10 of the Most Popular Vinyl Records Ever Released

If Michael Jackson’s 1979 album “Off the Wall” marked a new era in the singer’s solo career, “Thriller” (1982) represents his crowning achievement. In collaboration with producer Quincy Jones, Jackson didn’t just release a string of megahits, he changed the pop music landscape. The music videos for “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” fueled the rise of MTV, and the ambitious, cinematic video for the album’s title track pushed the music video format to new creative heights.

The album scored eight Grammy wins in 1984, including Album of the Year, and spent 37 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard charts. In the U.S., "Thriller" was the first to be certified 30 times platinum, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is included on the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. It’s estimated that the album has sold around 70 million copies worldwide.

Selling an estimated 50 million copies since its release in 1980, AC/DC’s seventh studio album “Back in Black” is impressive by any measure. Even more remarkable, though, is that the band recorded one of the bestselling albums of all time just five months after a devastating loss.

Less than a year after releasing their breakthrough 1979 album “Highway to Hell,” AC/DC’s lead singer Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning in February 1980—a tragedy that might have meant the end for many bands. Instead, within weeks of Scott’s funeral, AC/DC hired new frontman Brian Johnson. They wrote, recorded and released “Back in Black” in July 1980. It debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. charts and spent more than five months in the Billboard 200’s top 10 in the U.S. The album’s lead single, “You Shook Me All Night Long,” remains an inescapable rock anthem to this day.

In 1992, Whitney Houston made her feature film debut as a pop superstar in The Bodyguard. Like her character in the film, Houston was already a household name, so it’s unsurprising the film’s soundtrack, and the five hit singles Houston performed, became a global phenomenon. The album also featured songs by Kenny G, The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. and others, and spent 42 weeks within the top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, 20 of those at No. 1. In November 1993, it became the first female-led album to be certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling 10 million copies in the U.S.

Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” spent 14 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album earned Houston her first and only Grammy for Record of the Year and is estimated to have sold 45 million copies worldwide. In 2017, Billboard’s Gail Mitchell said, “Plain and simple, The Bodyguard’s unparalleled success cemented Whitney Houston’s status in the firmament of iconic female singers.”

Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” is a prime example of the importance of a great sound engineer, says Kurtz. For their 1973 album, the band tapped Alan Parsons, who had previously worked on The Beatles’ albums “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be.”

“By the time ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ was recorded, he was at the top of his game,” Kurtz says, “and when you hear that recording it is so deep, so sonically phenomenal. People don’t talk about engineers, but I think they’re really as important as producers, and I think maybe even more important because they capture what you end up experiencing.”

Upon its release, the album hit the Billboard 200 and continued to chart for a staggering 736 nonconsecutive weeks between March 1973 and July 1988. It has continued to chart in the decades since, and in January 2026, Billboard reported the album had appeared on the weekly Billboard 200 chart 996 times since its release. “The Dark Side of the Moon” is estimated to have sold 45 million copies worldwide.

In 2026, the Eagles’ 1976 greatest hits compilation became the first album ever to receive a quadruple Diamond certification from the RIAA. Worldwide, it is estimated to have sold 45 million copies.

But when it was first released, the Eagles themselves were reportedly none too happy about “Their Greatest Hits,” which included tracks like “Take It Easy” and “Desperado” from their first four studio albums. Guitarist Don Felder wrote in his 2008 autobiography that the band had “no say” in the decision to release the collection, and in his 2004 book To the Limit, author Marc Eliot quotes vocalist and drummer Don Henley as saying that the band’s record company “didn’t give a s*** whether the greatest hits album was good or not, they just wanted product.”

Well before Taylor Swift made her shift from country music to pop, Shania Twain broke new ground in fusing the two genres with her third album. The result of her collaboration with rock producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the album’s songs were a mix of Nashville twang, rock production and late-90s “poptimism.”

Of “Come On Over’s” 12 tracks, four became inescapable radio hits that also showed off Twain’s impressive range. Ballads like “You’re Still the One” and “From This Moment On” tugged at the heartstrings, while “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” became pop crossover hits that showcased her humor and feminist perspective. Having sold an estimated 40 million copies worldwide, “Come On Over” is not only one of the bestselling records of all time, it is also the bestselling studio album by a solo female artist and the bestselling country album ever.

Looking back on the Eagles’ fifth studio album in 2016, Don Henley told Rolling Stone that the band had managed to capture the “built-in mythology” of California. “I’ve learned over the years that one word, ‘California,’ carries with it all kinds of connotations, powerful imagery, mystique, etc., that fires the imaginations of people in all corners of the globe,” he said.

Henley credited the success of the band’s first greatest hits collection, released in February 1976, for setting the stage for “Hotel California” when it came out the following December. The album’s haunting title track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1977. The following year, the song earned the band a Grammy for Record of the Year. The album itself spent eight nonconsecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum the week of its release. In January 2026, the RIAA certified “Hotel California” 28 times platinum in the U.S., and the album is estimated to have sold more than 42 million copies worldwide.

The heady mix of clashing egos and disintegrating relationships that fueled the creation of “Rumours” is legendary. Riding high off the success of their 1975 album “Fleetwood Mac,” the band poured everything they had into their 1977 follow-up. Vocalists and songwriters Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie traded barbs with their ex-partners (and bandmates) in the lyrics.

A supremely catchy document of one of pop music’s great soap operas, fans around the world ate “Rumours” up. The album spawned the band’s one and only No. 1 hit single—“Nicks’s ‘Dreams’”—and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978. The album reached No. 1 on the charts and remained in the Billboard 200 for 31 nonconsecutive weeks, reentering in 2011 and 2020. It was the bestselling album on vinyl in the U.K. in 2020 and is estimated to have sold 40 million copies worldwide since its release.

“It still shows up as our No. 1 selling vinyl record after 50 years,” Kurtz says.

With his debut album “Bat Out of Hell,” Meat Loaf hit one out of the park. Jim Steinman, who wrote all seven tracks on the record, built on his original concept for a rock musical based on Peter Pan to create a quasi-operatic exploration of teenage rebellion and desire. In a 2007 retrospective review of the 1977 album, AllMusic’s Stephen Erlewine described songs like the nearly 10-minute title track and the three-part “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” as “mini-epics.” “Bat Out of Hell,” Erlewine wrote, “is Grand Guignol pop—epic, gothic, operatic, and silly, and it’s appealing because of all of this.”

While underappreciated by critics at the time of its release, the album reached No. 1 on several international charts and has gone on to sell over 40 million copies worldwide.

Saturday Night Fever and its accompanying soundtrack defined the disco era, thanks in large part to the infectious songs the Bee Gees contributed to the double album. Side A of the soundtrack’s first disc is essentially a mini Bee Gees album, comprised of what became their most recognizable tunes, including “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever” along with “If I Can’t Have You,” written by the band and performed by Yvonne Elliman.

An instant hit, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is the only disco album to receive a Grammy for Album of the Year. It reached No. 1 on the charts in 15 countries and is estimated to have sold 40 million copies since 1977.