The Biggest-Selling Albums of the SoundScan Era

Whilst doing research for a museum project (you’ll hear about this soon.  Trust me.) I ran across this list of the biggest-selling albums in America since the introduction of SoundScan in 1991.

In case you don’t know, SoundScan is the point-of-purchase counting mechanism for record sales. Thousands of retailers across the US and Canada are equipped with software that counts a record as sold when its bar code is scanned at check-out.

Here are the best-selling records since the US started using this system.  Note two things:  (1) the number of Canadians on this list; and (2) the entry at #8.

1. Metallica / Metallica ~ 15,735,000
2. Come on Over / Shania Twain ~ 15,513,000
3. Jagged Little Pill / Alanis Morissette ~ 14,714,000
4. Millennium / Backstreet Boys ~ 12,168,000
5. 1 / The Beatles ~ 11,985,000
6. The Bodyguard / Soundtrack (Whitney Houston) ~ 11,829,000
7. Supernatural / Santana ~ 11,772,000
8. Human Clay / Creed ~ 11,574,000
9. No Strings Attached / ‘N Sync ~ 11,122,000
10. Falling into You / Celine Dion ~ 10,790,000