One way to feel extremely old is to look at the best-selling albums of the past two decades — and luckily for us, the team at Visual Capitalist have created a graphic that allows us to do just that.

Using data from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, Visual Capitalist charted the top-selling album of each year between 2001 and 2023, by units sold. The figures include all physical formats (vinyl, cassette, CD) and paid full album downloads, and are accurate as of August 2024.

Adele is one of the best-selling music artists of the past twenty years, with three of her albums becoming global top-sellers in their respective release years. The British singer-songwriter's 2011 album, "21," beat every other album's sales two years in a row.

Soundtracks from popular movies like "High School Musical," "Frozen" and "The Greatest Showman" have outsold traditional music albums on several occasions.

Click image to enlarge

Via Visual Capitalist.