Official Global Top Sellers of 2004 – with Sales

#7 Shania Twain – Greatest Hits – 5,400,000

Another compilation album after Britney’s at #13 and the Guns N’ Roses at #9. Guess what? This isn’t the last! As many as 4 greatest hits albums are inside the Top 13 (all of which happen to be titled Greatest Hits). Do you want to know an interesting statistic? From 2007 to 2017 only 2 compilations managed to reach the year end Top 10 of the IFPI. They are Michael Jackson‘s This Is It and Number Ones, both in 2009 following his shock passing. It goes on to show how much iTunes’ cherry-picking of tracks killed the sales of artists’ catalogs.

Back to Twain, the country legend gets one more time the highest selling album of the year in her respective genre. Expectations were heavy for this package considering how much Come On Over had sold, and was still selling on a yearly basis. This catalog appeal explains why retailers weren’t afraid of ordering tons of copies for this Christmas cash-in. By December 16 it was already 3xPlatinum although it ended the year on 2,336,000 units sold. All units were sold during the coming months as it broke 3 million sales in May 2005.

Unlike the remaining country albums, this one was also popular globally. Comfortably hitting the top 10 in the UK, Germany and Australia among others as well as #1 in her native Canada.