List of best-selling albums worldwide
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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This is a list of the world's best-selling albums. The criteria are that the figure must have been published by a reliable source and the album must have sold at least 20 million copies worldwide. The highest sales figure reported for an album is added to the list. Groupings are based on different sales benchmarks, the highest being for claims of at least 100 million copies, and the lowest being for claims of 20–25 million copies. Albums are listed in order of number of copies sold and there-after by the artist's first name. This list contains any type of album, including studio, greatest hits, compilation, various artists, soundtrack and remix.
A number of issues make exact figures difficult to calculate, historical data before the 1980s and from developing countries are also incomplete. Additionally fans, record companies and the media are prone to exaggerating sales figures to boost the image of the relevant act.
Thriller is the best selling album of all time, though sales figures for the album vary between different sources the album is cited as selling between 45 million and 108 million copies worldwide.
