Sonny Corinthos

The Eagles officially have the best-selling album of all time. Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 has overtaken Michael Jackson‘s Thriller, reclaiming the top spot nearly a decade after the King of Pop’s death.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently recalculated sales of the best-of collection and certified the LP as 38x platinum, pushing the 33x platinum Thriller to second place, the Associated Press reports. The RIAA confirmed the new certifications to Rolling Stone.

The RIAA last tallied Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975‘s totals in 2006, when the album was 29x platinum; since then, streaming and digital downloads have dominated the music industry.

Greatest Hits‘ new certification takes into account total streams, downloads and traditional sales since 2006. Thriller‘s totals were reportedly updated in 2017.

“We are grateful for our families, our management, our crew, the people at radio and, most of all, the loyal fans who have stuck with us through the ups and downs of 46 years. It’s been quite a ride,” Eagles’ Don Henley said in a statement.

Additionally, the RIAA recalculation – initiated by the band’s label – was good news for the Eagles’ 1977 album Hotel California, which is now 26x platinum, making the LP Number Three on the all-time list; in 2001, Hotel California was 16x platinum.

While the RIAA declined to divulge specific details on the 10x platinum jump, the association told Rolling Stone that singles sales and other factors not initially tabulated into the RIAA’s platinum certification were retroactively added to the album’s sales total.

In the case of Hotel California, sales of the Hot 100-topping title track were consolidated into album sales (10 song downloads count as one album).

The band’s Greatest Hits 1971-1975 spent nearly a decade as the best-selling album of all time until Thriller bypassed it in the aftermath of Jackson’s death in 2009, Billboard reported at the time.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...-album-713224/

Nesbit

That’s a shame. Not only do I prefer Jackson’s music but a greatest hits album being the tops is pretty lame

cdollaz

Having both a compilation and a studio album as 2 of the top 3 selling albums of all time is impressive.

The Cow

It's an American list. Thriller still blows everything away worldwide.

cultshock

How does this kind of thing work with Spotify or other streaming services? I understand how purchasing and downloading an album (or 10 songs) would count toward sales, but what about streaming? For example, lets say I stream the song "Hotel California" on Spotify once a day for ten days, does that count as an album sale?

JeffTheAlpaca

I don't hate the Eagles but a greatest hits record is the number one selling album of all time in the U.S.?

Old school here if you are a real fan you listen to a artists or a bands entire catalogue and not just listen to the greatest hits or the songs that only get played on the radio.

davidh777

I agree that it's lame to have a GH album as #1, but I do own it and listen to it, so I'm part of the problem. I also own Thriller, though.

The Bus

You would need to stream the song 1,250 times (on a paid non-ad service like Spotify) and it would count as one album sale.

milo bloom

MJ made a hell of a mark during his time, but the music hasn’t held up. I can still listen to the Eagles and I will till my dying day.

And I hate Lebowski for what it did to their reputation.

Coral

Streaming and downloading stats kinda throws the whole thing off for me.

Taking that out of the equation, it still sold a butt-load. What's even more impressive is that the Greatest Hits album doesn't even include their biggest song "Hotel California". I wonder how many copies Vol. 2 sold.

The Cow

11 million in the U.S. according to Wikipedia.

JeffTheAlpaca

After this news came out it is sold out at Amazon.

I like Frey as a solo artist. RIP.

dvd-4-life

For overall record sales,where do the Eagles rank?

rw2516

Also, there is nothing exclusive to the album. All the songs are album tracks.
One thing that used to really drive the sales of greatest hits LPS was that for the first time some of the biggest hits were available in LP format given the prevalence of non-LP 45s.
Hot Rocks was the first time you could get Honky Tonk Women.
Several big Who hits from the sixties weren't available until 1970's Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy.
Even some of Elton John's hits weren't on the albums.
Beatles had enough non LP hits to drive the 1962-66 and 1967-70 bests ofs to #1 in 1973.
Your only other option was to track down the old OOP 45.

Then you have the countless hit songs that were unavailable for 20 years or so until greatest hits CDs and bonus tracks.

TheBigDave

It probably helped that Eagles: Greatest Hits was always available through Columbia House (Get 12 Albums for $1). I got at least 3-4 copies of that on cassette and CD through them over the years.

Spiderbite

Garth Brooks is trying to figure out a way to get his shit at Wal-mart now for 3 cents an album in a 50 disc boxset after this news.

astrochimp

Eagles and Steve Miller's greatest hits were in the collection of most people I've known. I had never been a buyer of hits albums, until recent with my phone since I don't want to bother with many artists entire collection.

Coral

I believe Queen's Greatest Hits album (1981) also ranks up there among the highest selling albums of all time.

rw2516

These are the type of hits albums I don't get the appeal of. Or the best of Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, etc.

Hits albums are great for stuff like Monkees, Turtles, Tommy James, Dion, 3 Dog Night, Rascals, etc. I've got dozens of them.

I recently bought a best of Dio for $5. Got it, listened to it. Next day bought the box set of first five albums. The best of is worthless.

JeremyM

He's never been close in the best-selling album category, though. He has been aiming for most total sales.

Sonny Corinthos

I have to agree with you on this. I was a huge Jackson fan in the 80's to early 90's. I tried listening to the Bad album a few weeks and only made it into a few songs before I turned it off.

Coral

That's the thing, just because you like all or most of a bands songs - doesn't mean that others do. As many great albums and songs Queen or the Eagles have, there are plenty of people who only care about a few songs on each album.

milo bloom

I have greatest hits albums for bands where I also have all their regular albums. Yes, most of my music is ripped to my iPhone, but I still like the experience of playing a CD from start to finish and not using the skip function.

rw2516

They only care about them because they heard them on the radio. It has nothing to do with the quality of the music itself.
Song on radio - good
Song not on radio - bad

It makes sense for the majority of pop. Most of the albums have some hits, the rest filler.
Rock music is more consistent and even throughout the album. There is really no difference between the known/hit songs and rest.

Maybe it's just me. I just can't find reason to liking "Tom Sawyer" and "Limelight" but not liking the rest of Moving Pictures. Only difference is two were played on the radio and the others not.
Or liking "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" but not the rest of Toys In The Attic.

"There's only 10 AC/DC songs I like" WTF?????

Don't like AC/DC. Get it.
Like AC/DC. Get it.
Only like AC/DC songs on radio. Don't get it.

Jason

What Lebowski did to the Eagles reputation is nothing considering what Michael Jackson did to Michael Jackson's reputation.