List of best-selling albums

Because the older albums have been on sale longer?

the album as an art form is, as of right now, dead.

jamesg1213


Because the older albums have been on sale longer?

....hits nail firmly on head ! 
                                           

I ain't about to go into my 8,000 albums plus what all else to find any on that chart....

Because the older albums have been on sale longer?

Sorry, not an adequate explanation. At least not for most of the entries on the list.

Do you think "Saturday Night Fever" is still selling significant quantities today? How many Sp. ice Girls albums will be moving 20 years from now? 

The fact that some albums kept selling for a long time - what in the movie industry they call "having legs" - seems as significant as total counts.  Dark Side of the Moon was only #1 for one week, but subsequently remained on the charts for another 14 years. 'N Sync's "No Strings Attached" was the #1 song in 2000, but didn't make the list despite having 12 years to accumulate sales. 

EDIT: You cannot use the phrase "S P I C E G I R L S" in this forum, as it is banned. For good reason, I suspect.

bitflipper

Because the older albums have been on sale longer?

Sorry, not an adequate explanation. At least not for most of the entries on the list.

Do you think "Saturday Night Fever" is still selling significant quantities today? How many Sp. ice Girls albums will be moving 20 years from now? 

The fact that some albums kept selling for a long time - what in the movie industry they call "having legs" - seems as significant as total counts.  Dark Side of the Moon was only #1 for one week, but subsequently remained on the charts for another 14 years. 'N Sync's "No Strings Attached" was the #1 song in 2000, but didn't make the list despite having 12 years to accumulate sales. 

EDIT: You cannot use the phrase "S P I C E G I R L S" in this forum, as it is banned. For good reason, I suspect.

And there we have the exceptions that prove the rule ! ;)

Stands to reason though that albums that have been on sale through popular format changes will have been bought several times over by the same people hence bigger sales of older albums.

I expect that Piracy plays a fair part in this too.

Also, it seems that ceasing to be alive is always a good boost for album sales, so will generally affect sales of older artists  rather than the current ones.

According to Wiki, Justin Bieber has sold more than 8 million albums worldwide.

They also list him has having only put out 3 albums since 2010.

[EDIT: Wiki also says lady Gaga has sold more than 23 million albums since 2008.]

Is this because nobody buys albums anymore? Or is it because less contemporary music is worthy of buying? Maybe both (and maybe they're related)?

Also, it seems that ceasing to be alive is always a good boost for album sales,

Let's just hope that none of the S P I C E    G I R L S die soon then

I don't know if this is relevant or not (I'm guessing "Not"), but it seems to me that music used to be one of the defining characteristics of our generations and their culture.  We identified ourselves with our music.  It was an integral part of who we were and our worldview.

As time went on, the culture changed.  The music was still there, but it was a backing track to the rest of our lives.  You could ignore it, dance to it, bury yourself in it, or change it to suit your whims.  It became an unimportant, insignificant dull roar rather than the muse that inspired a generation.

Album sales are down, in some part, due to the fact that we, as a culture, just don't care about the noise.  Sure, we all think we're musically hip, but the reality is that the vast majority of people are too busy multi-tasking to focus on listening, really listening, to the music.  Do you remember how we used to sit alone in a dark room, with no distractions, as the music filled up the space around us, pouring into our ears, seeping into our pores until it was the only thing in our universe?  No one does that anymore.

Most of our youth don't even know how to listen because they weren't taught the value of being still and letting the music flow.

I told you it might not be relevant.

bitflipper

Do you think "Saturday Night Fever" is still selling significant quantities today?

A quick research tells me it probably is, yes. It's been re-issued several times, most recently on Reprise, by way of the Bee-Gees reclaiming the rights to their material.

The flip-side to that ( sorry) is that when it was first issued on CD, it was a double, and each sale counted as 2 CD's.

bitflipperI was perusing this list of best-selling albums on wikipedia. One fact stands out: very few of them are from this century. Only one of them (Adele's "21") is recent.

 
I think that list is over ... and won't change much anymore.
 
The online thing, right now, is way too big a scam to know any real numbers and it is so fractured and all over the place, that the chance to have a major hit do 50 Mil like Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson did ... is probably impossible ... and no one is going to tell you how much they really sold.
 
I'm hoping that the tax code and information technology thing changes, because right now, more than half the "download" thing is a massive rip off and there is no way that anyone can track it, because too many admins are spending more time hiding information than they are in being honest.
 
At this time, I seriously doubt there is any accountability in that area and it will take the IRS another 10 years, at least, to find a way to get this handled. And eventually it will have to be handled by some kind of proxy when it has been shown that a system has been caught cheating or is suspected of cheating.
 
Right now, the whole electronic thing is the biggest mess and rip there is, and there are not enough people guarding it, or chasing it. You have no idea how many downloads Site X had of your piece and the number and check that you get for $11.94 for 3 months, and you had 3,987 hits on your page and at least that many listens and only 12 people bought it?
 
So much for logic in my book!

FastBikerBoy

Moshkiae


I'm hoping that the tax code and information technology thing changes, because right now, more than half the "download" thing is a massive rip off and there is no way that anyone can track it, because too many admins are spending more time hiding information than they are in being honest.

I couldn't agree more. My download count on soundclick is 1, where in reality I think it's probably nearer several million.

You don't a spy cam on my LAN do you?
 

FastBikerBoy
 My download count on soundclick is 1

Did you mum like the toon?

The music was still there, but it was a backing track to the rest of our lives. 

Whether or not that relates to sales volumes, I do not know. But your premise is spot on.


Remember when listening to music was an activity unto itself? 


Next time you're cooling your heels in an airport departure lounge, look around at how many fellow travelers have earbuds plugged in. Note how many of them are nodding their heads or tapping their toes. Typically, not many, especially among younger folk. They are not listening, they are just blocking out the world.

bitflipper

Remember when listening to music was an activity unto itself?  

I know/knew very few non-musicians who would fit that category.


And now that most us here are engineers/producers/musicians I'd imgine (based on the fred I proposed about listening to your own stuff for pleasure) we'd be hard pressed to say we do that today.