Talk:List of fastest-selling albums

Sources

The original list derives from SelfIndulgence.org, where individual entries are cited. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

PROD

This was prodded for lack of sources and lack of a clear definition of fastest selling album. I think the second concern is answered by the links given. As mentioned above, I located the source of the original unsourced table, which was copied from another wiki (which licenses its content under GFDL) and there are references there that can be checked/used. I've added some sourced data for individual nations, which could be expanded. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:57, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I actually referenced the list mainly using references taken from the articles on the individual albums.--Colapeninsula (talk) 12:49, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Worldwide?

The title is worldwide but there's no worldwide list? There needs to be one like in this article List of best-selling albums. Otherwise the title doesn't make sense.--Krystaleen 15:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the title should be changed to "List of fastest-selling albums by country" because it is impossible to know how much an album sells globally. There's no existing company like Nielsen SoundScan or Oricon that tracks global sales. Kraft. (talk) 22:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Adele

Should Adele go in the US list now?..or should I wait until the end of the 7 days?. (She's officially the top US first week seller now(after a little more than 3 days)...http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/24/9788462/adele-25-sales-highest-selling-record 109.152.235.209 (talk) 19:16, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

You can have her in there because I know how hard it is to wait until the end of the week, but you can't put the total sales in yet. (You can open one present on Christmas eve as well, but no more) Btljs (talk) 22:21, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Oasis

OK, so this is all going to kick off, so I'll get my twopence worth in first. Oasis achieved 696,000 in its first chart week (with 3 days of sales); it is variously quoted as 763,000 and 813,000 for 7 days from release. If there is no agreement in sources for this figure then I suggest we stick to the chart week. I note that 813,000 is 696,000 plus exactly half of the second chart week's sales of 235,000 (117,000) which may imply an estimate(?) Did they have a mid-week chart update in 1997? Chart weeks would seem to be much more reliable. Btljs (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Further research reveals that 813,000 (and 696,000) include panel sales which are an estimate and not measured sales. These were not used in sales figures quoted by Music Week, OCC and Guinness Records until they were again more recently. Btljs (talk) 07:24, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I added the link to the footnote to complete that particular section. See the final version.Kraft. (talk) 21:56, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I like that. Doubt it will remain unedited by the enthusiastic 813,000 brigade though. Just added Ireland back - even if we haven't got anything other than a named album, I still think it's worth having. Btljs (talk) 22:45, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Sources are nearly all quoting the first chart sales figure for BHN - nobody wants to get into the controversy of the 7 day total after OCC have stated that it's not panel sales (what is it then?). So we should stick with chart sales. Btljs (talk) 22:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

No flags please

See WP:MOSFLAG: "Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams." So if Adele is representing UK in Eurovision, fine (if only), but otherwise not appropriate or needed. Btljs (talk) 07:21, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Removal of incorrect data

I removed Whitney Houston soundtrack Bodyguard from the list of fastest selling albums in the US as it achieved the million during Christmas week, several weeks after its release, the album even debuted at #2 'only'. I also removed both claims related to the 60s Beatles sales as they were shipment figures from the label, not actual retail sales. MJDangerous (talk) 14:07, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I had to remove Whitney Houston soundtrack Bodyguard from the list of fastest selling albums in the US again. I wonder if different article highlighting albums that sold one million albums in any week would be appropriate. Richard Hendricks (talk) 02:30, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Ridge Morton

Someone is adding this artist randomly to lists without any valid citations. Anybody know what this is about? M1ke (talk) 10:25, 17 January 2017 (UTC) 10:25, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

captian fantastic /elton john

ACCORDING TO JOESPH MURRELLS BOOK OF GOLDEN DISCS ELTON JOHNS CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRT COWBOY SOLD 1.4 MILLION COPIES IN THE FIRST FOUR DAYS OF RELEASE IN 1975 IT WAS OF COURSE THE FIRST ABLUM TO DEBUT AT NUMBER 1 IN THE STATES. SUCH WAS JOHNS POPULARITY AT THE TIME HIS NEXT ALBUM ALSO DEBUT AT NUMBER 1 .ON A PURELY POPULATION BASIS I THINK REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT WOULD OUT RANK ANY OTHERS CLAIM FOR FASTEST SELLING ALBUM IN THE STATES05:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)05:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)05:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.72.94.71 (talk)

Source for USA sales figures

The source for USA sales figures should be from Billboard Magazine (Nielson SoundScan). To the best of my knowledge Hits Daily Double (BuzzAngle) has not been judged to be a reliable source for the purposed of this article. Richard Hendricks (talk) 19:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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RE: lede issue with Adele's 25, source is completely unreliable

Fierzig please note that the mediatraffic.de website used as the justifying source for 25 being the fastest selling album of all time is unreliable and was marked as a deprecated NON-NOTABLE record chart here. The chart's wikipedia article was also deleted by deletion discussion. Jackbmh's comments to you were correct and had nothing to do with being a "stan" of any group. If you cannot find an actual reliable source to support the claim of 25 "selling 5,706,000 copies in its first week" the information simply cannot be included in the article. If you do then it will not be contested. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

RIAK and Gaon

Do we really need 70 entries in this list? It seems a bit excessive, maybe we should limit it to 15 entries to reflect the total amount of debut month million sellers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackbmh (talk • contribs) 03:52, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Jackbmh: I agree the list needs cutting down. -- Carlobunnie (talk)

Jackbmh when updating the SK section please stick to the existing format of all other references for consistency. Also some reminders for when you're editing in future:

• the 'date' parameter of an article or page should always be included. In this case, it was right above the article title of the ref you used so I'm not sure why you didn't put it in.
• access dates should be formatted as mm/dd/yy ie. July 4, 2020 instead of 2020-07-04.
• don't wikilink pages that don't have an existing article.
• use the regular spelling of an album's title (Heng:garae), rather than the stylized version (Heng:garæ). Easy examples to note are BTS's LY:Tear+Answer albums in the same table.

-- Carlobunnie (talk) 21:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Debut week limitations

Should a "fast-selling" album only be determined by it's first week sales rather than any week? it wont make significant differences to the lists but just to clarify. Fierzig (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Fierzig:I think the first 7 days is a good benchmark otherwise what criteria would we use to determine a "fast selling album"? The entire article is based on first week sales so I think it's best to stick with that. Unless we go the fastest to 1-mill route, in which case the article would look very different. I've actually been contemplating removing (edit: or adjusting) the SK Riak/Gaon section for this very reason. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 18:09, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah i think first 7 days is fine. I was just curious if any individual week would be any different from first week. Example Whitney's hit song "I will always love you" had it's biggest sales week of over 800K making it one of the fastest selling songs even though it was not first week. Fierzig (talk) 18:25, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Fierzig: Then that would make it one of the biggest selling songs in terms of how many copies it sold, but not a fast-selling song in terms of the amount of time it took to sell that many copies. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 18:57, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It was an individual week of 800K sold. 800K/1week Fierzig (talk) 19:00, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Fierzig: You're misunderstanding. Yes it sold 800k in a week, but in which week after its release? That's what I'm referring to, and why I said big-selling but not really fast-selling. A song might sell a million copies 2 months after it came out, but another sells a million 1 month after it came out. Both would be big sellers but only one would be a fast seller. Get it now? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 19:12, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

BTS

This is wrong. Adele does not have the record for fastest selling album, BTS does with 4 million and more preorders. Jasminewillis (talk) 17:24, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jasminewillis: Preorders don't equal sales. And the article doesn't mention worldwide records. - Ïvana (talk) 18:07, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jasminewillis: the article breaks down the fastest selling albums per COUNTRY listed. Each section even says so in its heading. So the information is correct. Also there is no official body that tracks worldwide sales to be able to dub one particular album the fastest selling over all others hence the reason why the opening pgraphs don't mention any album there. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 19:47, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Spammed be spammers regarding '30' by Adele

This article is being fakely edited and '30' album by Adele is added as top selling album in many countries and even in US with 6M+ copies sold. Actually, neither Adele nor her source has confirmed release date for album, neither order nor pre-order for album is available. There is no official announcement for the album nor album title. The album is not even released yet! I was shocked when I saw the lists in US, Canada and some other countries where in the top list there is album titled '30'.

This is misleading in the trustful website like Wikipedia and I hope you will immediately correct all those lists.

Edit: Thank you for quick response and quick change.

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liambutera (talk • contribs) 14:57, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

@Liambutera: Done. - Ïvana (talk) 15:36, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Lists of fastest-selling albums

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Lists of fastest-selling albums's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Billboard":

• From Shania Twain: "Shania Twain Debuts New Song, Announces 2018 Tour on 'The Tonight Show'". Billboard. Archived from the original on August 20, 2017. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
• From Eminem: Trakin, Roy. "Eminem First to Receive Two Digital RIAA Diamond Certifications". Billboard. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
• From List of best-selling Latin albums in the United States: "Latin Albums". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. Archived from the original on January 6, 2010. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
• From Purple Rain (album): Partridge, Kennet (June 24, 2014). "Prince's 'Purple Rain' at 30: Classic Track-by-Track Album Review". Billboard. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
• From Daft Punk: Live Album To Chronicle Daft Punk Tour Billboard. Retrieved 17 August 2007. Archived 21 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine
• From Taylor Swift: Pietroluongo, Silvio (August 11, 2010). "Taylor Swift Makes Sparkling Hot 100 Entrance". Billboard. Archived from the original on January 31, 2016. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• From Let's Talk About Love: Larry LeBlanc (26 December 1998). "Seagram, Dion Led Canadian Biz" (PDF). Billboard. p. 61. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
• From Bad (album): Unterberger, Andrew; Christman, Ed (August 31, 2017). "How Michael Jackson's 'Bad' Became the First Album to Notch Five Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s". Billboard. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
• From Map of the Soul: Persona: Herman, Tamar (March 11, 2019). "BTS Announces 'Map of the Soul: Persona' Album". Billboard. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 12, 2019.
• From Susan Boyle: "2011 Billboard Music Awards Winners List". Billboard. Archived from the original on 9 January 2015. Retrieved 28 November 2015.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 17:16, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Worldwide section

Does worth a section like with countries listed, in terms of (debut) worldwide sales?. Ofc, if so should be always claimed sales, with reliable sources according to Wikipedia's acceptance. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 19:26, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Would you mind rephrasing your question? I don't understand what you're trying to ask/say based on the current wording. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 04:58, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Céline Dion - Encore un soir

Hello! I just wanted to propose adding Encore un soir by Céline Dion to the France section. I found multiple sources claiming over 216,000 units sold in its first week.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrmWjAQWIAE6D8O.jpg:large

https://www.aficia.info/news-aficia/celine-dion-numero-ventes-nouvel-album-soir/76934

https://www.ozap.com/actu/celine-dion-demarrage-phenomenal-pour-encore-un-soir-son-nouvel-album/506352

https://www.chartsinfrance.net/Celine-Dion/news-102411.html

https://www.aficia.info/charts/ventes-de-la-semaine-35-celine-dion-cartonne-britney-spears-et-m-pokora-demarrent-timidement/76998

https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/musique/201609/03/01-5016963-celine-dion-etablit-une-nouvelle-marque-en-france.php

https://www.programme-tv.net/news/musique/93206-celine-dion-bat-un-record-historique-avec-son-album-encore-un-soir/#

https://www.chartsinfrance.net/actualite/news-102422.html 73.69.67.232 (talk) 02:14, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

UK top 10: Oasis / Adele

I know this was raised in 2015, but the lead clearly states that this article covers sales in the first week of release. By our own criteria, 'Be Here Now' should be in first place since it sold more in the first seven days than '25'. There was a suggestion at the time (and mentioned in the discussion above) that the Oasis figure included 'panel sales' which were an estimate, but this was confirmed to not be the case by the Official Charts Company. The source for this section clearly states that 'Be Here Now' sold 813,000 in the first week, while '25' sold 803,000. I can't see any reason why our list doesn't reflect that. Effy Midwinter (talk) 12:27, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Ed Sheeran sales numbers (UK)

Regarding the fastest-selling albums in the UK, I was wondering if the pure sales numbers for Ed Sheeran's album ÷ (Divide) are accurate.

The article states as follows:

"The highly anticipated third album (pronounced ‘Divide’) shifted a staggering 672,000 this week, giving Ed the highest opening week album sales in Official Chart history for a male artist and the third fastest-seller ever."

However, the author also mentions this:

"...the album has performed strongly across all formats this week. ÷ was driven predominantly by physical sales (62%), 26% from downloads and 12% streaming equivalent sales, the latter being a new record for the highest first-week streaming sales for an album ever."

Moreover:

"Ed's third LP accumulated 79,000 album streams, already overtaking Stormzy’s Gang Signs & Prayer that set a new record last week."

My question is then: Are those 672,000 units truly pure sales units or does this overall number include 79,000 album streams? Marval4787 (talk) 15:34, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 October 2025

re-add adele’s 25 first week worldwide sales which is 5.706.000 as this source states: http://www.mediatraffic.de/albums-week49-2015.htm 93.147.229.237 (talk) 09:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made.

Sorry, I don't think this the source you're providing is reputable enough. Slomo666 (talk) 10:15, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand why not. It was good enough for ten years until the obsessive vandalization of this page started a few weeks ago. 84.46.208.209 (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

They are right, Mediatraffic cant be used according to WP:BADCHARTSAVOID. You might help to find a reliable source from a major newspaper or, a reputable music publication. Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:29, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Universal Music Canada lists The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift as selling 5.5 million globally, is this verfiable? https://www.universalmusic.ca/press-releases/taylor-swifts-the-life-of-a-showgirl-earns-biggest-first-week-in-music-history-with-over-4-million-u-s-and-over-5-5-million-global-album-equivalent-units/ ~2025-33585-20 (talk) 21:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Brazil

The Xegundo Xou da Xuxa source doesn't state that 1.2 million copies were sold to the public, but rather that this specific quantity was shipped to stores. The same happens with Rita Lee's albums: 400,000 copies of Saúde were shipped by the end of 1981, and by October 1982 the album had sold only 430,000. This also applies to Flerte Fatal (1987), which was published with 500,000 copies distributed across record stores in Brazil, but by the end of that year only 250,000 had been purchased by consumers.

So far, the album with the most copies sold in Brazil in a single week appears to have been the self-titled LP by Mamonas Assassinas, which sold 350,000 copies. However, since the Brazilian music market is similar to Argentina and Mexico, it's likely that some album sold a much higher number (of which I am not yet aware).

I'll ping @GustavoCza:, who contributes a lot to the page and is also Brazilian, so that we can resolve this doubt. Bloodinthewine (talk) 21:52, 11 February 2026 (UTC)