These are the only albums to sell one million copies in a week: 23 golden fads
If there was any set formula for making one of the best-selling albums of all time, there’s a good chance that everyone reading this would have a platinum album to their name.
Even though it takes a minor miracle to get any album on the charts, there’s something about capturing a feeling within the vinyl grooves that makes people want to play them repeatedly. While it might be one thing to sell a million copies of an album, the art of selling over a million units in a week is another matter entirely.
Throughout music history, many artists have been able to put up massive albums that have become classics, but each of these managed to bypass the slow-burn method to become huge in a few days. Then again, what goes into an album that makes it that accessible overnight?
When looking at some of the big names that have earned this moniker, it can sometimes come down to the power behind a certain single. While many people may have swooned over the romance between Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard, for instance, the strength of Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ was enough to garner rapturous praise overnight.
Outside of the hookiness of a single, it also comes down to whether or not an artist speaks to someone’s soul rather than looking at the music at face value. At the dawn of the 2000s, artists like Eminem made waves by uncovering the darker side of suburban life, catapulting him to the top of the hit parade on both The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.
Though Eminem may have had a strong core fanbase, it would be the flipside of the boy band craze that also sent records into the stratosphere, with NSYNC and Backstreet Boys garnering massive success with their eye-catching dance moves and unstoppable hooks. At the same time, each of the best-selling albums also comes from the era when they were manufactured.
Compared to the vinyl age or the streaming boom of the 2010s, the turn of the century was the prime time for buying CDs. Since sites like Napster were still in their infancy, the only way to hear these fantastic songs was by purchasing the CD, leading to a massive boost in sales whenever a cultural phenomenon like the Garth Brooks regime of country music began to take over.
Even music veterans benefited from having their songs get an extra lift when transferring to CD. Despite their long history of being the world’s greatest band, The Beatles’ 1 compilation is among the greatest-selling albums in history due to the relevance of the CD in modern culture of the 2000s.
Then again, those advanced sales of CDs were only around for a limited time. Although acts like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga benefited from their albums seeing rapturous praise in the late 2000s, many of the biggest CD sales came from legacy acts as of late, with many people buying the CD as a novelty instead of listening to the record on streaming.
While the sales of physical media may not be as relevant today as in the 2000s, there are still artists benefiting from the streaming numbers, whether they know it or not. For all of the streaming numbers that produce pennies for up-and-coming artists, there are still just as many bands willing to twist how most listeners consume their art.
Albums that sold one million copies in a week:
- The Bodyguard – soundtrack
- Double Live – Garth Brooks
- Millennium – Backstreet Boys
- No Strings Attached – NSYNC
- Oops…I Did It Again – Britney Spears
- The Marshall Mathers LP – Eminem
- Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water – Limp Bizkit
- Black and Blue – Backstreet Boys
- 1 – The Beatles
- Celebrity – NYSYNC
- The Eminem Show – Eminem
- Feels Like Home – Norah Jones
- Confessions – Usher
- The Massacre – 50 Cent
- Tha Carter III – Lil Wayne
- Speak Now – Taylor Swift
- Born This Way – Lady GaGa
- Red – Taylor Swift
- 1989 – Taylor Swift
- 25 – Adele
- Reputation – Taylor Swift
- Midnights – Taylor Swift
- 1989 (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift
