We interrupt the wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage for this breaking news: “Thriller” is not the best-selling album of all time (via former Crawdaddy editor Greg Mitchell).
Late Update: This is like kicking an ant hill of music record-keeping aficionados. TPM Reader RW:
The Eagles Greatest 1971-1975 is the best selling album of all time. But it is a compilation album of tracks from the first four Eagles albums (the ones sans Joe Walsh.)
Thriller is the best selling album containing original songs of all time.
As such, having Thriller sell as many albums as it did is arguably the more impressive feat.
PS: I owned the Eagles Greatest on 8 track, on record, and later on cd (though I have since upgraded to an Eagles box set), so you can count me down for three of those sales.
Only own the latest remaster of Thriller.
Later Update: Enough readers have taken issue with the RIAA sales figures (domestic sales only, double counting of double albums, etc) that we’ve set up an open thread at TPMCafe for the Eagles and MJ fans to hash it out — and kill time on this holiday.
