Oh god. I keep taking so long in between installments of The People’s Albums that it’s hard for me to know when I’ll ever complete this journey through the best selling albums in the U.S. Guess my only goal is to finish it before I die or before we eventually lose interest in writing for this blog (whichever happens first). I know I’d have to do another one of these bonus installments in order to round it out to an even 50 before starting on the top ten, but maybe I’ll figure out a way to weasel my way out of another bonus entry since I really need to get started on that top 10.

Album: Falling Into You
Artist: Celine Dion
Release Date: March 11, 1996
Copies Sold In The U.S.: 11.8 Million Continue reading →

Well it’s officially Fall. So before this blog starts to turn more spooky as well as toward some exciting upcoming movie releases, I wanted to get this bonus episode of The People’s Albums in. After all, what mega-selling album has a cover that radiates such quintessential Fall vibes?

Album: Tapestry
Artist: Carol King
Release Date: February 10, 1971
Copies Sold In U.S.: 13 million Continue reading →

Holy crap, we’ve almost reached the top 10. Though because the rankings of the top 50 best-selling albums in the U.S. has shifted since I started doing this countdown, the math has worked out that less than 39 albums have been written about. To remedy this, I’ll start doing some bonus entries to make sure I round this out to an even 50. I know, that may sound insane to give myself more work for a project that’s taken me years to finish, but we gotta do this right.

Album: Boston
Artist: Boston
Release Date: August 25, 1976
Copies Sold In U.S.: 17 million Continue reading →

Since it’s March 31 and we still haven’t had a single post all month, here’s an obligatory People’s Album entry to keep this from being the first completely postless month. Though don’t worry, word on the street is that we’ll be a little more active on here in the month ahead.

Album: Metallica (The Black Album)
Artist: Metallica
Release Date: August 12, 1991
Copies Sold In U.S.: 16 million Continue reading →

It looks like I took off 2020 completely from doing any installments of The People’s Albums, but I’m still so close to finishing out this seven-year journey that I just gotta keep pushing. Also, after catching up with The Bee Gees: How Do You Mend A Broken Heart? and the film Saturday Night Fever this past week, I finally feel ready to assess this cornerstone of the disco movement.

Album: Saturday Night Fever (The Original Movie Soundtrack)
Artist: The Bee Gees / Various Artists
Release Date: November 15, 1977
Copies Sold In The U.S.: 16 million Continue reading →

As I make my way through 2010s music, I figured I’d take a break from mere reviews to do a bonus People’s Album of the best selling album of this particular decade. The ‘10s were much less a decade of blockbuster album releases than the ‘00s or ‘90s before them for a number of reasons. The death of the monoculture, major record labels’ shifting influence, and physical media’s decline all made it hard to put out an album that simply everybody was listening to. Not to mention the effects that streaming had on how people consumed albums, or whether they bothered to listen to entire albums at all. It made for a weird decade for the album’s cultural relevance, and yet despite that, there were still a few that managed to break out and capture people’s ears, as well as their money. Continue reading →