Open Thread: Eagles vs. Michael Jackson
David Kurtz asserted on the front page this morning that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is actually not the best-selling album of all time - The Eagles' "Greatest Hits 1971-1975" tops the list. His source? Sales figures from the RIAA.
So many readers - and TPM staffers - have taken issue with this claim that we've set up this open thread as a forum for Eagles and MJ fans to go head to head (instead of flooding the TPM inbox with complaints). Enjoy the discussion, and enjoy the holiday!
Advertisement
http://bit.ly/c6eiH
the RIAA's tally is VERY suspect. they count 1 sale of a double album as 2 sales. if you buy a 5 album box set once, they count it as 5 sales. additionally, they count the amount shipped, not the amount bought. there could be 4 million eagles CDs laying around, unbought, that would count towards this total.
I'm not saying It's not Eagles at 1 and Jackson at 2 (which, I assume will switch by the end of the year), just that almost everything from 3 down is wrong.
especially of note-- Hootie and the Blowfish, Britney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys have all outsold the top beatles album by at least 5 million units each.
July 3, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I Love The Eagles! Eagles Greatest Hits was the very first "grownup" record I ever bought.
I thought the best selling album of all time was Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon? Is this not so?
July 3, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
dark side of the moon has the longest tenure on the billboard 200, but is not the best selling album.
July 3, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
RIAA only tracks US domestic sales. The 100 million + figure commonly cited for Thriller includes worldwide sales.
http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinum.php?content_selector=criteria
"Only domestic sales and sales to U.S. military post exchanges may be included. The requesting company must separate PX sales from other accounts on sales sheets. Export sales outside the United States are not included in certification."
July 3, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Best Selling Album Ever may well be some preacher reciting tales from the bible or singing hymns ...
Best-selling book lists routinely omit Christian-themed books - similar deal may be the case here.
Just speculation. Please Do Not Wax Wroth.
July 3, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
At least give RIAA give credit for units sold rather than "sales in dollars," like the MPAA does for movies. Really, ticket prices have tripled since 1982, so now you can get passed the ET and Star Wars and Raiders? Congratulations?
The big problem with the list is that as a "history" list, it is accumulating. That's not a problem for "best selling ever" but for gauging an album's real sales impact, you probably want to know what sold the most in the 1 yr after its release. Can Wolfram Alpha give us annual sales for these albums? 8-)
My recollection is that Thriller got to about 22m units in its first year (12/82-11/83), and the album it displaced for best selling was Fleetwood Mac's Rumors, which I think was in the 17m-18m range.
The Eagles GH and Dark Side and LZIV will accumulate consistently over time b/c there's always a next generation going to college or learning to play guitar. (Surprised that GnR is so high up, but it rises for the same reason: its 3 hits are bleeping awesome and perfect for college.)
So, it's likely that MJ's death will surge his sales in the short-term such that it will leapfrog The Eagles.
The bad news for MJ (and whoever inherits his catalog) is that he can only die once...or can he?
July 3, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's "past" not "passed." Copyeditor, please!
July 3, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"At least give RIAA give credit for units sold rather than "sales in dollars," like the MPAA does for movies. Really, ticket prices have tripled since 1982, so now you can get passed the ET and Star Wars and Raiders? Congratulations?"
Actually, the other variable to control for is population. The population in the US in 1980 was about 226 million, compared to today's 307 million.
So, in movies, the apples-to-apples comparison would be admissions(tickets) per capita. In records, units sold per capita.
Only one movie has ever sold more tickets than the number of people living in the US at the time, and that's Gone With the Wind. At today's ticket prices, a movie would need to have a US domestic gross of over $2.2 billion (using boxofficemojo.com's 2009 ticket average for 2009 of $7.18 -- which I think is low, but hey -- times the 306.8 million people in the US today).
I've never punched out the numbers for records. Per capita, they're much less popular than movies.
July 6, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank goodness that "best-selling" is not assumed to equate to "best." Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Carole King's Tapestry and Johnny Mathis' Greatest Hits were (and remain) all sellers of high volume, and at least two of them are of far greater artistic merit that MJ's product.
I'll be glad when all this hype subsides. Jackson is perhaps one of the most overrated artists in popular music. Child star? Definitely, but so was Stevie Wonder. Music video icon? Of course, but so are The Buggles. Dancer? Sure. Singer? Well, ok. Cultural phenom, yes. But musician? Good luck finding a photo of Jacko anywhere near a musical instrument.
July 3, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
A matter of opinion, obviously. Since when is a singer not a musician?
Quote:
Jackson's abilities as a vocalist were well regarded; Allmusic described him as a "blindingly gifted vocalist". At the time, Rolling Stone compared his vocals to the "breathless, dreamy stutter" of Stevie Wonder. Their analysis was also that "Jackson's feathery-timbered tenor is extraordinarily beautiful. It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that's used very daringly". 1982 saw the release of Thriller, and Rolling Stone were of the opinion that Jackson was then singing in a "fully adult voice" that was "tinged by sadness".
July 3, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even if he's a musician he's "blindingly" (apt word, that) overrated. He's more of a pop culture touchstone. It's folly to predict how someone will be remembered years from now, of course, but I'd predict it will be for the pop-culture trappings rather than the music itself, which is utterly disposable. And even if one grants he was relevant musically, for how long a period? Two and a half album's worth? That doesn't compare to Stevie Wonder, James Brown, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, etc.
The one-album Sex Pistols exerted far more lasting influence on MUSIC (as opposed to that ancillary stuff).
YMMV of course.
July 3, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who cares?
July 3, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not I.
July 3, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hate the f***ing Eagles, man.
No further comment.
July 3, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me too, actually. Though Joe Walsh's stuff (With and w/o James Gang) is worthwhile.
July 3, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm more in your camp. I don't "hate" them like I loathe Gene Simmons, but I don't go out of my way to listen to their stuff. (Except maybe "Take it Easy." Doesn't deserve to be the #1 selling album ever, that's for sure!)
Love Michael Jackson though!
July 3, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Other than the Beatles, there's some terrible music at the tops of those lists (starting with the horrendous Eagles).
July 3, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
RIAA makes no distinction between an original album and a compilation?
July 3, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
What difference does it make one way or the other? This is the musical sales equivalent of a big dick contest. For most people it is a question of no importance at all.
July 3, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta agree with your "big dick contest" description. Trivia fights along these lines really suggest one of those "male brain" concerns to me and are mystifying. I just don't see a heck of a lot of difference in end result between someone describing an album as "possibly the best selling of all time" instead of "definitely postively proven the best selling album of all time." Arguing passionately about it is fury signfying nothing, a very curious pursuit. Hello! If it's so close, the second best selling of all time still make a heck of a lot of money and is equally famous, no?
P.S. Ok, I'll give you that beauty contest contestants care who gets the label, too. But I'd argue that they have male brains. :-)
July 3, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
After Michael Jackson's death for sure that Thriller will become the best selling album of all time and will surpass the Eagles album. I just bought Thriller 2 days ago and it has had a resergence.
July 3, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a better head cranker: When did the age of Rock and Roll die?
I believe we are living in a post rock era.
I've heard it said that the Roman Empire was dead 50 years before people realized it was gone and not coming back. That has always lead me to believe that you might know when an era started, but you don't necessarily realize when it ended.
It's a lot like saying when did impressionism (in painting) end and post-impressionism begin (ironically impressionisms era dominated approximately the same decades as Rock, only one century apart)
I think history will say that the Rock and Roll era died in 1995. And I have felt that since 1995.
Why? Well it came to me while reading a Rolling Stone article that year on Hootie and the Blow Fish.
1995 was the year Hootie and the Blow Fish's album "Cracked Rear View" was #1. The Rolling Stone article I read said that their style was reminiscent of the 1970s. Coming from St. Louis, where musically, the 1970s never ended (and is still going strong) I had to agree with them.
Rock had many manifestations: The original rockabilly, surf, British invasion, psychadelic (my favorite), folk, motown, progressive, disco, southern, funk, punk, technopop, new wave, and grung.
I count rap as a transition out of Rock and boy bands and the like as post-rock.
My, fairly unenlightened take. But I'd like to hear what others think.
Every artistic era has a beginning and an end. Personally I don't know why impressionism ever ended, but it did. And increasingly, painting became less pop art and more esoteric.
Likewise I hate to think that Rock era is over, and I'm sure there are lots of good rock being produced, as I'm sure there are lots of good impressionistic paintings being made. But as an era, I think we've moved on. Its 2009 - 15 years after I figured historians would label the end of the rock era.
July 3, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot to point out - in reading that 1995 article, it occurred to me that when a format is recirculated, instead of spawning a new format (1970s style rock), that that singaled the end of rock - it was out of manifestations of it's original form and that rap/hip hop and b-bands were a new era.
I also predicted rap back in 1976 when suffering through disco's high time. My favorite era is late 1960s (1970-73 is transition from that era for me). Psychedelic rock emphasized a lot of melody and high frequency sounds. Disco's bass and beat drowned out the melody, which for me was the best part of music. I figured then, that the next step is just eliminated the melody all together. Which is precisely what Rap did.
Rap and hip/hop might still be considered rock, but you've thrown out melody and much of high frequency instrumentation leaving only bass and percussions - so, while it's had a long life, I see it as probably a dead end.
B-Band and Britney Spears and the like, is pop music, but not rock. To the extent it's rock, it's a rehash of an older style.
okay, enough of my philistine wondering.
July 3, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mojo Nixon, anyone?
I'm only kidding
Can't you tell?
I love his sensitive music
Idiot poetry, swell
You and your kind
Are killing rock and roll
It's not because you are O L D
It's cause you ain't got no soul!
Don't be afraid of fun
Loosen up your ponytail!
Be wild, young, free and dumb
Get your head out of your tail
Don Henley must die!
Don't let him get back together
With Glenn Frey!
- Don Henley Must Die!
July 3, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are we controlling for population growth?
July 3, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
A BIG minus for the Eagles is ESPN's Chris Berman's obsession with them. Ugh! Obnoxious!
PS - ("You're with me, leather...")
July 3, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
YEA BACH!
YEA BEETHOVEN!!
YEA BRAHMS!!!
YEA BOOGY-WOOGY!!!!
July 3, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't care who sold the most albums. Popular music: Catchy beat and melody that anyone can be humming by the second listen, and anyone with a brain will tire of by the tenth listen. Few of the musician's that move me ever make it into the Top 40.
July 4, 2009 4:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Man, he's out of key there. Try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcnUvZqvBiI&feature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOixtTHVi4&feature=related
July 7, 2009 4:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
and Regina Spektor's spectacular new record continues to break through the bubblegum haze.
http://www.amazon.com/Far-Regina-Spektor/dp/B00204AA0O/ref=ntt_mus_ep_wlb_dpt
July 4, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Myself, I find more interest in matters on the other end of the sales figures. One of my very favorite rock groups of all time, the Hampton Grease Band, released only one LP on Columbia Records, and it is rumored to be the second worst-selling LP of CBS Record's history. Upon hearing this, I was told that the very worst-selling was the Marcel Marceau album. but I check, and find that Marceau released on MGM. Surely Marceau wasn't on both labels!?!
All this to state that, when I hear phrases such as "Michael Jackson", "The Eagles", or other such children's music, I reach for my weirdo avant-gardeists.
July 4, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have them both and love them both! Don't make me choose!
July 6, 2009 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink