Abbey Road Was The Best-Selling Vinyl Of The Decade
People are still coming together right now over the Beatles. As 2019 drew to a close, so did the entire decade, and according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data’s 2019 Year-End Music Report, the Beatles’ 1969 masterpiece Abbey Road — which got a big 50th anniversary reissue this year — was the best-selling vinyl record of both the year and the decade. Have we reached peak Abbey Road yet?
And vinyl definitely isn’t dead. The two Record Store Day events of 2019 led to vinyl’s third-, fourth- and fifth-best-selling weeks since Nielsen began measuring the format in 1991. Vinyl represented 26% of all physical sales in 2019, with 18.8 million units sold throughout the year — compared to 54.8 million units of CDs. That’s up 14.5% from 16.5 million vinyl records sold in 2018.
Check out the full lists of the year and the decade’s best-selling vinyl records below, and check out Nielsen Music/MRC Data’s full 2019 Year-End Music Report here Full disclosure: Nielsen Music/MRC Data is a division of Valence Media, Stereogum’s parent company.
Top 10 Vinyl Albums Of 2019 (Rank, Artist, Title, Sales)
1 Beatles Abbey Road 246,000
2 Billie Eilish When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? 176,000
3 Queen Greatest Hits 1 139,000
4 Soundtrack Guardians Of The Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 123,000
5 Queen Bohemian Rhapsody (The Original Soundtrack) 108,000
6 Beach Boys Sounds Of Summer: Very Best Of 107,000
7 Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon 92,000
8 Michael Jackson Thriller 88,000
9 Bob Marley & The Wailers Legend 84,000
10 Fleetwood Mac Rumours 78,000
Top 10 Vinyl Albums Of The Decade (Rank, Artist, Title, Sales)
1 Beatles Abbey Road 558,000
2 Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon 376,000
3 Soundtrack Guardians Of The Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 367,000
4 Bob Marley & The Wailers Legend 364,000
5 Amy Winehouse Back To Black 351,000
6 Michael Jackson Thriller 334,0000
7 Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 313,000
8 Fleetwood Mac Rumours 304,000
9 Miles Davis Kind Of Blue 286,000
10 Lana Del Rey Born To Die 283,000