Let’s Take a Look at Some Updated All-Time Album Sales Numbers, Shall We?
FYI Music News has offers this current summary of all-time album sales in the US.
- The Beatles: 178,000,000 million albums sold. And that’s just in America.
- Garth Brooks: 135,000,000 albums. Yes, that many.
- Elvis Presley: 134,500,000
- Led Zeppelin: 111,500,000
- The Eagles: 101,000,000
Also in the Top 10: Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Elton John and Barbra Streisand.
If you’re looking for the all-time best-selling Canadians in the US, they are Celine Dion (#23, 50 million), Shania Twain (#26, 48 million) and Rush (#82, 25 million, the same as Nirvana, ZZ Top, Toby Keith and Luther Vandross.)
Brooks and Zeppelin are what stick out for me. The Beatles, Elvis and the Eagles were all cross-over artists who appealed to fans across genre and age group. Brooks and Zeppelin tended to be contained within the fan bases of their genre.
I couldn’t disagree more, Dan. Growing up, I was always surprised who had Led Zeppelin in their collection due to their fandom of pop music (in high school, it was generally thought it was the metalheads who enjoyed them). As for Garth, the number of parties I went to in the 90s had a lot of Garth Brooks playing, and that was from people who generally listened to “grunge” or top 40.