by artist name, so artists who scored 10m sellers through collabs or so may have some albums missing. Anyway, these are the results:
12 - The Beatles
11 - Queen
9 - Madonna, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones
8 - Metallica
7 - AC/DC, Billy Joel, Elton John, Eminem, Led Zeppelin, Mariah Carey, Pink Floyd, U2
6 - ABBA, BTS, Celine Dion, Coldplay, Frank Sinatra, Garth Brooks, Rod Stewart
Digital sales were fairly higher, IIRC he did like 12-13 million downloads in the US alone during 2009, about double worldwide, and his ringtones did even better relatively speaking, he was surely over 5m from that metric. Then there are also boxes, The Collection (which includes his 5 1-CD studio albums) sold most of its 900k during that year too. A then YouTube views were crazy too. If we really get into the details, I would expect 36-40m overall.
Actually we count home music video sales but not video sales. For example, Spice Girls' Spice World isn't counted. One reflects the music industry, the other the movie industry. Just like the touring industry, these are different subjects. It would still be very interesting, and that would reflect "the most successful entertainer", but then we would need to just throw in actors as well, while our lists are aimed at reflecting the most successful music artists ever. In terms of nature, radio airplay would need to be added before we add anything which is outside the music industry in itself.
I think 4th :
Eagles - Hotel California , 72 million EAS
Shania Twain - Come on over , 47 million EAS
Garth Brooks - No fences , 34 million EAS .
Eagles started as a country rock band but by the time of Hotel California they were just pop rock basically. Wikipedia calls the album "rock" for example, even Chartmasters said Come On Over was the biggest country album ever.
Interesting list, the opposite of one-hit wonders in a way. Of course MJ is a special case having released so few albums, and Elvis peaked before the album era.
I'd just note that Metallica's total includes Garage Inc which is partly a compilation, I get why you class it as a studio album but considering its total is barely over 10m we might argue they only have 7 "real" studio albums, and therefore the top 5 acts on this list are somewhat detached from the rest.
Actually I just remembered that Come On Over's "international" version mix removed the country elements, and I think it was also the case for the single versions in the US.
Even if we just subtract this international version (about 20m I guess) it seems possible that Fearless could pass it eventually.
She literally lost atleast half million sales from China by not releasing there. I wonder why this time😭
I agree with the Eagles, HC is definitely not country, if we throw every Americana/Folk record in the country basket then we will also need to add Rumours or Tapestry there, these aren't country the way we percieve it really.
About COO, we can't ignore the international sales, if we do that then we discard Fearless too. I'm old enough to remember the release of Love Story, and that one got a "Pop mix" for international markets just like COO's songs.
I'm not quite sure we are comprehensive among top selling country albums, some could be over 20m, including unexpected ones like Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar, Lenny Rogers' Gambler or Patsy Cline's Showcase, and then a bit below many records on 10m+ sales more obvious ones like Dixie Chicks' big albums, Billy Ray Cyrus' debut, etc. I think for one we may be missing a good chunk of what would be Country's top 20 albums ever.
True about Love Story's "international version" but the difference is that the entirety of COO was remixed, so technically it's not a country album. But then it gets complicated with EAS/CSPC totals because even in the US singles had a pop mix... OK my head is hurting too much now.
You might be right about other country albums being possibly around 20m though I can't think of one selling much more than that. I'd definitely love to see the country artists who have a shot at 100m (namely Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers) being studied but looking at the leaderboard rn it should take a while...
