France Best Selling Albums Ever:
Update Part 5

Simon & Garfunkel – The Concert in Central Park (1982) : 1 245 000

Way back in 1996, some 14 years after its original release, The Concert in Central Park was sitting at #25 in the main chart. This remains the last occurrence of the famous duo Simon & Garfunkel inside French Album Chart Top 100. In spite of this fact, the pair is still one of the most loved international acts. Their lack of activity in the highest part of Charts is only due first to exclusion of compilations until 2011 and second to the equally spread catalog sales across various similar best of, live and studio albums. The 1982 blockbuster live album is only one among others.

Daniel Balavoine – Sauver l’Amour (1985) : 1 205 000

In a standard year, Sauver L’Amour album wouldn’t feature that high. Every year in 6 refers to the anniversary of the tragic passing of the singer though. Daniel Balavoine is one of those artists popular enough to get a special TV show on TF1 Channel every 5 or 10 years. Dying at only 33 on an helicopter crash while watching Paris-Dakar race, he had issued the album Sauver L’Amour just a couple of months earlier. That album, plus its single L’Aziza thus are intimately linked to this event. As a result, after the aforementioned TV Special when several Daniel Balavoine re-entered the big chart, this 1985 album was one of them at #175. TF1, always very busy finding ways to exploit such happenings, used that TV show to release and promote an album of the singer songs covered by currently popular artists, in a way similar to previous Renaud and Jean-Jacques Goldman packages. This brought some more lasting light to Daniel Balavoine own catalog during a few months.

U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987) : 1 230 000

Although this is most likely going to change in 2017 due to the giant scale tour themed after this album, The Joshua Tree isn’t U2 biggest selling catalog studio album in France. Earlier album War tops it. While there is no doubt it sells decent numbers every year, in terms of weeks inside the Catalog Chart Top 100, War earns the battle against The Joshua Tree by 12 to 0 in 2016. Will With Or Without You owner reverse the situation in 2017 ?