Source Album Charts

Acclaim Year

The site //www.acclaimedmusic.net/ has continued to collect lists of "Acclaimed Music" since we scanned it for albums in 2006. During that time the site has been extended to provide a good listing of the music that critics like and where it gets its information from. This chart adds the albums that have been highest on the site since 2006. The data available from this site has been steadily improving in quality since 2003 and now their spreadsheets are one of the best sources this type of data on the web.

Acclaimed

Top 3000 albums selected on a web site source //www.acclaimedmusic.net/. The site now documents the source lists, however it is still a collection of music that reflects what critics think should be rated as good rather than what people spend money and time on.

Argentina Certificate

This list of albums certified by CAPIF in Argentina is from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_Argentina. With the associated diamond certified albums added.

Australia Annual

The "Kent Music Report" lists the top 25 albums of each year from 1965 to 1987. This data comes from pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Top_25_a lbums_for_1965_in_Australia.

Australia ARIA

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) lists the top albums of each year from 1988 to the present on their comprehensive web site at //www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end- of-year-charts.htm.

Australia GoSet

Australian weekly charts as published in the Melbourne based magazine GoSet reported on the site //www.poparchives.com.au/. The magazine started printing album charts only a few years before it closed down.

Australia Number 1

The list of number 1 albums in Australia as described on Wikipedia (on pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_albums_in_Australia_during_the_1960s and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one _albums_of_2017_%28Australia%29) Those pages claims that the lists are from //www.austchartbook.com.au/ and //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARIA_Charts.

Austria

Top 40 charts from //austriancharts.at/archiv.asp

AVRev

The Top 100 Rock Albums of all time as listed on the AVRev site at //www.avrev.com/avrev.coms-top-100-rock- albums-of-all-time/top-100-rock-albums/ index.php. The position on this list does not affect the overall score of the album.

BEA

The site //www.besteveralbums.com/ combines critics lists with member selections to work out the most highly rated albums of each year, decade and all time. This selection of the top 10 albums of each year was taken in Jul 2010.

The site has the inevitable issues of certain acts being boosted by strategic voting, however their requirement that users are explicit about their picks seems to have resulted in a list that avoids the worst excesses. At least as long as only the top 10 of each year are used.

Belgium All Time

This list of the all time top 100 albums in Belgium was voted for in 2008 by Studio Brussel listeners. The list comes from //www.timepieces.nl/Top100%27s/2008Studi oBrussel.html.

Billboard 200

In 2015 Billboard published a list of the top 200 albums of all time this is available from //www.billboard.com/charts/greatest-bill board-200-albums.

Billboard 2000s 200

Billboard publish a list of the top 200 US selling albums of the period 2000-2009. This was calculated using sales figures from Neilson and is to be found at //www.billboard.com/#/charts-decade-end/ billboard-200-albums?year=2009.

Brazil All Time

This list of best selling International albums in Brazil is from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_Brazil.

Brits

Winners of the annual "Brit" award for best album held each year since 1982. The one-off 1977 awards (held for the Silver Jubilee) awarded the best album of the previous 25 years.

Canada Certificate

The CRIA in Canada have been certifying sales since the early 1980s. There web site (at //www.cria.ca/goldplat.php) lists all the certifications since 2001.

Canada Diamond

The "Canadian Recording Industry Association" (CRIA) site (at //www.cria.ca/goldplat.php) lists all the sales certifications since 2001. This list of the albums that reached "Diamond" or "Double Diamond" level before 2001. The data comes from //www.angelfire.com/music/diamondawards/ criadiamond.html.

Canada Number 1

The list of the number one albums in Canada from 1977 to 2017 from Wikipedia (for example //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_albums_of_2017_%28Canada%29). The list has been extended to 1968

Channel 4

Chart2000.com

The site //chart2000.com/ combines charts from the countries with the six biggest music markets. It lists the top albums and songs for every day, month, year and decade from January 2000 to last month. The chart used here is the top 100 albums from every year from 2000 to last year.

The site is created by the same people as tsort.info. The difference is that while tsort.info covers the period from 1900 to 2023, the approach we take here requires a large number of input charts. After about 2010 the results become increasingly dubious (because there are fewer source charts). Chart2000.com in contrast takes a differnt route, there are weekly charts for every week starting in 2000, these are factored by the revenue from music in each country giving a chart of the top songs and albums for every day. This approach works well for periods where reliable charts are available. Since version 2.7.001 we've emphasised the chart2000.com charts for years after 2010.

Christgau Rating

Robert Christgau, a music critic for "The Village Voice", wrote a number of books that rated various albums. Two of his books focus on the 1970s and 1980s, these are the ratings listed here, after 1989 the rating system was changed. The ratings don't affect the album's score, they're just here for information.

The listings, together with more details of each album, are available at pages like //www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k =A&bk=70.

D Marsh

The "Book Of Rock Lists" by Dave Marsh & Kevin Stein was published in 1981. It provides a variety of lists, these entries are from "The Best Of The Album Chartmakers By Year" as made available at //www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/dmarshsi.html.

Definitive 200

A list of the "definitive 200" albums sourced from //www.definitive200.com/200_list.php. This list has a pretty good correlation with the rest of the world's charts so the web site has done a pretty good job of gathering its chart.

DMDB 100

A guy called Dave Whitaker has collected various lists of albums and songs and used the information to create the site //www.davesmusicdatabase.com/. For each major album Dave provides all sorts of interesting information, the site is well worth checking out. This is his calculated list of the 100 top albums of all time.

Dutch Albums

The web site //dutchcharts.nl/ claims to have listings of the Dutch charts starting in 1969, however the album listing has a gap from the end of 1972 until the 1990s and the song chart doesn't add much to the data we already have. To make it worse the site doesn't say what its source is.

However the album chart from 1969 to 1972 is new data, so we have used just that.

Europe Certificate

Platinum Europe Awards recognise sales of one million or more copies of an album in Europe. The Awards were launched in 1996 and are certified by IFPI. Souce is //www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/plat inum_intro.html.

Like all "Gold Record" type awards it should be kept in mind that record companies have to fund the IFPI to audit the sales, this list will only include groups that someone has paid to promote in Europe.

Europe Number 1

There are a number of groups that have been listing the top hits in Europe since the 1970s. In the 1980s these lists were extended to include albums. The Euro 200 chart is a list of the number one records in these charts and was reported originally at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_hits_in_Europe. However that page has now been hijacked by the "Eurochart Hot 100" a chart from the US based Billboard group whose contents are not easily available.

Finland All Time

This list of the all time top 100 best selling albums in Finland, it is claimed that the sales numbers are from the Finnish branch of the IFPI (at //www.ifpi.fi/tilastot/myydyimmat.html) but our understanding of Finnish is not good enough to verify that. The list comes from //rateyourmusic.com/list/Cthulhu/the_100 _most_sold_albums_in_finland/

Of all the album charts here this one is most different from the rest.

Fox101

France Best

Best magazine has been publishing since 1968. During the 80s they listed the best albums of each year. Actually they produced two lists, one selected by the critics and one by the readers, we have merged them (biasing towards the readers views). The original lists came from //disques.de.l.annee.free.fr/

France Certificate

Since 1994 SNEP in France have been certifying sales of albums. This list is from //www.disqueenfrance.com/. The data at this location contains many repeat certificates and alternate spellings of artist and album names.

This is one of the elements included in our estimates of global album sales

France InfoDisc

We were told that the //infodisc.fr/ site had the most notable French charts in 2007. At that time there was very little data there that could be accessed without payment. Now the site now has added some summary information that is freely available so we have used here.

This is from their annual lists at pages like //www.infodisc.fr/B-CD_1970.php.

German RS100

In the December 1997 issue of the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine there was a list of the 100 greatest albums of all time. This list is from //www.rocklist.net/rstone.html.

Germany

A summary of weekly the historic album charts listed at //www.charts.de/.

Germany Certificate

Since 1974 Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. has been certifying sales of albums. This list is from //www.musikindustrie.de/gold_platin_date nbank.html, unfortunately the really bad site design means that we don't know if we have all the entries from 2003-2008.

This is one of the elements included in our estimates of global album sales

Germany Number 1

From mid 1962 until 1992 the official charts in West Germany (and for later years the unified country) listed the number one selling album of each week. After that a top 100 is available (but for this list we have continued to list just the number one album). This data comes from //www.charts-surfer.de/.

Germany ODK

The "Offiziellen Deutschen Charts" are licenced by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. and provide weekly listings of album popularity based on purchases, downloads and streams. Their listing starts in 1978 and can be found at //www.offiziellecharts.de/charts/album/.

Global

Claims to be total album sales for whole world. Like all these types of lists there are obvious omisions and exaggerations. These numbers should be treated with caution and, for example, not quoted in Wikipedia. We have a page that discusses a set of album sales estimates that are about as trustworthy as we can make them.

Grammy

Winners and nominees of the Grammy for best album each year as listed in Wikipedia. The year listed is the year for which the album won, not the year when the award was presented. (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for _Album_of_the_Year)

Grammy Hall of Fame

The Grammy Hall of Fame Award is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance". A complete list of recordings awarded this title appear at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Hall_of_F ame_Award. The year noted in each entry is the year on which the song won the award. The chart here shows the years when the albums were released.

One of the users pointed out that some entries listed on the Grammy website are missing from the Wikipedia page. This data has been extended with the information from //www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Award s/Hall_Of_Fame/

Guinness

Holland Free40

Since 1975 "Free 40" has provided an alternative weekly album chart for Holland. This is the year end charts for albums which once came from //www.free40.nl/free40jaarlinks.htm. Unfortunately that old listing mixed some singles into the list. The more recent listing at www.free40.nl/charts/free100.php seems to have removed those issues.

Hong Kong Certificate

The Hong Kong branch of the IFPI started awarding Gold and Platinum records in 1977. Their listing at //www.ifpihk.org/www_1/go2e.php only includes entries up to 1998 and has no way to distinguish Multi-Platinum awards. This is just the International records as we can't cope with the Chinese characters in the names of the local recordings.

Internet

As with all worldwide sales figures these are clearly inaccurate and should not be treated as definitive. We have a page that discusses a set of album sales estimates that are about as trustworthy as we can make them.

Italy

The annual top 100 album list from 1965-2008 (source //www.hitparadeitalia.it/)

Japan All Time

A short list of the best selling international albums in Japan. This list does not include Japanese language albums. The source was //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_Japan.

Japan Oricon Number 1s

The Oricon chart is the most widely recognised one in Japan. This list of number one albums from 1970 to 2005 was found at //www007.upp.so-net.ne.jp/k-makoto/datas tation/datastation.htm and translated using Bablefish. Albums with an artists or title that were not translated have had to be removed.

The combination of an unofficial source and a not very good translation lowers the quality of the result. If this was for anywhere other than the second largest music market in the world we would not have incorporated it. If anyone has a reliable set of Japanese charts we would like to hear from you.

Juno Award

This Canadian music award has been active since 1975. It has been known as the Best Album, Best Selling Album and Album of the Year. This list comes from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Award_for_A lbum_of_the_Year.

KEXP

KEXP 90.3 Seattle held a vote in 2008 for the greatest albums of all time. The list is included for completeness it does not contribute to an album's overall score. The list is to be found at //www.kexp.org/top2008/.

Latin Grammy Hall of Fame

The Latin Grammy Hall of Fame Award is a special Grammy award established to honor Latin recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance". The list at //www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Award s/Latin_Hall_Of_Fame/ only lists the awards for 2001.

Library of Congress

The US Library of Congress maintain a "National Recording Registry" of important audio. This includes key speeches, music and other audio. The complete set consists of the 432 (as at early 2015) most important items. This is a list of the 145 albums on the list. The complete list can be found at //www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nr pb-masterlist.html.

This list has been completely reprocessed following some comments (and suggested fixes) from Chet. The original recordings are not classified into albums and songs, and while it might be easy to identify a single song choosing what will be classified as an album is more difficult (after all anything can later be released as a CD). This reflects our attempt to classify all the items.

Melody Maker

Mercury

The Mercury Prize is presented every year to the best album of the year. Originally intended to contrast with the Brits (which are dominated by the major labels) the prize has managed to avoid the albums that later prove most widely successful and the acts awarded the prize have almost all failed to go on to later popularity. This is the list of winners and nominees from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Prize

NARM

New Zealand all time

This list of the best selling albums of all time in New Zealand came from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_New_Zealand.

New Zealand Number 1

The list of number 1 albums in New Zealand as described on Wikipedia (on pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_albums_in_2001_%28New_Zealand%29).

NME 2000s

The Top 100 albums released during Jan 2000 - Dec 2009, as voted for by NME staff plus a selection of musicians and industry figures. This version came from //www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nmes_100_best_ albums.htm.

Norway

Historical Top 40 charts from //norwegiancharts.com/archiv.asp. A mistake in processing meant that these charts had to be regenerated in version 1.9.012.

Philippines Certificate

This list of albums certified by PARI is from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_the_Philippines.

PopVortex

This is a listing of the 100 top albums of all time according to PopVortex. The list consolidates inputs from a number of sources. The source was //www.popvortex.com/music/100-greatest-a lbums/.

Radio2

Radio Caroline

In 2008 Radio Caroline held a poll for all its listners this list is the top 300 albums. Source was //www.timepieces.nl/Top100%27s/2008Radio Caroline.html.

Rolling Stone

The top 500 albums listed in 'Rolling Stone' in 2004. Notice the profile that suggests most readers prefer music from before 1980. (source //www.rollingstone.com/news/story/593817 4/the_rs_500_greatest_albums_of_all_tim e)

RS100

The Rolling Stone top 100 albums of the last 20 years published September & October 1987 as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the magazine. Source was //www.rocklist.net/rstone.html.

Of all the album charts listed here this is the one that best correlates with all the others.

RS Readers

Rolling Stone issue 907 (October 2002) included a list of the top 100 albums of all time as voted for by readers of the magazine. The list comes from //www.rocklist.net/rstone.html.

RYM

The site //rateyourmusic.com/ gives users the chance to rate different songs and albums. The ratings are not objective (and, of course, they shouldn't be) but the large volume of contributors makes this worthwhile (at least for modern music). These charts were extracted during Feb 2007.

It is obvious that particular groups of fans have conbined to pump up certain artists. Where it is obvious that some acts are unexpectedly highly placed they have been scaled back. In particular if any act has more than one third of their total scrore from this one source they will have the less highly rated entries taken out.

Sweden

Top 40 charts from //swedishcharts.com/archiv.asp

Switzerland

Top 40 charts from //swisscharts.com/archiv.asp

Taipei Times

A list of the 20 top Taiwanese albums from 1975 - 1992 and from 1993 - 2005 published in the Taipei Times. The source data was from //www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives /2009/04/06/2003440333.

Taiwan

This claims to be a list of the 10 best selling albums in Taiwan of all time. In fact given that all the albums were released between 1992 and 1998 it looks like the best selling albums of the 1990s. The source data was from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_Taiwan

UK

This data comes from //www.chartstats.com/ which is a great site for examining the UK charts.

UK album sales

There are various lists of claimed album sales, and as we have said many times none of them can be trusted (even this one for example). This list, originally compiled by the Official Charts Company for a VHS program was apparently created by someone called "Hanboo". It appears quite reasonable and is quoted in a number of places, for example //www.everyhit.com/recordalb.html, //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_United_Kingdom and //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6151 050.stm.

UK all time albums

There are various lists of claimed album sales, and as we have said many times none of them can be trusted (even this one for example). This list is from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_albums_in_United_Kingdom which obtained it from //www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the- official-top-40-biggest-selling-albums- of-all-time-2288/.

UK BPI Certificate

The BPI will (for a fee) audit the level of sales of an album in the UK and certify that the the record has managed "Silver", "Gold", "Platinum" or "Multi-Platinum" levels of sales. A database of qualifying records was originally at //www.bpi.co.uk/platinum/platinum.html but has now been moved to //www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/Search.a spx.

As we have mentioned elsewhere quoted sales figures are generally not to be trusted. The BPI certification programme is, one of the most reliable set of sales figures available on the internet. However the fact that record companies have to fund the process means that the BPI list focuses on well known groups that large record companies want to promote in the UK.

This is one of the elements included in our estimates of global album sales

UK EP

For a period during the 1960s there was a distict chart for Extended Play (EP) records. These usually contained 3-5 songs and so have been treated as albums.

US 1970s

The "Billboard 200" album chart is not generally available this chart claims to be from "The All Music Book of Hit Albums" by Dave McAleer, specificly the "Seventies Albums - Month By Month" chapter. It was downloaded from //www.superseventies.com/albumsbymonth.h tml.

US BB Year End

Billboard has listed the top albums of each year since 1955. The actual Billboard site only provides access to the top 5 of each year (that chart is included elsewhere). This listing claims to provide Billboard's annual list and comes from //hitsofalldecades.com/. The quality of data at that site is fairly poor, however since it is the only source we have for the lower positions it has been included.

The most recent years are available on Billboard's site on pages such as: //www.billboard.com/#/charts-year-end/th e-billboard-200?year=2010

US Billoard Hot 200

The Billboard "Hot 200" album chart has been running since 1963. This data can been seen in detail on Billboard's site (for example by starting at //www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200 / and entering a historical date). The data on the Billboard site has a number of inconsistencies and converting the more than 500,000 weekly entries to a consistent set of "chart runs" has proved to be challanging. This tidying up work is still continuing so there may be differences between other charts (such as the Wikipedia number one's list) and this one. Where you find these tell us and we'll fix them.

A more detailed look at the album chart US Billoard Hot 200 can be found here

US Cashbox

Top 100 albums of each year in 'Cashbox Magazine' chart (original source //members.aol.com/randypny/cashbox/).

The Cashbox charts have now been moved to //www.cashboxmagazine.com/archives.htm.

US Certificate (since 2008)

Since October 2008 (when we loaded the RIAA certificates) the RIAA have updated their web site, it now has more information and fewer errors, but can still be found at //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php. These entries are the certificates awarded between October 2008 and June 2011.

As we have mentioned elsewhere quoted sales figures are generally not to be trusted. The RIAA certification programme is, almost without doubt, the most well audited set of sales figures available on the internet. However the fact that record companies have to fund the process means that the RIAA list focuses on well known groups that large record companies want to promote in the US.

US Longest Runs

There are 106 albums that have spent more than 150 weeks in the Billboard 200 up to 2010. This list is from //davesmusicdatabase.blogspot.co.uk/2013 /03/the-longest-charting-albums-in-us-c hart.html.

US Number 1

This chart lists the Number 1 albums in the US Billboard list as reported on Wikipedia (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_albums_(United_States)).

Between the start of 1961 and August 1963 there were two album charts, one for mono albums and one for stero. Where the number one is the same in both it has been counted as as single week at the top, however where they are different both albums have been credited as joint number ones.

US RIAA Certificate

The RIAA will (for a fee) audit the level of sales of an album and certify that the the record has managed "Gold", "Platinum" or "Multi-Platinum" levels of sales in the US. A database of qualifying albums can be examined at //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php.

As we have mentioned elsewhere quoted sales figures are generally not to be trusted. The RIAA certification programme is, almost without doubt, the most well audited set of sales figures available on the internet. However the fact that record companies have to fund the process means that the RIAA list focuses on well known groups that large record companies want to promote in the US. The "Gold" level in particular often means that the album did not break into the Billboard chart, but someone was prepared to pay to promote it.

One cause of confusion is that the RIAA runs a parallel certification scheme for Latin music in the USA. This awards at much lower sales levels, for example the equivalent to a Platinum record requires sales of 100,000 (as opposed to 1 million for the standard award). Unfortunately the way the RIAA web site lists these hits makes it impossible to distinguish them from the standard ones, we've attempted to remove the Latin awards from the listing.

This is one of the elements included in our estimates of global album sales

US Sales

The RIAA have listed albums that sold more than 5 million copies in the US. This is one of the more trustworthy sources of actual sales numbers, however as with all sales lists there are some entries that appear to be inconsistent and the overall entries should be treated with some caution. In particular the sales levels of albums from before 1975 seem low. This data came from //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?t able=tblTop100. This list is similar to the numbers that can be deduced from the RIAA Certification levels.

US Year

The Billboard 200 chart lists the top 200 albums of each year. This version only contains the positions 1 to 5 of that chart up to 2015, since that is all that is made freely available. This data originally came from Wikipedia.

The years 2006-2022 came from the Billboard site (at pages like //www.billboard.com/#/charts-year-end/th e-billboard-200?year=2010). Unfortunately this set does not go back before 1985.

Vatican All Time

The top 10 albums of all time listed in "L'Osservatore Romano" (the Vatican newspaper) in Feb 2010. (as reported at //www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belie f/2010/feb/15/pope-top-10-albums-vatica n)

Vinyl Surrender

The website //www.vinylsurrender.com/ consolidates opinions from users. This list of the top 100 albums of all time was grabbed in March 2014.

Virgin

The top 100 albums voted for by listeners of Virgin Radio in the UK (as reported at //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/9086 74.stm)

WFUV

WFUV 90.6 New York asked listeners for their all-time essential albums, from the beginning of time through the fall of 2006. This is the list which is here for information only it does not contribute to the overall score. The list can be found at //www.wfuv.org/music/best/essentialalbum s

World Sales

A group of people have collected sales figures from a variety of sources to attempt to build a comprehensive estimate of worldwide sales. Because the numbers are based on verified sources (both published and private) the final numbers seem fairly reasonable. On the source page (//www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=7 79494) it lists the sales in each country that contribute to the number.

There are those who believe that the site this data comes from is not trustworthy, for example if you quote the site on Wikipedia editors will complain. However these particular numbers seem to be better than most listings of claimed album sales (even if they don't link to verified sources).

WTMD

Top albums of all time as voted for on Baltimore WTMD 89.7 listed at //wtmd.blogspot.com/search/label/897%20a lbum%20countdown

WXPN

Listener's top albums from WXPN 88.5 satellite radio as listed at //xpn.org/music/885ATGA.php