This is a list of the best-selling albums of the 21st century to date based on IFPI certification and Nielsen SoundScan sales tracking. The criteria are that the album must have been published (including self-publishing by the artist), and the album must have shipped at least 10 million units starting from January 1, 2001.
Units sold include physical copies and digital downloads.
From 2022, IFPI reported three formats of sales chart, newly created Global vinyl album chart, combination of physical copies and digital downloads as Global album sales chart and Global all format chart for totaling of all sales.[1]
^Baltin, Steve (October 12, 2016). "Evanescence Thank Fans With New Box Set". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-02-25. Upon its release in 2003, Evanescence's debut album, Fallen, became a rock phenomenon, selling 17 million copies worldwide, spending 43 weeks in the top 10 and becoming one of only eight albums to spend an entire year in the Billboard top 50.
^Kordares, Molly (20 April 2010). "Green Day Takes Broadway with "American Idiot"". CBS. Retrieved February 25, 2017. Then the music begins and I remember why Green Day sold over 15 million copies of "American Idiot" – it's a really good album.
^ abKara, Scott (October 25, 2012). "Big band theory: who are the brightest stars?". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 2017-02-25. Albums sold worldwide. Parachutes (8.5 million); A Rush of Blood to the Head (15 million); X&Y (13 million); Viva La Vida (10 million); Mylo Xyloto (6 million).
^Wang, Daisy (November 9, 2016). "Alicia Keys discovers herself in latest album". The Daily Texan. Archived from the original on 2017-02-26. Retrieved 2017-02-25. After leaving Columbia University to pursue a singing career, Keys broke into the music scene in 2001 with her album, Songs in A Minor, which sold 12 million copies worldwide and won Keys five Grammys.
^Taylor, Chuck (16 February 2008). "Queen of Hearts"(PDF). Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. p. 30. Retrieved 25 February 2017. The title track to Dion's 2002 return "A New Day Has Come" spent 21 weeks at No. 1 at AC- setting a record -while the album sold 12 million copies worldwide, according to Sony.
^Barker, Emily (September 23, 2014). "That's Not What We Call Music: 19 Unfathomably Popular Albums Of The 00s". NME. Retrieved 2017-02-25. Let us be frank: Dido's debut, 'No Angel', wasn't much cop either. But it was superior to follow-up 'Life For Rent', which sold over 12 million copies worldwide and was the seventh best-selling album of the 2000s in the UK.
^McCormick, Neil (September 14, 2007). "A soldier's guide to stardom". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2017-02-25. Blunt's debut album, Back to Bedlam, has sold 11 million copies worldwide, making it the most successful British album of the new century.
^"Mariah Carey: Come in and smell the perfume". The Daily Telegraph. March 17, 2008. Retrieved October 7, 2017. 'The Emancipation of Mimi', to be the biggest-selling album of the year worldwide (10 million copies sold), taking her career total to well over 160 million.
^Corner, Lewis (July 25, 2014). "Madonna's new album: What we know so far". Digital Spy. Retrieved August 22, 2017. That was also the last time one of her albums sold over 10 million copies, so maybe Madge is pulling out all of the stops to get another multi-million hit on her hands.
^Porto, Bruno (January 7, 2003). "Sex Machines". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). Globo.com. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved June 21, 2019. (...) and "Britney", released in 2001, sold 10 million copies (150,000 in Brazil).Alt URL
^Leeds, Jeff (May 21, 2007). "Second CD by Maroon 5 Faces Great Expectations". The New York Times. Retrieved February 25, 2017. 'Songs About Jane' sold an estimated 10 million copies worldwide, but that was not enough to assure top executives at Sony BMG, the music giant that distributed it, that the rights to Maroon 5's future recordings were worth the asking price.