The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the US recording industry. It certifies gold, platinum, multi-platinum and diamond sales awards for best-selling record releases.
The following are the certifications for The Beatles’ albums sold in the United States. It documents the original UK releases which are now available on CD in the US and around the world.
A release is certified gold after shipping 500,000 copies; 1m warrants a platinum award. Double albums are counted twice, hence the high score of The Beatles (White Album) and the Anthology releases.
- 1963: Please Please Me (1m copies)
- 1963: With The Beatles (0.5)
- 1964: A Hard Day’s Night (4)
- 1964: Beatles For Sale (1)
- 1965: Help! (3)
- 1965: Rubber Soul (6)
- 1966: Revolver (5)
- 1967: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (11)
- 1967: Magical Mystery Tour (6)
- 1968: The Beatles (White Album) (19)
- 1969: Yellow Submarine (1)
- 1969: Abbey Road (12)
- 1970: Let It Be (4)
- 1973: The Red Album 62-66 (15)
- 1973: The Blue Album 67-70 (16)
- 1988: Past Masters Volume One (1)
- 1988: Past Masters Volume Two (1)
- 1994: Live At The BBC (4)
- 1995: Anthology 1 (8)
- 1996: Anthology 2 (4)
- 1996: Anthology 3 (3)
- 1999: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (0.5)
- 2000: 1 (10)
- 2003: Let It Be… Naked (1)
- 2006: Love (1)
Figures believed correct as of January 2009.
Joe, you’ve written that the albums are the original UK released albums but what about Magical Mystery Tour?
Also, how many sales indicate a Diamond certification?
Fair point. When I mentioned the original UK albums, I meant it didn’t include Meet The Beatles!, Beatles VI etc.
Magical Mystery Tour was only properly released in the UK in 1976, although it was imported before then. But this list refers just to US sales. I’ll reword it so it’s a bit clearer.
As for diamond sales, they’re for 10m units sold. There have been a few – I’ll update the list later.
It says that the “figures are believed correct as of January 2009.” I think that the information would be far more accurate if it was “correct as of 2011” or something like that, as January 2009 was before the huge remaster campaign that occured later that year, which I presume caused a high increase in the Beatles’ popularity and album sales.
Don’t think you will find yellow submarine has sold twice as many copies as with the beatles!!
@Joe, are The Blue & Red albums counted as double or are they single
According to Riaa certified Sgt peppers was the re biggest selling album 23Million
just saw the numbers for the beattles released in 2000 has sold 31million world wide
These are the sales in UK, not worldwide
What demographic did the pre-1965 Beatles recordings appeal to…. age and gender?
An amazing feat for The Beatles is that please please me sold as much as it did at a time when the average Brit did not have much money to spend on an album.
In 25 years, they may have over 10 albums diamond. It’s insane
They are the best forever.
How may units did the Beatles sell in the year 1980?
Keep in mind that the sales figure (above) for A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Rubber Soul, and Revolver also account for the massive sales of their Capitol (and UA) albums before the UK CD format was adopted in 1987. Ie., for those four titles, these are cumulative US sales figures for these albums since they were first released.