List of best-selling albums in United Kingdom
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The best-selling album in the United Kingdom is '' Greatest Hits'', a
compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...
by the British
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band Queen that was first released in 1981. , it has sold more than 7 million copies, of which approximately 124,000 have been from downloads. Queen's second greatest hits album, '' Greatest Hits II'', has sold approximately 4 million copies since being released in 1991, and is the tenth biggest-selling album in the UK. These sales figures include 50% of sales of box sets containing both albums and 33% of sales of box sets of Queen's three ''Greatest Hits'' albums. Of the UK's top 60 best-selling albums, more than half are by British artists. Fourteen are by American artists, with the rest being from Ireland, Canada, Sweden and Jamaica. Ten acts feature on the chart with more than one album, with Queen and Michael Jackson both featuring twice within the top ten. The only acts to feature more than twice are Coldplay, Michael Jackson, Take That and Robbie Williams; Williams features on the chart four times, more than any other artist. The most-represented record label is Parlophone with seven entries, while the decade that appears the most is the 2000s, with 20 of the entries having been released during that period, despite its "general background of declining sales and
internet piracy Online piracy or software piracy is the practice of downloading and distributing copyrighted works digitally without permission, such as music or software. The principle behind piracy has predated the creation of the Internet, but its online popul ...
". According to the Official Charts Company (OCC), which collects album sales data in the UK, an album is defined as being a type of
music release An art release is the premiere of an artistic production and its presentation and marketing to the public. Film A film release is the authorization by the owner of a completed film to a public exhibition of the film. The exhibition may be in theat ...
that features more than four tracks or is longer than 25 minutes in duration. Sales of albums in the UK were first published by the music magazine '' Record Mirror'', who compiled a weekly chart of the country's five biggest-selling records for the week of 22 July 1956. ''Record Mirror'' first number one was '' Songs for Swingin' Lovers!'' by
Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
. Since then, four albums have gone on to sell more than five million copies each: ''Greatest Hits'' by Queen, '' Gold: Greatest Hits'' by ABBA, ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composi ...
'' by The Beatles and '' 21'' by Adele. The top nine best-selling albums have each sold at least four million copies. Since 1994, sales of albums have been monitored by the OCC, who took over compiling the weekly UK Albums Chart. Sales certifications for albums are awarded by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipments, physical sales and downloads of albums, and, , streaming of album tracks. The BPI began awarding certifications soon after it was founded in April 1973. Initially, certifications were based on the revenue received by the album manufacturers – records that generated revenue of were awarded
silver certification Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
, £150,000 represented gold and £1 million was platinum. Over the following six years, the thresholds for silver and gold certifications both grew twice – the threshold for platinum certification remained at £1 million. In January 1979, this method of certifying sales was abolished, and certifications were instead based on unit sales to retail outlets: sales of 60,000 were awarded silver, gold for 100,000 and platinum for 300,000. Multi-platinum awards were introduced in February 1987;As an example, a 2× Platinum certification would reflect 2 × 300,000 = 600,000 sales. digital downloads have been counted towards unit sales since 2004. Certifications for albums released before April 1973 were retroactively awarded in August 2013 for sales from 1994 onwards, and then again in February 2016 for all previous sales. The highest-certified album is ''Greatest Hits'', which has been awarded platinum certification 23 times, representing 6,900,000 units.


Best-selling albums

Positions are as of July 2016; sales, where shown, are from the reference given, which may be at a different date, and cannot be used to infer changes in position.


See also

* ''''


Notes


References

General (chart positions) * Specific


External links


Official UK Albums Top 100
at the Official Charts Company {{DEFAULTSORT:Best-selling albums in the United Kingdom British music industry British music-related lists United Kingdom Albums, best-selling