The Best Selling Album Of All Time Is...

The Eagles Bring the Hits

Sometimes rock history doesn’t happen with a new release; sometimes it happens when a classic just refuses to go away.

Nearly fifty years after its release, The Eagles "Eagles: Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)" has officially become the best-selling album in U.S. history, surpassing every other record that has ever landed in American homes.

Released in 1976, the album was never meant to be a grand artistic statement; it was just practical. A greatest hits package designed to bridge the gap between One of These Nights and what would soon become Hotel California. Instead, it accidentally became one of the most perfectly sequenced rock albums of all time.

Accidental Perfection

From “Take It Easy” and “Witchy Woman” to “Desperado,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” and “Already Gone,” the record plays like a guided tour through the biggest radio hits of the 1970s. No filler; no wasted space; just song after song that helped define the sound of mainstream American rock.

This week, the Recording Industry Association of America updated its certification numbers, officially pushing the album past 40 million copies sold in the U.S. alone; enough to knock Michael Jackson’s Thriller out of the top spot it held for decades.

What makes that even more impressive is how it happened. No viral moment; no streaming era gimmicks. Just decades of steady sales across vinyl, cassette, CD, and digital formats, fueled by radio play and word of mouth.

Don Henley once said the band was “as surprised as anyone” by how the album took on a life of its own, noting that it was originally assembled simply because “the label needed a product."

The strength of songs alone can achieve great things. And it helps to have superfans buy up multiple copies of an album, across all possible formats.