did Eagles greatest hits regain most albums sold again over Michael Jackson thriller??

Big Tim Landen fan here.

 

Yeah, me too. Love that GH album.

In all seriousness, I can't find any info on him though Google, at least not anything that is music-related. Must be a fake. There's a different thread on this forum where a member suggests that 'Tim probably works for Billboard and decided to insert his own name in place of Garth's, to see if anyone would notice'.
His remark goes accompanied by a smiley, but could there be some truth in assuming that Garth Brooks' 'The Hits' album should have made this list? I'm from Europe, where Garth Brooks isn't exactly a household name, but it appears to me that he was mega-popular for a number of years in the US.

BTW, if so, then that would be no mean feat, given that the Hits album deliberately went OOP after a year or so...

 

And "One" at 30 million (somehow it disappeared from quotes). Add it up, not too shabby.

 

I never had the album. I'm more of a singles person. But I did have the 3 previous albums, "Janet", "Rhythm Nation 1814" and "Control" and I liked all of those. "Velvet Rope" was the one where she seemed to lose her commercial momentum and most of the songs seemed to reflect that. As far as a lead single, I'd have to go with "Together Again". It seemed like the most commercial of all the songs from the album that got airplay.

 

Out of print? I could've sworn I saw it at Wal-Mart the other day.

 

Have all his albums,do ya?
What's your favorite?
Been playing him all night since discovering him on this thread.
Here's a pix of Timothy performing 'I Married Myself (this time its gonna last forever)' in his native Beijing.

 

I think part of the reason for the *NSync album selling so much in one week was because there was some kind of problem or delay that held back its release (forgot exactly what the story was). I think there was somewhere between a 2-3 year gap between their first album and No Strings Attached, so the fans were obviously anxious for new material. Who knows if it would have had the same sales numbers if it had been released sooner?

 

I love both of them, but two artists in that mix are Prince and Springsteen. Both followed up massive albums from 1984 (Purple Rain at 22 mil, BITUSA at 30 mil) with hard-left-turn projects that only sold a fraction (ATWIAD at 2 mil, Tunnel Of Love at 4 mil).

The irony, of course, is both of them intentionally deflated commercial expectations in advance... And continued to have long and successful careers, albeit without those crazy sales numbers. By contrast, MJ designed Bad to explicitly "beat" Thriller on the charts, and while Bad came out ahead with #1 singles, it sold far less and was only seen as a disappointment. You could argue MJ spent the rest of his career trying to top Thriller with ever diminishing returns... While Prince and Bruce viewed their massive albums in proper terms: As anomalies, never to be repeated again.

 

I've got 46 of those top selling albums include a Celine Dion LP

 

I could've sworn I saw an interview with Michael Jackson years ago around the time of the "Bad" album where he said something along the lines of knowing that he could never repeat the sales of "Thriller" and he compared his situation with when The Bee Gees followed up the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack with "Spirits Having Flown". Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone, artist, music fan or record company exec, would actually entertain the thought of follow-up albums being able to sell as much as predecessors like "Thriller", "Born In The USA", "Purple Rain", and so on. Like you mentioned, they're anomalies.

 

Well, there's this one - a relatively recent multi-disc set IIRC:



...and this one - a 1994 single disc issue whose release was surrounded with the hoopla about being in print for only a year or so:



Having said that, it could very well be that the multi-disc set pictured above was the better selling release of the two.

EDIT - This is what Wiki has to say about the 1994 Hits collection: The Hits was released on December 13, 1994 and is now out of print. This was due to Brooks' views for whole record sales, instead of albums of singles. He insisted it only be available for a limited time, but not before it sold well over ten million copies.

So it probably earned its place in that list of 300 best-selling albums. And it's likely that this particular album sold even a little better than Breakfast in America, as the list shows. Must be a US thing though. I have seen it around these parts, but I don't remember it being a huge seller in EU countries.

 

It has been well documented over the years that Michael Jackson was hell bent on beating his Thriller sales, as you and others say these albums are anomalies and Prince and Bruce understood this, unfortunately Michael didn't, every album after Thriller saw declining sales. He became trapped in his image and the way he wanted the public to view him. Every video had to be the biggest, most expensive blah blah blah. Throughout the rest of his career he clung on to the white sequined socks, the one glove etc. Prince was very smart as RichC has already said, he did a complete about turn which deflated expectations.

 

That would be a really boring list: tens of thousands of albums, many tied for first place (no sales whatsoever), by musical acts you never heard of.

 

The Eagles hits release overtaking Thriller (for a time) might seem like a headscratcher until you take a few things into account. First off, it was only for U.S. sales. Also, Jackson's popularity had been on the decline over here from 1993 onward. At the same time, the Eagles music was still getting airplay on classic rock and oldies radio and the reunion tour definitely helped spur catalog sales. You not only had old fans who were replacing their scratchy albums with cds, you had younger listeners who were hearing The Eagles on the radio and seeing the HFO concert on MTV and VH1. Some have asked why Greatest Hits and not a more comprehensive title such as Complete Greatest Hits (2003). At the time that Their Greatest Hits overtook Thriller in sales (1999), the only other domestic compilation on the market was Greatest Hits Vol.2. The more comprehensive compillations such as Complete Greatest Hits were a few years away by which time physical media sales were beginning to taper off.

 

Absolutely agree! Seeems like that is where so many artists falter....album four.

 

The 18,593,000 number is taking the 12 million award from 1990 + plus the soundscan number of 5,453,000 between 1991-2014 and the numbers of copies it sold thru the BMG club of 1,452,ooo up to 2003..

 

Actually I think thats where some of the most exciting stuff is. Lots of home pressed / indie / obscure labels over the decades.

 

Michael Jackson > Thriller 6,266,491 +923,000 =7,189,491..Soundscan from may 1991-july 2013,plus BMG club sales.

The Eagles > Their greatest hits 5,598,732 + 1,520,000 =7,118,732..

So they have both almost identical sales since 1991,now the interesting part is who is going to get certified for
30 million first ?..

 

Like Zeppelin!!

 

Well, in all technicality, it was really her 6th album. Her first two albums tend to be forgotten about, I guess because neither one produced any major hits. And from what I've seen on other sites, Janet herself has seemed to pretty much disown them. So in a way I guess "Velvet Rope" could be considered to be her fourth album, just not technically.

 

This raises some interesting points about the difference between public taste and critical opinion.

I guess every Forum member will have their own favourite albums.

But from a very quick comparison only 54 of Rolling Stone's 2005 All Time Top 500 are in the top 150 best sellers above:

Thriller
Dark Side of Moon
Sat Night Fever
Led Zep IV
Bad
Rumours
Brothers in arms
Jagged little pill
Back in black
Legend
The Wall
Appetite for destruction
Hotel California
Born in the USA
Abba greatest hits
Bat out of hell
Joshua Tree
Whitney Houston
Abbey Road
Immaculate Conception
Sgt Pepper
Metallica
Nevermind
Elton greatest
Purple rain
Wish you were here
Tracy Chapman
Led Zep II
Eminem show
Tapestry
Faith
Beatles White album
Hysteria
Off the wall
Cookie
Eliminator
Actung Baby
Ten
Houses of the Holy
Synchronicity
What's the story morning glory
Tragic Kingdom
The miseducation of Lauren Hill
Licensed to ill
Graceland
Californication
Rhythm Nation 1814
The Score
Ray of Light
Van Halen
Crazy Sexy Cool
The Stranger
Nirvana unplugged
Like a prayer

Looking at it the other way, only 5 of the Rolling Stone Top 20 favourites are in the top 150 best sellers - Sgt Pepper, the White Album, Abbey Road, Nevermind and Thriller (though as noted above another 50 RS are in the top 150 sellers).

I guess you can draw anything from statistics, but this offers a quick comparison between critical and public acclaim...

 

700-800 albums in the house and only 18 of them from the Top 300. Never collect Greatest Hits albums and prefer to collect the artists actual albums as recorded.

 

According to some reports, Eagles Greatest displaced Thriller only to be displaced a short time later by the Beatles' 1. Both albums had an edge by virtue of being hits compilations. Thriller remains the top selling non-compilation album, although the strategy of releasing almost all of the tracks as singles virtually made it an instant Best of.

 

Not to mention, as it's a double, you can cut that number in half.

 

Ahh, that's right. Forgot about that.