To make it crazier, there are only 10 double diamond albums that are all original material, as three of those are Billy Joel's and Eagles' greatest hits and a Garth Brooks live record. Thriller, Back in Black, Hotel California, Zeppelin IV, White Album, The Wall, Rumours, Cracked Rear View, Come On Over, Dookie.
It is very wild to think one of the very few albums to sell over 20 million copies belongs to Hootie and the Blowfish.
Hootie was one of those "even people who don't buy albums still bought a copy" albums. Of course it's on there.
There's a palatability to that Hootie and the Blowfish record that Nirvana, being louder and more abrasive, didn't have. That's probably why Cracked Rear View won over so many non-music fans. Hootie was like the Adele of the 1990s.
My dad bought both Dookie and Cracked Rear View from Columbia House back in the day. They might've even come in the same order.
Than Hootie. But all I am trying to say is I assumed Nirvana would be on that list too, if Hootie and Green Day are.
Apparently Nevermind has sold over 30 million copies but has only been certified at 10 million (which was in 1999). Not sure why such a large discrepancy.
My feeling has always been that Green Day were playing more in the pop sandbox than most '90s rock bands, so I'm not that surprised. I do wonder what the current domestic number for Nevermind is, though. I'm sure it's close. An RIAA certification can only include U.S. sales, and I believe that 30 million number for Nevermind is worldwide. Could be wrong, though.
There are a surprising amount of albums that have sold more copies than Nevermind. Which is really weird to me considering Nirvana’s status as a band. Human Clay has sold more copies than Nevermind
Nevermind would HAVE to have outsold Human Clay by now, let alone 10 years ago??? They’ve had more reissues and variants for purchase over the years (unless that doesn’t count?) and as far as cultural impact I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that Nirvana has had a greater longevity and reach… They should probably look at re-certifying it if it was last verified as of 1999(!).
Oh weird. I didn’t realize it hasn’t been re-certified since 1999. They gotta fix that. I think it’s safe to assume it’s outsold Creed then
People thought Nirvana smelled like teen spirit and said no way, but they welcomed Creed with arms wide open.
I was about to come here and say that Nevermind very likely sold more copies worldwide than the Hootie album, but those certifications indeed only look at American numbers. There’s no international certification (or, if there is, it is not relevant). There are probably more albums that don’t come to mind right now that sold more worldwide than e.g. the Hootie album.
Yeah, these are definitely just American numbers. I don’t think Hootie was quite as big anywhere else. In the U.S., Cracked Rear View was THE biggest selling album in 1995.
I can confirm this since Im not from the US and it is the first time in my life I’ve ever heard of that band. In fact at first I thought it was some kind of joke I was not understanding lol.