Legends: 40 million (or more) fans can't be wrong

Thriller

Wondering if Meat Loaf gets a vote...

Being the rockist I am, I went for AC/DC.

'thriller' by a light-year and a half.

Michael Jackson - Thriller (amazing!)
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon (I can think of five better PF albums)
AC/DC - Back In Black (s'alright)
Whitney Houston / Various artists - The Bodyguard OST (goop)
Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell (fat goop)
Eagles - Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) (coked-up goop)
Shania Twain - Come On Over (don't care one way or the other)
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (also amazing!)
Bee Gees / Various artists - Saturday Night Fever (mostly great, but some mess)

Jacko vs. Mac...can't decide.

Rumours is by far my favourite of these.

will never not vote meat loaf

Rumours, then Thriller

the rest can die in a fire

Thriller over Rumours, SNF, and AC/DC

Thriller, but Rumours came close.

Saturday Night Fever just over Thriller

Rumours

How the hell did Back In Black sell so many?

dead guy

...because it's an amazing album?? with several evergreen rock karaoke staples on it? how could this be mysterious?? for further reading i suggest http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/acdc-back-in-black.html?m=1

This could have just as easily been a bob marley vs elvis poll.

AC/DC or Mac. Not sure I've listened to Thriller in close to 30 years.

(Though, yeah, I can see why Thriller is OMG it sold a ton canon, totally deserved it/was designed to do so)

Back In Black, easy.

My recollection (admittedly I was a kid at the time) was that "Off The Wall" was a huge record that easily surpassed his previous four (!) solo albums, garnering him a Grammy and other awards besides huge sales. Some at the time wondered if he would be able to equal that success again. He sure showed them.

I just remember Off The Wall as the album that bumped off the SNF soundtrack as the default middle-school dance party soundtrack

Went to see a MJ tribute band not too long ago. My wife and I are in our mid to late '30s, and when he played stuff from Thriller and Bad those were our highlights. But we went with some friends in their early '40s, and without a doubt the Off the Wall songs were the ones that made them go craziest.

It's kind of strange to see a greatest hits package sell so many. You'd think the fans would have most if not all of the albums already, and everyone else would just shrug.

DSotM for me.

Rumours close second.

floyd vs. michael vs. ac/dc vs. fleetwood is too tough

i went with floyd though rumours is a jam. thriller has a couple of cuts i'm not 100% down with.

ugh DSOTM vs Thriller?
how can I possibly choose?
this is my worst nightmare ;_;

just choose meat

Thriller just ahead of Rumours. Some of the others are up there. DSOTM is pretty great too.
And if SNF had trimmed the filler, it would give MJ a run too.

def Rumours

Do not like Fleetwood Mac. Do not want that to win. Rooting for fucking Bodyguard Soundtrack over that shit. But MJ = Winner.

changed my vote to fleetwood mac after further consideration

thriller over rumours, pink floyd a distant third

I own Thriller, Back in Black, and Rumours, but I don't listen to any of them very often. Thriller probably holds up the best.

It's kind of strange to see a greatest hits package sell so many. You'd think the fans would have most if not all of the albums already, and everyone else would just shrug.

― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Tuesday, March 5, 2013 7:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

GH albums used to be a lot more pivotal in certain artists' careers, especially because before some of the albums on this like Rumors and Thriller, it was rare for an album to have more than a couple big hits off an album. so a lot of 70s bands would plug along with an album a year, one or two hits each time, but suddenly when you could get them all on one LP that would sell like gangbusters.

i pretty much "get" all of these except for bat out of hell. how exactly did that happen?

8 out of 9 ain't bad

i have no idea how an album with 7 completely killer tunes on it managed to sell so many copies

i pretty much "get" all of these except for bat out of hell. how exactly did that happen?

― Gunoka Cuntles (Matt P), Tuesday, March 5, 2013 10:23 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

probably happened bc it's a fantastic album

i'm not doubting it's good, i'm just totally unaware of the outline of the particular cultural moment that led to it selling 40+ million.

AOR?

maybe u should be asking why so many billions of people HAVEN'T bought it

might find the answer in the dictionary under the word 'tragedy'

lol

I HEARD AOR WAS LATIN FOR 40+ MILLION

There was a huge audience for album-oriented hard rock (Boston's debut sold 17M just in the US) + the ballads and Broadway-ish elements reached out to a wider audience + great voice + hilarious.

That said, I actually agree that it is pretty striking that this sold SO much better than e.g. A Night at the Opera.

higher pop/musical theatre element in BOoH i guess, plus like i said the song-writing's pretty immaculate, one of those not-to-be-repeated things in anybody's career

voting for The Dark Side Of The Moon mainly because of some incredible memories. i really haven't sat down and listen to Rumours and need to change that.

i have heard Thriller enough where i don't really need to hear it again.

i have heard Thriller enough where i don't really need to hear it again.

OTM

Does that discount it as a good album?

nope

the song-writing's pretty immaculate

I haven't felt any need to play it in years but I agree with this. That Queen album does feel to me like it contains some filler. And you're right that BOoH probably is a bit more pop, especially without "Prophet's Song".

2xpost

also there's a rock weirdness to the sound of even the singles on Night at the Opera - you can imagine people not getting it - but Bat also hits that late 50s/early 60s nostalgia wave that Grease and Happy Days were riding on - thinking about it now it sort of is of its moment in unexpected ways

booh's presence here is similar to dark side's - just a perennial seller that kept moving units. i can remember reading pieces acknowledging the phenomenon in the early 90s, sure that lead to boohII which in turn gave the original a second wind. i used to always find it odd that the eagles greatest hits vol 1 outsold vol 2 by so much but thinking about it it makes sense - they were big before but hotel california took them to another level and i could see ppl that bought that buying vol 1 (which comes out at the height of their fame) vs vol 2 which not only comes out years after they break up but is a redundant purchase for most of its target market.

there's none of these that i'd feel the need to sit down and listen to as an album now but none of them that don't sound like hooray when a track turns up on the radio or the jukebox. for some odd reason Dark Side is probably my least favourite Floyd album barring the post-Final Cut stuff. in the end i think i voted Night Fever just cos that sound is the one i want to hear most at the moment and cos i'd take the title track over i think anything on any of the others.

i wonder what this list looks like if you take away all sales from first three years of release. bodyguard ost is definitely not up there, shania unlikely. snf i'm not sure - obv a phenomenon but i suspect it's got stronger legs than ppl might guess.

Thriller, over Dark Side & Rumours

Rumours wins, mostly because it doesn't have The Girl Is Mine.

that's...a compelling reason actually

That said, I actually agree that it is pretty striking that this sold SO much better than e.g. A Night at the Opera.

I wonder how much of a difference it made that Meat Loaf didn't release a follow-up for nearly four years, whereas in the same time period after NatO Queen put out three more records? I don't know, I guess some of the others here had long hype/promotional cycles but others didn't.

Anyway for me Thriller and Rumours are both classics, DSOTM and Back in Black both really great and not heard any of the others in full (although I'm probably familiar with 3/4 of the Saturday Night Fever OST).

mmm..

I wouldn't play any of these for pleasure, as such.

Most recent: DSOTM

If I had to: Back in Black

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

rumours then thriller then acdc tepidly but I really dislike Bon Scott-less acdc generally

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

fuck, woulda voted Meat Loaf if I'd noticed this poll

not mad at these results at all

Eagles - Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) 0

haha

as it should be

Guess they'll have to eat their lunch all by themselves.

enjoy your tequila sunrises, LOSERS

anyone willing to give weight to my thought that the Meat Loaf phenomenon could in any way be at least partly attributed to the album cover? I was 9 years old when that album came out, and that album cover always stopped me in my tracks....and still to this day does.

album is equally as cool as the cover

imo

ymmv