Time to update your bar trivia knowledge. For years, Michael Jackson’s Thriller has the best-selling album in history, but no longer. The Recording Industry Association of America has certified The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits 1971 – 1975 38x Platinum. That’s 38 million albums sold, making it the best-selling album of all time.
There’s a bit of guesswork involved here, as the RIAA just started factoring streams from places like Spotify and YouTube into their counts in 2013. Today, 1,500 streams or 10 song downloads equals one album sale. So this isn’t exactly a hard science but according to the official rule book, Thriller is now the No. 2 spot, despite being the objectively superior album. (It’s just true. Sorry.)
