Nirvana's era-defining 1991 album Nevermind has overtaken AC/DC's classic Back In Black to become the sixth best-selling album of all time – and it's also outperformed Pink Floyd's epochal The Dark Side Of The Moon.
The new numbers come from data analysis company Chartmasters, who combine physical sales, digital downloads and streaming to calculate an "Equivalent Album Sales" (EAS) total, which also includes sales of singles and songs from those albums that have also appeared on compilations and greatest hits packages.
Chartmaster's listing shows that while Back In Black has sold more physical vinyl copies (37m as opposed to 30m), the other calculations (tracks included on other albums, physical singles, digital singles and streams) are enough to push Nevermind above Angus Young & Co. in the all-time chart.
Nevermind has an EAS of 66,832,000, while Back In Black's total isn't far behind at 66,831,000. Meanwhile, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon, released 18 years before Nevermind, has an EAS of 63,623,000. Only two rock albums (Eagles' Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours) appear higher in the overall chart than Nevermind. The full Top 10 is below.
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain once claimed he'd taken guitar lessons for two days in eighth grade, so he could learn to play Back In Black's title track, although band manager Danny Goldberg later claimed that while Cobain liked AC/DC's music, he was never comfortable with their lyrics.
Meanwhile, in 1992, Classic Rock's Mark Blake asked late AC/DC leader Malcolm Young what he thought of Nirvana.
"Singer's a blond feller," responded Young. "Bit of a poser."
The Top 10 Best Selling Albums Of All Time (according to Chartmastrs)
- Michael Jackson - Thriller (EAS 131,253,000)
- Eagles - Hotel California (74,695,000)
- Bee Gees & Various Artists - Saturday Night Fever OST (73,267,000)
- Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (73,108,000)
- Michael Jackson - Bad (70,196,000)
- Nirvana - Nevermind (66,832,000)
- AC/DC - Back in Black (66,831,000)
- Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (63,623,000)
- The Beatles - Abbey Road (61,075,000)
- Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV (60,696,000)
