Lead singer, bassist and founding member of the band Roger Waters wrote the album based on experiences in his own life. It’s a painful story that most can relate to or at least comprehend, not only because so many have suffered similar pains in life, but because it comes from the story of a real person. It tells the tale of Pink, a troubled young man raised by an overprotective mother, who is trying to break down the wall in his mind that has been constructed by the authoritative figures in his life. The Wall is one of the greatest concept albums of all time. The legacy of Pink Floyd was not cemented with just The Dark Side of the Moon. Total certified sales: 18 million (30 million claimed) Like the album’s iconic artwork, the group’s music offers a brilliant and spontaneous sonic hodgepodge, cohesively sewn together and perfectly soundtracking the ever-changing times of the 1960s. Falling in the middle of their fruitful, mid-’60s run, The Beatles continued Revolver’s experimental production techniques, sprinkled in lyrics that ranged from everyday life to drug usage, and combined genres including infectious pop, traditional Indian music and straightforward rock ’n’ roll. No record, however, quite encapsulates The Beatles and what they represented the way that Sgt. While it could be said that The Rolling Stones were the purest rockers, The Beach Boys were the more innovative group or that Dylan was the lyrical visionary of his era, no other band had defined their generation like The Beatles. As John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr went from delightful hand-holding mop-tops to psychedelic luminaries, they offered a way for the world to understand the complex and radical changing of the guard. The Fab Four’s golden years took place from approximately 1965-1969, during which they transformed themselves and continually progressed on the grandest of scales. In a decade defined by sweeping cultural paradigm shifts, The Beatles’ music helped the world’s youths make sense of the changing times around them. Total sales: 18 million (32 million claimed) Here are the 25 best-selling albums of all time:Ģ5. And six different nations are represented: the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, Jamaica and Sweden. Four acts had more than one best-seller on the list: Michael Jackson, The Eagles, The Beatles and Pink Floyd. Only one country album made the list, Shania Twain’s crossover smash, Come on Over. is by far the biggest market for album sales, several of the LPs achieved their ranking here without a lot of help from American audiences, most notably ABBA, who sold nearly as many copies of “ Gold: Greatest Hits in the U.K. 21, 2018, just after the latest RIAA reporting period. This is as accurate as we could count as of Aug. That means, these figures include the equivalent in online sales since RIAA started incorporating those numbers in 2016. We’ve also ignored “claimed sales” from record labels and relied on data coming directly from the Recording Industry Association of America in the U.S. The RIAA counts sales of double albums like Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II or Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti as two copies, essentially double-counting every sale. We’ve compiled the top 25 best-selling albums worldwide, but it’s worth noting that there are many ways to count album sales. Worldwide, Thriller is still the best-selling album of all time with a whopping 47 million certified copies sold, six million ahead of Their Greatest Hits. But that was just in the United States, where the Eagles became the first band with a 38x Platinum Album. Much commotion was made this week by The Eagles’ greatest hits compilation overtaking Michael Jackson’s Thriller as the best-selling album of all time.