2003 Top selling albums

[Popmartijn]

Hello,

In some (Taiwanese?) newsgroup I saw a list of the 2003 Best selling albums. Judging by the numbers I think it is of worldwide sales, but I don't have any source of this (nor do I know the period for which those sales were calculated). So take it with a large grain of salt. The following numbers are thus only an indication, not the absolute truth.

1 Come Away-With Me Norah Jones 12,821,000
2 Let Go-Avril Lavigne 11,736,000
3 Up!-Shania Twain 11,183,000
4 Get Rich Or Die Trying-50 Cent 8,789,000
5 Stripped-Christina Aguilera 8,643,000
6 Justified-Justin Timberlake 7,585,000
7 8 Mile Various 7,366,000
8 The Eminem Show-Eminem 7,241,000
9 Fallen-Evanescence 6,954,000
10 This Is Me...Then-Jennifer Lopez 6,385,000
11 A Rush Of Blood To The Head-Coldplay 6,274,000
12 Meteora-Linkin Park 6,114,000
13 Escapology-Robbie Williams 5,404,000
14 M!ssundaztood-P!nk 5,125,000
15 Home-Dixie Chicks 4,515,000
16 Shaman-Santana 4,494,000
17 30 #1 Hits-Elvis Presley 4,464,000
18 Dutty Rock-Sean Paul 4,299,000
19 Best Of-1990-2003-U2 4,064,000
20 Dangerously In Love-Beyonce Knowles 3,894,000
21 St.Anger Metallica 3,727,000
22 200 km/hr In The Wrong Lane-T.a.t.u 3,587,000
23 40 Licks Rolling Stones 3,567,000
24 Nellyville-Nelly 3,560,000
25 Nirvana-Nirvana 3,471,000
26 Audioslave-Audioslave 2,972,000
27 The Young & The Hopeless Good Charlotte 2,964,000
28 One Heart-Celine Dion 2.963,000
29 Chocolate Factory-R.Kelly 2,957,000
30 More Than You Think You Are-Matchbox 20 2,831,000
31 Under Construction-Missy Elliot 2,811,000
32 1970-2002-The Greatest Hits-Elton John 2,729,000
33 Chicago Various 2,683,000
34 Life For Rent-Dido 2,597,000
35 American Life-Madonna 2,552,000
36 Tim McGraw & The Dancehall Doctors Tim McGraw 2,518,000
37 It Had To Be You¡KGreat American Songbook-Rod Stewart 2,503,000
38 Blueprint 2-The Gift & The Curse-Jay Z 2,457,000
39 By The Way-Red Hot Chili Peppers 2,395,000
40 Testify-Phil Collins 2,370,000
41 I Care 4 U-Greatest Hits-Aaliyah 2,363,000
42 Sentimento-Andrea Boccelli 2,329,000
43 Elephant-The White Stripes 2,301,000
44 Cocky-Kid Rock 2,299,000
45 Josh Groban-Josh Groban 2,232,000
46 Room For Squares-John Mayer 2,215,000
47 One Love-Blue 2,194,000
48 Does This Look Infected?-Sum41 2,184,000
49 Charmbracelet-Mariah Carey 2,119,000
50 Cry-Faith Hill 2,106,000

So U2 didn't do too bad, with more than 4 million copies sold of The Best Of 1990-2000. Should this really mean only sales since 1 January 2003, then all the sales of last year (when the album came out) are not counted.

C ya!

Marty

P.S. 2,119,000 people still were stupid enough to buy a Mariah Carey record?
And 2,963,000 people were tempted to buy a Celine Dion album!?

[MrBrau1]

11 million assholes bought the April Levines CD.

[STING2]

I'd say for the most part this list looks accurate although the top 5 seem to be kind of inflated. Parhaps this is a November 1 2002 to November 1 2003 sales period. The list looks accurate until you get into the top 10. But I think if one did some research on the RIAA and IFPI sites, one would be able to estimate if the top 5 or top 10 of this list is accurate.

Notice that selling 4 million copies this year was enough to qualify an album to be in the top 20 worldwide.

Very interesting. I'll have to look some more into this.

Thanks for posting it.

[mayflower]

Yeah,like the Shania Twain "Up" album.
Honestly I didn't even know she was doing anything at all.And now I hear that she sells even more than the biggest scams of this year!(Justin,Christina and Eminem).

[verte76]

Interesting.

[AcrobatMan]

i always say popularity is over-rated.

[mayflower]

I think you left out Britney Spears' new album.

[alexvilagosh]

Almost as many people bought Kid Rock's album as people bought Elephant by the White Stripes

[S|aney]

It's amazing to see all the "no talent ass-clowns" that outsold Coldplay and U2.