Money and cultureCopies sold (reported)
Best-selling album of all time
70,000,000 copies
- Record holder
- Thriller, Michael Jackson
This is the reported sales figure; certified sales from available markets reach 51.4 million copies. Album sales figures are hard to estimate and sources often contradict each other.
How the record evolved
The last record set in each decade, up to the current record (highlighted).
| Year | Record | Holder |
|---|---|---|
| current | 70,000,000 copies | Thriller, Michael Jackson |
| 25,000,000 copies | Saturday Night Fever, Bee Gees/Various Artists | |
| 8,000,000 copies | The Sound of Music, Various Artists | |
| 2,000,000 copies | My Fair Lady, Various Artists | |
| 1,000,000 copies | The Jolson Story, Al Jolson |
Put them in order
Sort these records from the oldest to the most recent.
- 2,000,000 copiesMy Fair Lady, Various Artists
- 25,000,000 copiesSaturday Night Fever, Bee Gees/Various Artists
- 70,000,000 copiesThriller, Michael Jackson
- 1,000,000 copiesThe Jolson Story, Al Jolson
What to remember
Album sales figures are hard to pin down: published figures contradict each other and record labels tend to inflate them. Thriller, the Michael Jackson album released by Epic Records in late 1982, therefore has two numbers: 70,000,000 copies reported, and 51.4 million certified in the markets where data exists, including 34 million in the US.
Produced by Quincy Jones, who had also produced Off the Wall (1979), the album was recorded from April to November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, on a budget of $750,000. Jackson moved towards post-disco and synth-pop, with touches of funk and rock, and Paul McCartney became the first credited featured artist on one of his albums. Thriller spent a record 37 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard chart.
In 1946, Al Jolson's The Jolson Story led with 1,000,000 copies; in 1979 the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack reached 25,000,000. From The Jolson Story to Thriller, the ratio is 70.
Related records
Sources and licences
- Value, holder and date: Wikipedia article “List of best-selling albums” (revision used 1377514751). Data from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Photo: Hunter Kahn, Photo licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
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