Album sales
Album sales (also known as traditional album sales or pure album sales) is an activity related to selling music albums through record shops or online music store. Album sales reached its peak in English-language popular music from the mid 1960s to the mid 2000s (known as "album era") in which the album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. It was primarily driven by three successive music recording formats, the 33 1⁄3 rpm phonograph (gramophone) record, the audiocassette and the music compact disc. According to Guinness World Records, Michael Jackson's 1982 album Thriller still holds the record for the biggest album sales in history, with an estimated 66 million copies sold worldwide.
Technological developments in the early twentieth century led to the development of the vinyl long-playing (LP) album as an important medium for recorded music. Album sales were first reported by Billboard magazine on March 24, 1945. In 1948, Columbia Records began to bring out 33 1⁄3 rpm twelve-inch extended-play LPs that could play for as long as 52 minutes, or 26 minutes per side. Musical film soundtracks, jazz works, and thematic albums by singers such as Frank Sinatra quickly utilized the new longer format. Billboard launched its first regularly published weekly albums chart, Best Selling Popular Albums, on March 24, 1956. However, in the 1950s and into the 1960s, 45 rpm seven-inch single sales were considered the primary market for the recorded music industry, while albums were a secondary market. The careers of notable rock and roll performers such as Elvis Presley were driven primarily by single sales.
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