Eminem and The Beatles: The Top-Selling Artists of the 2000s

December 9th, 2009 by Daniel Kreps Leave a reply »

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty
Over three decades after their breakup, the Beatles still released the top-selling album of the 2000s. The Fab Four’s greatest hits compilation 1 sold over 11,448,000 copies since its release in November 2000 according to Nielsen SoundScan’s decade-end sales numbers. Eminem was the 2000s’ top-selling artist with 32.2 million combined in sales, plus two albums in the decade’s Top 10: The Marshall Mathers LP was fourth with 10,195,000 sold and Eminem Show was fifth with 9,789,000. Slim Shady edged out the Fab Four for the distinction of the decade’s top-seller as the Beatles claimed Number Two with 30 million.

Only two more albums managed to cross into diamond — or 10 million sales — certification: ‘NSync’s No Strings Attached (11,111,000) and Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me (10,523,000.) As a testament to the record industry’s decline in the second half of the decade, only two albums released in the years between 2005 and 2009 managed to get in the Top 20 of the 2000s’ bestsellers: Nickelback’s All the Right Reasons and Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts at 14 and 17 with sales under seven million. Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” was also named the 2000’s Number One overall song, beating out Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” and Lifehouse’s “Hanging on a Moment.”

While theses numbers only applied to the last, iTunes-dominated quarter of the decade, Flo Rida’s “Low” was the 2000s biggest-selling digital single, while Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was the best-selling digital album. To add to all this decade-ending madness, Rolling Stone has revealed our own Top Albums, Singles and Artists of the 2000s. Check out all the victors below:

• The 100 Best Albums of the Decade
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily

Advertisement

Leave a Reply