CNN published an interesting article examining which classic albums are still selling well these days, and while my 1993 prediction in that “Pocket Full of Kryptonite” would go on to become the highest selling item in the history of human commerce isn’t looking so good, the list is about as high-schooler-just-discovering-music-and-spending-summer-job-money-ey as you’d expect it to be.
AC/DC’s “Back In Black” sold a phenominal 440,000 copies in 2006, setting the pace on a list of top sellers that includes Metallica’s Black Album, Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite For Destruction,” Bon Jovi’s “Cross Roads” (greatest hits), and pretty much every Michael Jackson record. The part that absolutely shocked me, though, was this heartstopping revelation:
Not everything maintains long-term success. Asia’s self-titled 1982 album was the biggest seller of 1982, but only sold 5,000 copies last year. Whitney Houston’s 1985 debut, also self-titled, was 1986′s top album, but now sells about 7,000 discs a year. The same trajectory has befallen past mega-hits like Ace of Base’s “The Sign,” Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and the Spice Girls’ “Spice.” Though one of the best selling artists of all time, Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut sold a measly 5,000 copies last year. The Backstreet Boys’ “Millennium” managed only 9,000 sales.
Are you actually telling me that Asia isn’t the most timeless band in contemporary music history? Well there is one thing album sales can’t measure, CNN, and that’s greatness. And Asia sells a billion trillion copies of that every time someone listens to one of their albums.
So which albums are going to still be selling in the six figures two decades from now? Radiohead? Coldplay? Justin Timberlake? The Artsy Monkeys, or whatever that one band was called? Asia, receiving renewed appreciation after a sea monster really does attack the world? Wyld Stallyns??
