March 31, 2005
Legacy of Mediocrity
The concept album about the 1984 Presidential debates.
Originally inspired by Tim Cavanaugh's disturbingly detailed and life-draining post on the top-selling album of all time, contributing mightily to all Departments of Eaglology throughout the land. With pithy thoughts attached, the top selling albums of all time through July 2004 (I did something similar with the top 100 grossing movies in cinema history. It passes the time.):
28 Million
Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975, Eagles. We took the Flying Burrito Brothers, removed the actual country and rockabilly influences, and added a giant dose of easy-listening faux-hippie California dreck. Let's see if the record-buying public can tell the difference! (checking receipts) Nope!
26 Million
Thriller, Michael Jackson. My parents bought this, I think for my sister. She liked "PYT," a song as potentially creepy as watching Woody Allen's obsession with his minor paramour in Manhattan.
23 Million
The Wall, Pink Floyd. Well, of course I own it. Favorite sleeper song: "Goodbye Blue Sky."
22 Million
Led Zeppelin IV. Purists would tell you that this should be called "Untitled." Favorite sleeper song: "When The Levee Breaks."
21 Million
Greatest Hits Volumes I & II, Billy Joel. If that's #5, then I'm movin' out.
19 Million
-- Rumours, Fleetwood Mac. I own this on vinyl. Of course, there were about 198 copies at the local record store. I like "Second Hand News."
-- Back in Black, AC/DC. Buying this, I think, was a national law in 1980.
-- The Beatles, The Beatles. I assume this is the White Album, which is strange, insofar as it not very hit-driven, and a double-disc to boot.
-- Come On Over, Shania Twain. What the fuck ever. Dwarfed by poster sales to 13-year-olds with cowboy hat mullet.
17 Million
-- Boston, Boston. A tribute to the schmaltzy, DIY ethic of one gigantic dickhead.
-- The Bodyguard Soundtrack, Whitney Houston. The first one that at least 75% of the people who purchased it will disavow owning.
16 Million
-- Cracked Rear View, Hootie & the Blowfish. And now you're doing Burger King commercials. What sort of national mania allowed this to happen?
-- Greatest Hits, Elton John. I am absolutely neutral on this one. See Michael Berube for all your Sir Elton chat.
-- Hotel California, Eagles. Somewhat more tolerable as an entity after Joe Walsh joined the fold, but partially voided by the addition of that high-pitched whiner (Timothy Schmitt?) on The Long Run.
-- No Fences, Garth Brooks. Let the official class songs of a million semi-suburban high schools bloom!
-- Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette. I wasn't even aware that there were 16 million people who could listen to her voice without wanting to kill themselves.
15 Million
-- Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen. There's a lot more synth on this album than The Boss apologists would have you believe.
-- Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin. So far, my most-listened-to album on the list. Favorite sleeper song: cover of Ritchie Valens' "Ooh My Head", retitled "Boogie With Stu." Mandolin solo!
-- Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd. I think this still holds the record for being in the top 40 albums, for something like five years. Because everyone subliminally perceived the synch-up with The Wizard of Oz.
-- Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, Bee Gees. The first time that movie makers discovered that the soundtrack could be much more profitable than the movie (see also: any movie Ice Cube is in).
-- Appetite for Destruction, Guns 'N Roses. I might have been a little young, but honey I wasn't naive.
-- Double Live, Garth Brooks. That's 15 million suckers of the highest order who should be Greenlandized so that they do not pollute our electoral stream.
[More crapalicious albums below the fold, will be constantly updated as I fill out my pithy remarks on these at-least-decuple platinum discs.]
14 Million
-- Supernatural, Santana. Quick: name a song on this album not sung by that Rob Thomas douchewad.
-- Backstreet Boys, Backstreet Boys. The Hangin' Tough of the late 90s. Will disappear from national consciousness in 2009.
-- Ropin' the Wind, Garth Brooks. Is that an Oklahoma euphemism for holding in a fart?
-- Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf. Another strange one. I don't know anyone who owns this, nor are any melodies from the so-called famous songs registering in my mind. Weird.
13 Million
-- Purple Rain, Prince and the Revolution. Now who wants pancakes?
-- Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston. I think I remember this album as a pre-teen.
-- Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live 1975–1985 (box set). That's pretty impressive.
-- Greatest Hits 1974–1978, Steve Miller Band. Another one in my collection, and I'm not sure how it got there. Shouldn't I have gotten my Steve Miller fix simply by listening to pool hall jukeboxes?
-- Millennium, Backstreet Boys. I defy any of the band members to spell the album title without assistance.
-- Baby One More Time, Britney Spears. At least Tiffany toiled for years on the mall circuit. I mean, the budget for her first video was about $290, compared to about $5 million for the pale, 21st century equivalent.
-- Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Still payin' for Art Garfunkel's Hungry Man TV dinners after all these years.
-- Metallica, Metallica. The Black Album. Guilty. Sorry. But I do like "Sad But True."
12 Million
-- Wide Open Spaces, Dixie Chicks. My love of their President-dissing is counterbalanced by my antipathy for their shitty, corn-laden music.
-- Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox Twenty. Good God.
-- No Jacket Required, Phil Collins. Or talent, for that matter.
-- Hysteria, Def Leppard. Fuck yeah! And I want! And I need! And I love! An-i-mal!
-- Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi. Although by all rights I should have probably purchased this as a 14-year-old, I don't think I did.
-- II, Boyz II Men. The grittiest thing Philly has ever produced. I mean, look at the pluralizing "z"!
-- Abbey Road, The Beatles. Find all 3,958 "Paul is Dead" clues!
-- Ten, Pearl Jam. I can still remember the first guy in college I knew who bought this... it really didn't take off until about a year later, as PJ had to appear on "Headbanger's Ball" with that tool Rikki Rachtman. When I heard it, I was all "Mother Love Bone turned into that?"
-- Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin. Sleeper song: Whole Lotta Love, but only as performed by the mad wizards from The Moog Cookbook.
Breathless, Kenny G.
-- Forrest Gump Soundtrack. May you all rot in hell. Like The Big Chill soundtrack with 12 times the absolute ruination of a bunch of classics.
-- Kenny Rogers' Greatest Hits. Ruby, Don't Spend Your $17.99 at Hastings.
-- Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones. I think this is the two-disc greatest hits package, which even included the only Bill Wyman song ("In Another Land").
-- The Woman in Me, Shania Twain. I guess I have to give it up to producer-husband-Don-Imus-impersonator Mutt Lange: he's some sort of genius.
OK, I'm stopping for now with the comments, as much as it pains me not to separately tear into James Taylor, Kid Rock, Creed, Celine Dion, N'Sync, and MC Hammer. But the rest of the list is:
11 Million
-- James Taylor's Greatest Hits, James Taylor
-- CrazySexyCool, TLC (LaFace)
-- Falling into You, Celine Dion (550 Music)
-- Dirty Dancing (Soundtrack) (RCA)
-- Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin (Atlantic)
-- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (Capitol)
-- Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol. II, Eagles (Elektra)
-- Pieces of You, Jewel (Atlantic)
-- Titanic Soundtrack (Sony Classical)
-- Candle in the Wind (single), Elton John
-- Devil Without a Cause, Kid Rock
-- No Strings Attached, 'N Sync
10 Million
-- Fly, Dixie Chicks
-- Human Clay, Creed
-- 'N Sync, 'N Sync
-- Let's Talk About Love, Celine Dion
-- Tragic Kingdom, No Doubt
-- Life After Death, Notorious B.I.G.
-- Best of the Doobies, Doobie Brothers
-- Dookie, Green Day
-- The Stranger, Billy Joel
-- Aerosmith's Greatest Hits, Aerosmith
-- The Hits, Garth Brooks
-- Music Box, Mariah Carey
-- Unplugged, Eric Clapton
-- Tapestry, Carole King
-- Greatest Hits, Journey
-- Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin
-- The Immaculate Collection, Madonna
-- Like a Virgin, Madonna
-- Legend, Bob Marley & the Wailers
-- Faith, George Michael
-- Greatest Hits, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
-- Nevermind, Nirvana
-- The Lion King Soundtrack.
-- Can't Slow Down, Lionel Richie
-- Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em, Hammer
-- Daydream, Mariah Carey
-- Van Halen I, Van Halen
-- Eliminator, ZZ Top
-- The Joshua Tree, U2
-- MCMLXXXIV, Van Halen
Jesus Christ, I'm gonna quit leaving the house.
Posted by: doghouse riley at March 31, 2005 11:55 AMObserve all the albums above the last grouping. Observe that all those albums sold more copies than Nirvana's Nevermind. Observe that Phil Collins' No Jacket required and Kenny G are amongst them. Observe me praying for nuclear holocaust.
Posted by: drew at March 31, 2005 12:29 PMThe Beatles 1967–1970, The Beatles (Capitol). Better known as 'The Blue Album' is missing at the $16 million level.
Zeppelin I, II, IV/untitled, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti make the list, but Zeppelin III with the cool pinwheel cover does not?
Posted by: Bayporter at March 31, 2005 12:35 PMNorb, I had no idea you were a Led Zep listener. Physical Graffiti still gets a good amount of time in my headphones. I find myself hitting replay on "Down By The Seaside" more often these days. Don't know why. And regarding an earlier mention of "When the Levee Breaks" that is one of the few songs that I, in my old age, still crank up. It's the drum work that I really like.
Posted by: Thorlac at March 31, 2005 12:58 PMmy favorite "appetite for destruction" memory of all time has to be a girl named heather in the second grade who was sweating through a game of softball singing "sweet child o' mine" in her requisite "afd" shirt one spring afternoon; the next day, she was suspended for being one of the main pushers of a big vicadin ring that decimated my class for like the next week.
Posted by: dexter at March 31, 2005 01:06 PMActually, I'm 99% sure that when a double album sells it counts for 2 units, which explains the unusually high ranking of the double albums (and box set.)
Posted by: Scott Lemieux at March 31, 2005 01:08 PMThat contained the best Garth Brooks-inspired Chairman Mao quote ever. You sir, are a genius.
Posted by: Cleetus X at March 31, 2005 02:18 PMYeah, The Beatles is the White Album. See Scott about double-album sales, plus I think a lot of people have been fooled over the years into thinking it's a greatest hits collection. Good record, but not one of their five best.
Posted by: Mac Thomason at March 31, 2005 02:44 PMThe first one that at least 75% of the people who purchased it will disavow owning.
Shit, I think plenty of people will be disavowing ownership of "Thriller" soon enough.
Posted by: Pete at March 31, 2005 03:44 PMLike a Virgin, Madonna
I was listening to some Madonna over the past few weeks (I'm sorry, I like 80's kitsch), and I realized that the music to all of her songs is so lame. The synth bass opening to Like a Virgin is so laughable. How in the world did anyone buy this shit? Were they just so shocked by it? "OMG she wants to have sex and get material possessions. I have to buy this!"
Posted by: ChrisV82 at March 31, 2005 03:59 PMYou really don't remember Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell? It was full of teen anthems from when I was a high schooler, like "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" featuring a cameo by Phil Rozzuto. And don't forget "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad". I didn't own it, but I didn't have to because it was all that they played on the radio.
ps. I'm not proud that I know this...
Yeah, well, this ain't no bizarro universe where "One Size Fits All" and "Jesus of Cool" (sold stateside as "Pure Pop for Now People" to avoid offending the corpse fetishists) went multiplatinum...
At least Billy Joel was stupid enough to get swindled out of his dough and he managed to have a daughter that tragically has a much greater physical resemblance to him than Christie Brinkley.
Maybe there is a god after all,
NAAAHHH!
Posted by: knuckledragger at March 31, 2005 05:32 PMi kind of like Hootie in cowboy gear. it worked for Larry Fishburne.
thanks for reminding me about mutt - ac/dc, def leppard (kind of interchangeable at one point - flame on!)AND shania. i always wonder if producers get too much credit, then remember all the promising artists they ruin. or the ones they pull out of their ass - think "Cheap Thrills," then compare it to any other recorded evidence of Big Brother & the Holding Company.
Posted by: paperpusher at April 1, 2005 08:00 AMMore notes (including clues that I am drunk at the moment, and a loser all the time):
- I misspelled my own damn screen name above
- Bat Out Of Hell is a great album for what it is, but this has a lot more to do with Jim Steinman than Meat Loaf.
- I still don't get Springsteen
- The best Metallica album is, by far, Master of Puppets. You need no other proof that I'm a total loser than the fact that I compare Metallica albums. Or that I still refer to them as "albums," even though vynil has been mostly out of vogue since 1986.
- Everything Def Leppard did after Pyromania has sucked with impressive consistency. Pyromania probably sucked, too, but I was 14 at the time, so I didn't know better. The mullet should have been my clue (and I say this as someone who wore a mullet from 1993 to 2001).
- I fell into the Pearl Jam trap for 5 or 10 minutes. Now I lump Eddie Vedder into the official Barbara Streisand "you think you're helping progressive causes, but you're actually hurting them" category.
- You're right, now that I think about it: Mutt Lange does look a lot like Imus.
- Don't fuck with James Taylor.
- I'll never get Kid Rock, either. He proves my adolescent theory that even the ugliest guy in the world can get laid simply by growing long hair. It worked for me, why not him?
- Don't fuck with Van Halen, either. No, they didn't ever have anything to say, but for a straight-ahead rock band, they were tough to beat. Favorite sleeper tracks: I'm the One from VH1, and Top Jimmy from 1984 (fuck roman numerals).
- The Joshua Tree was the last worthwhile thing U2 ever did
"Top Jimmy" may be the only good Van Halen song, but only if you know a guy named Jim or James who you can irritate by singing it.
Posted by: Alex at April 2, 2005 01:43 PMOr that I still refer to them as "albums," even though vynil [sic, drunkie] has been mostly out of vogue since 1986.
People always say this, but what does the word "album" have to do, intrinsically, with vinyl? As far as I'm concerned, an "album" refers to a collection of songs put together. You know, an "album" of songs.
Posted by: Auguste at April 2, 2005 05:25 PMFascinating. I suspect it largely explains why I stopped listening to the radio in the late 80's...
Bat out of Hell has on it the story song about the guy who's desperate to get laid. It's funny as hell, about the first 5 times you hear it, but after that, if you hear it more than once every 5 years or so it's too often. Last time I heard it was in 1998, when the gang at Club Med Cancun put on a skit to it. Very cute - especially after about 5 shots of tequila...
Posted by: CaliforniaDrySherry at April 3, 2005 02:28 PM