Metal King!

Metallica Remains Best-Selling Disc of SoundScan Era

At the close of 2010, Metallica’s Metallica (the “Black Album”) remains the biggest selling album of the SoundScan era. The Metallica disc has sold 15,620,000 units since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. The album boasted sales of 120,000 last year. Shania Twain’s Come on Over ranks second in sales during the era, with Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill holding the third spot.

Nielsen’s SoundScan further reports that U.S. album sales, in total, decreased by 12.7 percent in 2010, a slump that matches the drop in sales that occurred in 2009. Americans purchased 326,200,000 albums in 2010. That figure includes both physical and digital releases. Digital album downloads actually increased by 13 percent last year, accounting for roughly a quarter of all album sales.

The Top 10 selling albums of the SoundScan era are:

1. Metallica - Metallica (15,620,000)
2. Shania Twain - Come On Over (15,487,000)
3. Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill (14,642,000)
4. Backstreet Boys - Millennium (12,109,000)
5. Various artists – The Bodyguard soundtrack (11,815,000)
6. Santana - Supernatural (11,687,000)
7. The Beatles - 1 (11,584,000)
8. Creed - Human Clay (11,547,000)
9. N Sync - No Strings Attached (11,113,000)
10. Celine Dion - Falling Into You (10,781,000)

source:www.gibson.com

Info:

Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada. Data is collected weekly and made available every Wednesday to subscribers, which include executives from all facets of record companies, publishing firms, music retailers, independent promoters, film and TV, and artist management. SoundScan is the sales source for the Billboard music charts, making it the official source of sales records in the music industry.

Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales data for Nielsen since March 1, 1991. The May 25 issue of Billboard published Billboard 200 and Country Music charts based on SoundScan "piece count data," and the first Hot 100 chart to debut with the system was released on November 30, 1991. Previously, Billboard tracked sales by calling stores across the U.S. and asking about sales - a method that was inherently error-prone and open to outright fraud.

thanks to wikipedia for the info..