How many copies has Michael Jackson’s Thriller sold?

How to get close to this number

Anchor on the scale of album sales generally. A hugely successful album sells in the tens of millions; the all-time record holder has to be at the top of that band rather than in a different one, because album sales have a ceiling set by the size of the record-buying public in any era. Tens of millions, high in the range, is the answer.

The chart statistic in the explanation gives the scale better than the sales figure does. Thirty-seven weeks at number one means the album held the top position for the better part of a year, at a time when the chart turned over quickly. Duration at the top is often a better measure of cultural saturation than a cumulative total.

The video is the detail that explains the album rather than decorating it. A fourteen-minute short film that cost more than most music videos cost in a year created a new category of promotion and effectively made a television channel. Sales figures for legacy albums are also estimates reconciled across decades of inconsistent record-keeping, so this is a well-sourced approximation rather than an audited count.