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The story
Independent music data platform Chartmasters has calculated that Nirvana’s “Nevermind” has overtaken AC/DC’s “Back in Black” to become the 6th best-selling album worldwide of all time. The ranking is based on a metric called “Equivalent Album Sales (EAS),” which combines not just actual physical sales of vinyl and CDs but also digital downloads and streaming, with greatest-hits and compilation albums excluded under the rules. On 5ch, posters debated everything from the Beatles landing at only No. 9, to how the Eagles are counted, to whether Nirvana’s placement is even deserved.
According to independent music data platform Chartmasters, Nirvana’s “Nevermind” has overtaken AC/DC’s “Back in Black” to become the 6th best-selling album worldwide of all time.
Chartmasters bases its rankings on actual sales figures and streaming data, calculating a total “Equivalent Album Sales (EAS)” figure that combines physical format sales, digital downloads, and streaming. Compilation albums and greatest hits are excluded, and under the rules, sales of singles — or of tracks that appear on compilations or best-ofs — are credited back to the original studio album the song first appeared on.
Per Chartmasters’ ranking, “Back In Black” actually leads in vinyl sales (37 million copies versus 30 million), but once the other factors are combined — tracks appearing on other albums, physical singles, digital singles, and streaming — “Nevermind” ends up ranking above “Back In Black” overall.
Source: amass.jp / Original article here
What people said
I mean, it's the 1960s after all, right?
> combining physical format sales, digital downloads, and streaming
Never mind then.
The album itself is said to have sold over 67 million copies on its own.
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (73,108,000)
I only know "Little Lies" — is that even on this one?
Isn't it "Dreams"? Actually that's the only song of theirs I know lol
"Little Lies" is on the album "Tango in the Night" — that's a whole decade apart from Rumours.
And "Breed" too. Every high school festival had bands covering "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Breed," and Hi-STANDARD, lol (Hi-STANDARD being a famous Japanese punk band)
MJ is criminally underrated. If it weren't for the scandals, everyone would agree without question that he's the greatest pop singer in the world.
Seeing garbage like the Beatles and Oasis not even make the list just proves it's all down to who shouts the loudest.
Can't you read English?
Honestly, grunge is just strumming simple chords over and over — a genre that totally wastes the guitar's potential.
Doesn't Nirvana have a lot of filler songs though? Being good at guitar has nothing to do with it anyway — Muse are bad players too, but their songs are amazing. Still, why did Nirvana sell so much? Kind of lame, honestly.
Metalhead old-timers who still think "fast shredding = cool" are basically an endangered species at this point.
Just go listen to Whitesnake then, you hair-metal relic.
They've been the go-to reference track for sound-checking headphones and speakers forever…
And the guitar solo after the vocals end.
Their faces, probably.
If you actually look at '80s metal bands, most of them aren't exactly good-looking. Maybe the strength of youth culture back then was that no matter how ugly you were, slicking your hair back or growing it out long let you join the club —
but in the end, even that lost once good-looking guys showed up and forced reality on everyone.
Kurt's looks. (Kurt Cobain)
Greatest hits albums don't count.
You think so? Compared to other prog acts like Yes or King Crimson, I'd say Pink Floyd is pretty accessible. Gilmour's guitar work is great too.
Well yeah, if you compare 1960s sales to '80s-'90s sales, that's bound to happen.
If you count vinyl only, I feel like they'd dominate by a landslide.
It's still No. 1 by a landslide, as far as I know.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The “Equivalent Album Sales (EAS)” metric Chartmasters uses is calculated by adding digital downloads and streaming plays on top of actual physical sales — a different measure from simple shipment totals. As the source article explains, greatest-hits and compilation albums are excluded from the ranking, and a track’s sales are credited back to the original album it first appeared on. As seen in the thread, where some posters mistakenly read “Thriller” as having sold 130 million physical copies, EAS tends to produce numbers far larger than the traditional shipment-figure image, which can feel jarring next to older sales data. There’s also a structural quirk for artists like the Beatles, who were active in the 1960s: since their sales are concentrated in an era before streaming existed, their totals don’t grow the way later artists’ do. Without understanding these premises behind the ranking, it’s easy to misread the results as proof that “this artist is underrated.”
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “Nirvana’s “Nevermind” Becomes the 6th Best-Selling Album Worldwide — No. 2 is the Eagles, and No. 1 is a landslide win for…“.
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