SALES OF PHYSICAL COPIES OF ALBUMS, both compact discs (CD) and good ol’ long-playing records (LP) certainly ain’t what they used to be. MRC Data recently tallied up those sales and provided the media with a Top 10 best-selling album artists of the first two decades of the 21st century. And Elvis was still among the them!
For the list, MRC Data—formerly Nielson SoundScan and Nielsen Music—includes CDs and LPs (sales of which are still growing year by year). I have no idea how accurate MRC, but Billboard relies on it to assemble their charts while the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) does not.
Here is that list with the total sales of albums in the US:
1. Adele 23,924,000
2. Taylor Swift 22,972,000
3. Eminem 13,862,000
4. Justin Bieber 12,098,000
5. Drake 10,526,000
6. The Beatles 10,309,000
7. Luke Bryan 9,572,000
8. Lady Antebellum 9,452,000
9. Michael Buble 9,444,000
10. Elvis Presley 9,278,000
That’s the list. Does it include sales of Elvis CDs and records on the Follow That Dream (FTD) imprint, of which there are now more than 300 titles? I don’t know but if not, then adding them bump Elvis up to #3.
The 2015 album IF I CAN DREAM featured Presley’s vocals dropped onto newly recorded backing tracks provided by England’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a massive seller in the UK but only a modest seller in the US.
Elvis still among the best
So Elvis remains among the leaders in discs sold. I was as surprised to see him on the list as I was surprised not to see Led Zeppelin and Michael Jackson. And that’s it for one of the shortest articles that I have published on Elvis – A Touch Of Gold.
I was as surprised to see Elvis among the best-selling artists of this century as I was surprised not to see Led Zepellin and Michael Jackson. Click To Tweet
FEATURED IMAGE: The photo at the top of this page is of Taylor Swift. Normally, I would choose either a photo of Elvis or the artist who tapped the list—here that is Adele. I have plenty of photos of Elvis on this site and as much as I enjoy looking at Adele, I went with Ms. Swift for political reasons, this being the time of year that it is. I found this lovely photo accompanying the article “Taylor Swift’s Album ‘Lover’: Breaking Down the Most Telling Lyrics” on the US Magazine website.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
