This is a list of the best-selling albums of the 21st century to date based on IFPI certification and Nielsen SoundScan sales tracking. The criteria are that the album must have been published (including self-publishing by the artist), and the album must have shipped at least 10 million units starting from January 1, 2001. Units sold include physical copies and digital downloads.
From 2022, IFPI reported three formats of sales chart, newly created Global vinyl album chart, combination of physical copies and digital downloads as Global album sales chart and Global all format chart for totaling of all sales.[1]
Colors | |
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Studio albums | |
Greatest hits and compilations | |
Soundtracks |
Release year |
Album | Artist/s | Nationality | Worldwide sales (in millions) |
Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | 21 | Adele | United Kingdom | 31.0 | [2] |
Release year |
Album | Artist/s | Nationality | Worldwide sales (in millions) |
Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | The Eminem Show | Eminem | United States | 27.0 | [3] |
2002 | Come Away with Me | Norah Jones | United States | 27.0 | [4] |
2015 | 25 | Adele | United Kingdom | 23.0 | [5] |
Release year |
Album | Artist/s | Nationality | Worldwide sales (in millions) |
Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | The Fame | Lady Gaga | United States | 18.0 | [6] |
2003 | Fallen | Evanescence | United States | 17.0 | [7] |
2002 | A Rush of Blood to the Head | Coldplay | United Kingdom | 17.0 | [8] |
2002 | Let Go | Avril Lavigne | Canada | 16.0 | [9] |
2003 | Meteora | Linkin Park | United States | 16.0 | [10] |
2006 | Back to Black | Amy Winehouse | United Kingdom | 16.0 | [11] |
2004 | Confessions | Usher | United States | 15.0 | [12] |
2004 | American Idiot | Green Day | United States | 15.0 | [13] |
2014 | 1989 | Taylor Swift | United States | 14.0 | [14] |
2001 | Laundry Service | Shakira | Colombia | 13.0 | [15] |
2001 | Missundaztood | Pink | United States | 13.0 | [16] |
2005 | X&Y | Coldplay | United Kingdom | 13.0 | [17] |
2005 | Curtain Call: The Hits | Eminem | United States | 13.0 | [18] |
'The Fame' sold over 18 million copies worldwide and won a Brit Award for best international album.
Upon its release in 2003, Evanescence's debut album, Fallen, became a rock phenomenon, selling 17 million copies worldwide, spending 43 weeks in the top 10 and becoming one of only eight albums to spend an entire year in the Billboard top 50.
Then the music begins and I remember why Green Day sold over 15 million copies of "American Idiot" – it's a really good album.
Albums sold worldwide. Parachutes (8.5 million); A Rush of Blood to the Head (15 million); X&Y (13 million); Viva La Vida (10 million); Mylo Xyloto (6 million).
After leaving Columbia University to pursue a singing career, Keys broke into the music scene in 2001 with her album, Songs in A Minor, which sold 12 million copies worldwide and won Keys five Grammys.
The title track to Dion's 2002 return "A New Day Has Come" spent 21 weeks at No. 1 at AC- setting a record -while the album sold 12 million copies worldwide, according to Sony.
Let us be frank: Dido's debut, 'No Angel', wasn't much cop either. But it was superior to follow-up 'Life For Rent', which sold over 12 million copies worldwide and was the seventh best-selling album of the 2000s in the UK.
Blunt's debut album, Back to Bedlam, has sold 11 million copies worldwide, making it the most successful British album of the new century.
World-wide album sales with All the Right Reasons the most popular selling more than 11 million copies followed by Silver Side Up with 10 million.
'The Emancipation of Mimi', to be the biggest-selling album of the year worldwide (10 million copies sold), taking her career total to well over 160 million.
That was also the last time one of her albums sold over 10 million copies, so maybe Madge is pulling out all of the stops to get another multi-million hit on her hands.
(...) and "Britney", released in 2001, sold 10 million copies (150,000 in Brazil).Alt URL
'Songs About Jane' sold an estimated 10 million copies worldwide, but that was not enough to assure top executives at Sony BMG, the music giant that distributed it, that the rights to Maroon 5's future recordings were worth the asking price.
Releases first album I Dreamed A Dream through Simon Cowell's label. Sells 10 million copies worldwide.