The Eagles Greatest Hits Album Surpasses Thriller in the USA

[Blues_Away2023]

The Eagles have got to be one of the most boring bands out there, can’t believe they have sold that much!

 

[Nite Line]

Why not? Do you have any evidence at all, or is it just "they're not as good as MJ and I refuse to believe they're successful".

That's just silly. Makes you sound bitter and twisted.

If this was the Beatles, who are the biggest band ever, I would have believed it.

But The Eagles? No chance.

 

[dam2040]

They are frauds of the highest order. I don't believe for one second that their album has sold 40 million copies in the USA or anywhere for that matter.

Yep. Absolutely no proof of their success. They don't stream or sell anywhere near as well as Thriller yet continue to get certified like crazy!

 

[Nite Line]

Yep. Absolutely no proof of their success. They don't stream or sell anywhere near as well as Thriller yet continue to get certified like crazy!

Thriller is literally always higher than their Greatest Hits album on the USA album charts, yet, somehow they keep finiding new certifcations for Eagles. It's baffling.

 

[DuranDuran]

Thriller is literally always higher than their Greatest Hits album on the USA album charts, yet, somehow they keep finding new certifcations for Eagles. It's baffling.

Well the charts are kinda irrelevant. Getting a RIAA certification is voluntary. The record company has to do it and they have to pay for it. Certifications doesn't have anything to do with the artist. Before the 1980s, Motown rarely reported to the RIAA, so only the label knows how much those records sold. If Mike's label does not get certifications, that doesn't have anything to do with the Eagles who are not on Sony. Anyway, the RIAA does not audit anything, they just go by what the label tells them. Labels have been known to tell the RIAA that a record has sold less than it has, to get out of paying the artist as much in royalties. In other cases they give the number of records shipped to stores, not if they sold or not. Stores can send back unsold copies. Labels generally did not count cutout albums or the ones that used to be sold by record clubs (12 albums for a penny!). Obviously, bootleg albums did not count as a sale, like the "street tapes" that used to be sold at flea markets and store parking lots along with Velvet Elvis & dogs playing poker paintings.

It's ironic that today that a certain amount of streams count as a sale, when nobody bought anything, but the record club stuff did not count as a sale, when there was a physical product. But some people would scam the clubs. They'd get the first set of penny albums, but not buy the certain amount of later albums at the regular prices, which was usually more than they would cost in a store, plus the shipping charge. The member would also get the selection of the month automatically if they did not cancel it before a certain date.

 

[R1chard]

How on earth is it possible that they sold 9 million within a year but Michael apparently sold nil???

It's well-known: Thriller 40 sold a total of 0.1 million copies.

0.1 million!

People simply didn't want to buy a copy of Thriller. What's hard to understand about that? It's not a god-given right to keep selling copies on an album.

What a BS story! Artists don't really sell music anymore, that's why this stupid counting system of streams and YouTube views has been incorporated. I really hate the term "outsold Thriller" they used. It's completely misleading.

That's exactly what I said. A stream is not a sale, and never will be, so it's false to try to equate the two. It's also open to manipulation and is just unrepresentative of anything important.

But everybody here told me to get with the times and move into the modern world. "Streaming is how artists make money in 2026" I was told.

THEREFORE, it's entirely possible that other artists outstream MJ and therefore overtake his "sales" and beat his records.

And then suddenly MJ fans don't like it! No competition allowed!!

So which way do we want it? Can't have it both ways. Should streams count for anything or not?

 

[DuranDuran]

The Eagles have got to be one of the most boring bands out there, can’t believe they have sold that much!

A difference between Eagles & Michael Jackson is that a lot of Eagles songs are country based. Music that is considered "country rock", "Southern Rock", or "Americana". The USA has a large country music listening audience. A lot of the same people who are into things like monster trucks, NASCAR, & rodeos. There is even a sub-genre of rap called "hick hop". Garth Brooks is the biggest selling artist of the 1990s & the Dixie Chicks & Shania Twain were popular then too. You could even say Hootie & The Blowfish music was countryish and they had a big selling album back then. At one time westerns were hugely popular in the USA, country & bluegrass music goes with that, all the way back to "singing cowboys" of the 1930s. Plus rural based TV shows like Beverly Hillbillies & The Dukes Of Hazzard. To this day, there is a Dukesfest, sort of a Comicon for people with General Lee cars.

I guess since country music is not as popular outside of the USA, people in other countries don't realize the popularity of it in the states. Fairly recently a big deal was made about Beyoncé winning a country Grammy, a lot of people didn't consider her album actual country music.