The Eagles Greatest Hits has sold 38 million copies
The spot held by Michael Jackson’s Thriller is no more. The Eagles Greatest Hits 1971-1975 has beaten the Jackson classic. The new sale figures are according to the latest certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The Eagles knocked Jackson’s 1982 cornerstone to the second spot but the band also holds third spot with their album Hotel California, also released in ’76. It has been certified 26-times platinum for sales and streams of more than 26 million copies.
Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA said, “Congratulations to the Eagles, who now claim the jaw-dropping feat of writing and recording two of the top three albums in music history. Both of these transcendent albums have impressively stood the test of time, only gaining more currency and popularity as the years have passed, much like the Eagles themselves.”
Glenn Frey, a founding member of the Eagles, died in January 2016 but the band continues to tour with Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit. The Eagles have sold more than 150 million albums and won six Grammys. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, and received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016.
From Billboard, please note
In regards to what really makes an album sell has changed in the streaming age. Even though it is unclear how this affected either the Eagles or Jackson. Let’s look at a this – per the Washington Post last month:
Billboard added streaming songs as one of the metrics for its [sales] charts in 2012, leading the Recording Industry Association of America and Nielsen to follow suit. The criteria have changed several times in the interim — just last month, the company made changes to weight paid streams on services like Spotify over unpaid ones on jukebox-esque services like Pandora for the Billboard 100 singles chart. Meanwhile, for the Billboard 200, 1,500 streams of any songs on one record equals one listen to [or sale of] that record.
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