Can you name the RIAA's 30 best-selling albums (& artists)in America based on part of the album cover? by rockgolf

Can you name the RIAA's 30 best-selling albums (& artists)
in America based on part of the album cover?

created by rockgolf

Enter an artist and albums BOTH in the box below
Correctly named answers will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
RIAA's 25 best-selling albums of all-time in the US. See details in the Comment section. Covers are arranged left-to-right top-to-bottom. ----------------- REMEMBER: Enter BOTH album title and artist.
Source: RIAA Top 100 page
This quiz has not been verified by Sporcle

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There are 30 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

All-time Best selling Album BY COVER Quiz

by rockgolf

Created Jan 26, 2010 in Music
Game Plays 5,502

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	rockgolf:	Jan 24th, 2010 at 19:30 GMT		6 points
	Caveats on the list: 1) This list may be somewhat dated, and in all likelihood Thriller has once again become the biggest-selling album in US history. 2) The RIAA counts "units" rather than actual albums. So double albums, count as two units.The Beatles' white album, 62-66 & 67-70, Billy Joel Hits, Garth Brooks Live, Saturday Night Fever, Physical Graffiti and The Wall are all double albums, so their sales are probably half what is listed. So be calm, the Beatles white album didn't really outsell Sgt Pepper or Abbey Road. 3) The RIAA doesn't actually count sales, they count shipments. So there could be a lot of these albums sitting in a warehouse, devaluing as we speak. Unlikely, but not a spectacularly accurate method for determining sales either. So why do this? Because I thought there should be an album cover quiz and I'd like someone else to write a better one.

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 04:00 GMT		4 points
	After much thought, I couldn't live with the double album fiction described above, so I cut the sales of those albums in half, and recalculated the list. Only one double album survived the cut. But to me, it's a more realistic list. Sadly, it means my beloved Beatles are not on the list at all. Although there are several Beatles songs that on album would outsell the #1 album if you combined the track sales. For example, Get Back is on Let It Be, the "Blue" album (Beatles 1967-1970) and the album "1".

	Tahnan:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 05:10 GMT		2 points
	Possibly a little too generous with giving credit for "self-titled", since that revealed a number of answers I wouldn't have otherwise gotten; and similarly, while "greatest hits" probably should indeed reveal all the greatest hits, it might make sense to cut the band names out of the titles.

	captaincrash:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 10:05 GMT		5 points
	The pictures don't seem to correspond to the numbers for me, but other than that I thought it was a good quiz.

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:00 GMT		2 points
	@Tahnan: The titles displayed are the official titles from the RIAA website & elsewhere, apparently defined as what is shown on the album spine. (That the thin side visible when albums are filed or stacked.) So, yes, in two cases that also gives away the act. "Self-titled" is used often enough with many of these albums that I felt it had to be an alternate answer. It may inflate the scores, but that's not an entirely bad thing. @captaincrash: I couldn't determine if I should arrange the picture in rows or columns, so I went with "random".

	Kiwi_Buckle:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 13:18 GMT		2 points
	Good quiz, fun, fun.

	Etheridge2:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 15:55 GMT		1 point
	Damned fish....totally missed that one or would have been perfect, as always rock an outstanding job.

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 16:02 GMT		4 points
	@Etheridge: Were you so upset... that the dolphins made you cry?

	Kicking222:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 16:49 GMT		6 points
	What a twist- rockgolf made an awesome game! Oh, wait, that's not a twist even slightly- all he does is make awesome games.

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 17:22 GMT		5 points
	@Kicking222: Obviously you've never tried my "Let's Boogie" or "Pants On The Ground" quizzes, or you'd change your tune.

	wickethewok:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 17:55 GMT		4 points
	Can you accept "Led Zeppelin 4" for "Led Zeppelin IV"?

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 18:35 GMT		4 points
	@wicket: That's reasonable. I had "4" as an alternate, but forgot to allow single character answers. Now it should accept both "4" and "Led Zeppelin 4". Even "Led Zeppelin four".

	pita:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 18:57 GMT		2 points
	Should have just picked the number order by rows or columns, we'd figure that out, but random makes no sense.

	Desiderata:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 19:24 GMT		3 points
	I agree that the pictures being out of order from the list is unnecessarily distracting. Am I the only one for whom the last row of pictures is cut in half? They're impossible to figure out like that, except for a certain famous posterior (you only need one cheek).

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 19:52 GMT		2 points
	@Desi: You are a child of the universe and have a right to be here. I think you're getting the entire final column. In total there should be 4 eyes, one cheek and a partial view of a bundle of sticks. (If I used the technical name for such a bundle of sticks, faggot, some people would get the wrong impression.)

	ross62681:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 20:51 GMT		2 points
	Good quiz, but put the pictures in order or something

	debbiedoesnothin:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 20:55 GMT		1 point
	I agree with others - please put the pictures in order. Most of the picture quizzes usually go across in rows.

	rockgolf:	Jan 27th, 2010 at 20:56 GMT		3 points
	Ok, I've modified the picture to include teeeeeeny little numbers associated to the rank of the album. Vote this comment up if you like the numbers, down if you'd prefer it without numbers.

	kidcanada:	Jan 28th, 2010 at 01:10 GMT		0 points
	PLEASE put the pictures in order.

	rockgolf:	Jan 28th, 2010 at 03:05 GMT		2 points
	I concede! The albums in the picture are now in the same sequence as the quiz. Left-to-right, top-to-bottom. (I was away from the original source file for most of the day.)

	ceiiinosssttuu:	Jan 28th, 2010 at 04:46 GMT		0 points
	I typed 'Houston' and got Artist Whitney Houston, but not Album Whitney Houston. ???

	rockgolf:	Jan 28th, 2010 at 12:00 GMT		4 points
	@ceiii...: Sporcle tradition. You get credit for last names, but the album wasn't called "Houston". However, her 2nd album was called "Whitney". It must have taken them a week to come up with that name.

	walkerboh1701:	Jan 29th, 2010 at 01:19 GMT		2 points
	Excellent quiz, rock! Got all but the Shania one. I've been hoping someone would do this.

	crashedferrari:	Jan 30th, 2010 at 09:39 GMT		1 point
	I can't believe Nevermind wasn't on here.

	caramba:	Jan 31st, 2010 at 08:28 GMT		2 points
	@rockgolf: For some reason all of the user-contributed quizzes at Sporcle have the right 10% cut off for me, and I use four different computers - IE8. Sounds like others are having this problem too, perhaps the Sporcle Gods can look into that? Re: your comment to Desiderata, now I'm going to have Les Crane in my head all night!

	Skydog:	Jan 31st, 2010 at 14:05 GMT		1 point
	@caramba That's your problem you're still using IE.. IT SUCKS NOW!

	rockgolf:	Feb 1st, 2010 at 18:53 GMT		1 point
	@Caramba: I've viewed this quiz under IE6 and Firefox with no problems. If you haven't made the switch to Firefox, I strongly recommend it in any case. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html

	lznyc212:	Mar 3rd, 2010 at 12:08 GMT		1 point
	@caramba: I still use IE and I'm not embarrassed to admit it, haha. When picture quizzes are cut-off, I save the picture to my desktop...it's a little tedious to flip back & forth from Sporcle to the picture, but not any worse than scrolling up & down. :)

	dxman:	Mar 28th, 2010 at 19:06 GMT		2 points
	@crashedferrari: Nevermind is still in the top 100.

	hibernia:	Oct 13th, 2010 at 16:41 GMT		3 points
	I always think that the first Whitney album is Sade.