Record sales

Record sales or music sales are activities related to selling music recordings (albums, singles, or music videos) through physical record shops or digital music stores.^[1][2][3] Record sales reached their peak in 1999, when 600 million people spent an average of $64 on records, achieving $40 billion in sales of recorded music.^[4][5] Sales continued declining in the 21st century.^[6][7] The collapse of record sales also made artists rely on touring for most of their income.^[8] By 2019, record sales accounted for less than half of global recorded music revenue, overtaken by streaming.^[9] Following the inclusion of streaming into record charts in the mid-2010s, record sales are also referred to as traditional sales or pure sales.^[10][11][12]

According to Guinness World Records, Michael Jackson's 1982 album Thriller remains the best-selling album in history, with an estimated 66 million copies sold worldwide.^[13] "White Christmas" (1942) performed by Bing Crosby is believed to be the best-selling single, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.^[14] Although an accurate worldwide sales figure is hard to determine, it is widely acknowledged that the Beatles have sold more records than any other artist in the history of recorded music.^{[15][16][17][18]}