What is the biggest-selling album never to hit number one?
Numbers are an interesting game in the music industry. Some labels and executives push for quantity over quality when it comes to measuring success, validating everything by an artist’s ability to gather a number one hit, or two. Others adopt a more understated approach, knowing that strong and lasting impact usually comes with playing the long game and sowing the seeds for elongated success, avoiding anything that might constitute a mere passing fad.
And then there are the more unsuspecting players, creating through immense uncertainty, their future success unknown to everyone and everything except the omniscient hands of time. After all, it’s easy to explain the appeal of a number one pop hit by analysing the psychology behind familiar song structures and melodies, but it’s much harder to dissect cultural impact over time and how significance often grows stronger with it.
Most “legacy” acts play into this trope, not just because they have been around for a long time, but because their importance stretches far beyond the need for quantitative indicators of success, like number ones and overall charting positions. These names are all around us, even today, despite many never having come close to a number one or securing the position for long enough to be regarded as impressive.
Some of these names remain among our most cherished, including Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, and more, which can be perceived as somewhat surprising considering the varying ways they changed the landscape forever. While some, like Dylan, have established other ways of measuring success, many have influenced the contemporary landscape in more unsuspecting ways, almost as though their lasting shadow goes undetected.
So, what’s the biggest-selling album to never hit number one?
Perhaps even more surprising is that many of these also have several career-defining albums within their broader discography. Mitchell’s Blue, for instance, only hit number three in the UK despite being regarded as one of the most important albums of all time, one that not only set the standard for singer-songwriters but guided the entire industry during a period of immense uncertainty.
Similarly, although Dylan has earned notable commercial successes with several of his albums, some, like Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited, struggled to reach the top spot despite the lasting legacy each drew in over time. Although the sales and other accolades outweigh the need to soar to the number one spot, some of the biggest-selling albums of all time never actually reached number one either, highlighting the discrepancy between the two pillars of success.
For instance, while Thriller grasps firmly onto the lead title, AC/DC’s Back in Black hit number one almost everywhere except America, making it the best-selling album never to hit number one in the States. While Dark Side of the Moon followed a similar trajectory in the UK, this feels more like a particularly notable defeat considering how the record set a new standard for rock and metal, re-establishing the appeal of heavy rock during a time when it was losing its momentum.
Packed with hits to last a significant chunk of a rock-filled road trip, Back in Black wasn’t exactly the most groundbreaking affair, but it did reinstate everything great and powerful about a genre in the throes of losing its grip. Namely, it packed a punch, drawing attention from all over and reminding people why heart-thumping rock thrived in the first place.
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