Thriller

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

1. Why is Thriller the biggest-selling album evar*?

2. Do you think anything will ever outsell it?

*There's no official documentation of this but nobody I've found seriously disputes it either. Wikipedia suggests the worldwide gap between it and the next-biggest selling is something like 60 million copies, though I personally am suspicious of the "100 million" figure.

Comments

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Because it had good songs and they released half the album as singles and the videos were very good, and this was a time when people still bought singles, and albums, and cassettes, and CDs, and music video was still new so there probably wasn't quite so much competition on the newfangled MTV, and Quincy Jones, and everything came together at the right time.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Dark Side of the Moon had a 10 year head start - where's that on the list?

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

There was less music publicised and even made. Nowadays, a really great pop album like, say, Blackout, has much more to compete with. That, and the really aggressive high-level marketing campaign - a Jackson trademark because Janet did it with Rhythm Nation to similar success singles-wise though obv not album-wise.

So no I don't see it being outsold.

dion side of the moon

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

on the celine biography i watched on sun -- which i will blog shortly i promise -- it said she outsold all at 250 million BUT didn't break this down at all

so i imagine this would be the totality of her LP output (inc titanic OST lps?)

at the turkish yesterday the torkish-bosh version of "total eclipse of the heart" was followed by a turkish not-so-bosh version of the titanic song

Re: dion side of the moon

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

on the celine biography i watched on sun -- which i will blog shortly i promise

Please do!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

2. No, especially if MJ ever dies (ha, like that's gonna happen) and they have to re-release old stuff instead of churning out new stuff cf Elvis. Even if he doesn't die they'll probably re-release it all on the super-duper new straight-to-brain electrical pulse format in 2031, and every other new format before and after.

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

I base this on absolutely nothing, but surely its sales have stalled over the last 10 years due to events in his personal life, and that's only going to get worse over the next few decades as ver kids don't have an image of him as the guy who invented modern pop music, just the freaky recluse they see on the news? So if Thriller has flatlined... it might take ages but by the time the sun has burnt itself out and we are ruled by apes something else might have had long enough to outsell it? People aren't going to stop buying Hotel California. Unfortunately.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i doubt it's flatlined, if you mean "no one buying it anymore" -- think of that youtube video of philippino prison inmates doing the zombie choreography: obviously if yr a philippino prison inmate yr possibly slightly less bothered by "guilt by association" (seeing as it is trumped by definition actually having been found guilty yrself) but this still implies it is a meme with juice in it... esp.outside the anglo gossipsphere

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

1. Why is Thriller the biggest-selling album evar*?
Pop Open

2. Do you think anything will ever outsell it?
Pop Open!

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I think the 100 million figure is completely plucked out of the air. Anyway, apart from the videos and the moonwalk, let's not forget the fact that 'Thriller' was almost the first 'focus group' album. That's not to detract from the quality of the album, but it had songs that were pure r & b, the big rock crossover ('Beat It'), the big sappy pop crossover ('The Girl Is Mine') etc.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

most pop albums were constructed like this prior to 1967, a touch of something for everyone (admittedly not put together via data from actual real out-in-the-world focus groups, but definitely via the knowledge and experience of the record company's in-house equivalent; it's largely what they hired the producer for...)

Macca!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Has he actually guested on anyone else's album like that?

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

For some reason whenever I am signed on to slsk the only thing people ever download from me is Thriller. I don't know if that's a testament to my terrible taste in music or the greatness of this album.