Quote:
Originally posted by Icing
I think that's a solid figure for all three. The Beatles aren't as global people presume. They pretty much dominate the US like nowhere else, maybe the UK. Their greatest hits albums are really their only records that legit blew up everywhere. Obviously album sales weren't all that big in the 60s, but still...facts are facts.
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But, that isn't really a fair statement. The reason their early albums weren't hits across the world at the time of release is because a lot of them were only initially released in the US and the UK, sometimes only one or the other and occasionally also Australia and NZ. But that's a result of the US and UK accounting for 90+% of the world's record sales in the 1960s.
At any rate, the
vast majority of The Beatles albums were sold long after the band broke up in 1970, and those sales are distributed across the entire world. I mean, not two years ago, when their catalog was re-mastered, they sold a million albums in three days in Japan.
In virtually all countries that have an organized singles chart dating back to the 1960s, The Beatles are the act with the most #1 hits of all-time, or among the top 3.
They're also the best-selling music act of all-time outside of the United States, so it's not like you can't call them worldwide.
And yes, the greatest hits albums like
1 enjoyed a proper worldwide release and topped the charts in all notable countries.