Nielsen SoundScan & Billboard's 2011 Music Industry Report

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120105005547/en/Nielsen-Company-Billboard%E2%80%99s-2011-Music-Industry-Report

Album Sales Up for the First Time Since 2004. Digital Track & Digital Album Sales Reach New Highs. Overall Music Sales Break 1.6 Billion Mark for First Time.

Nielsen SoundScan top selling albums 2011

1 Adele - 21, 5,824,000
2 Michael Buble - Christmas, 2,452,000
3 Lady Gaga - Born This Way, 2,101,000
4 Lil’ Wayne - Tha Carter IV, 1,917,000
5 Jason Aldean - My Kinda Party, 1,576,000
6 Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More, 1,420,000
7 Drake - Take Care, 1,247,000
8 Justin Bieber - Under The Mistletoe, 1,245,000
9 Jay Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne, 1,232,000
10 Lady Antebellum - Own The Night, 1,204,000

http://www.billboard.com/news/the-best-of-2011-the-year-in-music-1005616852.story#/charts-year-end/the-billboard-200?year=2011

Billboard's list is different, even though it uses Nielsen SoundScan data. Maybe it's U.S. sales vs. global? Also doesn't share sales data, annoyingly. I got some global sales figures from some chart forums, and a Village Voice Pazz & Jop article.

A sampling of albums:

21 Beyonce - 4, 1,058,292 (11 global)
31 Britney Spears - Femme Fatale, 735,839 (25 global)
35 Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto, 1,006,352 (13 global)
39 Foo Fighters - Wasting Light, 663,146 (31 global)
44 Florence + The Machine - Lungs, 522,495
50 The Black Keys - Brothers, 449,221
80 Jill Scott - The Light Of The Sun, 394,000
100 Bon Iver - Bon Iver, 347,428
117 The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
123 Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
131 Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What
132 LMFAO - Sorry For Party Rocking
133 Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare
135 Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
153 The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
177 Eddie Vedder - Ukulele Songs
178 The Lonely Island - Turtleneck & Chain
179 Five Finger Death Punch - War Is The Answer
192 The Strokes - Angles

Tom Waits - Bad As Me, 156,000
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake 70,000
tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l, 47,000
Wild Flag, 33,000
Destroyer - Kaputt, 32,000
Shabazz Palaces - Black Up, 17,000

If anyone finds more sales info on albums we care about, please share! It's so frustrating how difficult it is to get info beyond the top 10 sellers. For most of us, it would cost hundreds of dollars to get access to decent reports from Nielsen. Chris Molanphy managed to get info on select Pazz & Jop albums. I don't suppose anyone knows him? Wouldn't it be interesting to have the sales info for every album in the ILM poll?

One reason Billboard's list is different is that its chart year runs Dec. 1 through Nov. 30.

I know Chris M., but I assume he contacted Nielsen as a journalist requesting information.

I've contacted them as a journalist requesting information too, with no luck. If he has info on any more albums, would be obliged if he could snake them our way.

Billboard's year end list uses "chart points", not sales iirc

I think they stopped using chart points in 1991 when Nielsen SoundScan entered the picture. Wiki confirms what jaymc said - Sometimes, the best-selling album of the year of Billboard is different than best-selling album of the year of Nielsen SoundScan, because Billboard calculates the year from December to November and Nielsen calculates the year from January to December.