Yearly Most Successful Female Album: The beginning (1960-1982)

1961 – Patsy Cline, Showcase

One of the first Country legends, Patsy Cline has a special place among the American catalog of the 60s. By then performances of Country records were largely deflated by Billboard rankings. This still didn’t prevent her from getting #12 and #9 hits inside the Hot 100 with the songs I Fall to Pieces and Crazy, respectively. The album hasn’t done well peaking at #73. It was both because of the poor representation of Country sales on the BB200 and because of the album’s relatively average sales.

https://youtu.be/6QEDb3xzdec

The two main singles became huge recurrent airplay favorites. Even more so after her tragic passing in a plane crash in 1963 at only 30. Her catalog improved its status year after year afterwards. The 1967 set Greatest Hits perfectly summarized her gems. The package, issued with no promotion, became the go-to  album of her discography. Failing to chart upon release it went on to reach Diamond status in 2005, the only album ever which sold 10 million units without ever charting inside the main BB200 chart!

This best of included songs from several records, but half of its appeal comes from Crazy (22 million streams on Spotify) and I Fall to Pieces (10 million), two songs first released on the album Showcase. This Greatest Hits isn’t the only seller of her catalog too since she has 4 more Platinum compilations in the US. In total she sold a minimum of 20 million best of albums, half of which thanks to the appeal of songs created on Showcase.