The following albums, recorded by female solo artists and all-female groups, have sold at least 10 million copies. This list can contain any types of album, including studio albums, extended plays, greatest hits, compilations, soundtracks, and remixes. Various artists albums are eligible for inclusion if a woman is credited as the main artist by record charts and certifying organizations. The figures given do not take into account the resale of pre owned albums.
The Bodyguard soundtrack by Whitney Houston (with various artists) is the best-selling album credited to a woman; [1] its sales are over 45 million copies since its release in November 1992. [2] Come On Over by Shania Twain is recognized by Guinness World Records as the biggest-selling studio album by a solo female artist with over 40 million copies. [1] Previous record holders of the best-selling album by a female artist include Carole King's Tapestry , and Whitney Houston's debut album as well Madonna with True Blue according to the Guinness World Records (1989 and 1992 editions, respectively). [3] [4] [5] Madonna also has the best-selling compilation album by a female artist (and solo artist) with The Immaculate Collection , which sold around 30 million copies. [6] Other notable appearances include Shakira, as the only Latino artist in the list thanks to her crossover album Laundry Service , and Hikaru Utada with First Love as the only Asian artist. Celine Dion has the only entirely non-English album with D'eux , which remains the best-selling French album of all time. The Spice Girls have the best-selling album by a girl group with Spice , while Mariah Carey has the best-selling Christmas album by a female artist with Merry Christmas . Whitney Houston' Whitney Houston remains the biggest-selling debut album of all time by a female artist. Britney Spears' …Baby One More Time is the best-selling debut album by a female teenage artist.
Numerous artists have multiple entries, led by Madonna with nine of her albums and followed by Celine Dion (seven), Mariah Carey (seven), Whitney Houston (six), while Britney Spears, Enya, Shania Twain, and Janet Jackson each have three. The first five artists also have multiple albums with sales of over 20 million copies worldwide. Currently, Adele's 21 is the best-selling album of the 21st century.
Groupings are based on different sales benchmarks, the highest being for claims of at least 40 million copies, and the lowest being for claims of 10 million copies. Albums are listed in order of number of copies sold and thereafter by the release year. [lower-alpha 1]
* | Indicates a previous record holder of the best-selling music album by a woman |
Artist | Country | Album | Released year | Estimated sales |
---|---|---|---|---|
Whitney Houston / various artists | United States | The Bodyguard | 1992 | 45 million [7] |
Shania Twain | Canada | Come On Over | 1997 | 40 million [8] |
Artist | Country | Album | Released year | Estimated sales |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alanis Morissette | Canada | Jagged Little Pill | 1995 | 33 million [9] |
Celine Dion | Falling into You | 1996 | 32 million [10] | |
Celine Dion | Let's Talk About Love | 1997 | 31 million [11] [12] | |
Adele | United Kingdom | 21 | 2011 | 31 million [13] |
Madonna | United States | The Immaculate Collection | 1990 | 30 million [14] |
Whitney Houston | Whitney Houston | 1985 | 30 million [15] |
Artist | Country | Album | Released year | Estimated sales |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mariah Carey | United States | Music Box | 1993 | 28 million [16] |
Norah Jones | Come Away with Me | 2002 | 27 million [17] | |
Britney Spears | ...Baby One More Time | 1999 | 25 million [18] | |
Carole King | Tapestry | 1971 | 25 million [19] | |
Madonna | True Blue | 1986 | 25 million [20] | |
Spice Girls | United Kingdom | Spice | 1996 | 23 million [21] |
Celine Dion | Canada | All the Way... A Decade of Song | 1999 | 22 million [22] |
Adele | United Kingdom | 25 | 2015 | 22 million [23] |
Madonna | United States | Like a Virgin | 1984 | 21 million [24] |
Whitney Houston | Whitney | 1987 | 20 million [25] | |
Tracy Chapman | Tracy Chapman | 1988 | 20 million [26] | |
Celine Dion | Canada | The Colour of My Love | 1993 | 20 million [27] |
Shania Twain | The Woman in Me | 1995 | 20 million [28] | |
Mariah Carey | United States | Daydream | 1995 | 20 million [16] |
Lauryn Hill | The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill | 1998 | 20 million [29] | |
Britney Spears | Oops!... I Did It Again | 2000 | 20 million [30] |
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer, actress, film producer, and philanthropist. Known as "the Voice", she is one of the most awarded entertainers of all time and has been inducted into numerous halls of fame. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts and her performances influenced the breaking down of gender and racial barriers, as well as popular culture. She has been recognized for her vocal delivery, distinctive timbre, and for popularizing the use of gospel singing techniques in pop music. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Houston second on their list of the greatest singers of all time. She has sold over 220 million records worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling music artists in history. Houston also enhanced her popularity by producing and starring in multicultural movies. Her life and career have been the subject of multiple documentaries and television specials.
Céline Marie Claudette Dion is a Canadian singer. Referred to as the "Queen of Power Ballads", she is noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals. Her music has incorporated genres such as pop, rock, R&B, gospel, and classical music. Her recordings have been mainly in English and French, although she has also sung in several other languages.
All the Way... A Decade of Song is the first English-language greatest hits album by Canadian singer Celine Dion. Released by Sony Music on 12 November 1999, it features nine previously released songs on most editions and seven new recordings on all editions. Dion worked on new tracks mainly with David Foster. Other producers include Max Martin, Kristian Lundin, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, James Horner, and Matt Serletic. It is the best-selling greatest hits album in the US during the Nielsen SoundScan era. All the Way... A Decade of Song has sold over 22 million copies worldwide, including over nine million in the United States, five million in Europe, two million in Japan and one million units in Canada.
Let's Talk About Love is the fifteenth studio album and fifth English-language album by Canadian singer Celine Dion, released on 14 November 1997 by Sony Music. The follow-up to the commercially successful Falling into You (1996), Let's Talk About Love showed a further progression of Dion's music. Throughout the project, she collaborated with Barbra Streisand, the Bee Gees, Luciano Pavarotti, Carole King, George Martin, Diana King, Brownstone, Corey Hart, and her previous producers: David Foster, Ric Wake, Walter Afanasieff, Humberto Gatica, and Jim Steinman. The album includes Dion's biggest hit, "My Heart Will Go On". Written by James Horner and Will Jennings and serving as the love theme for James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster film, Titanic, "My Heart Will Go On" topped the charts around the world and is considered to be Dion's signature song.
"My Heart Will Go On" is a song recorded by the Canadian singer Celine Dion as the theme for James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic. The song was composed by James Horner, with lyrics by Will Jennings, and produced by Horner, Walter Afanasieff and Simon Franglen. "My Heart Will Go On" was released as a single internationally by Columbia and Epic on November 24, 1997, and was included both on Dion's fifth English-language album, Let's Talk About Love (1997), and the Titanic soundtrack.
The Colour of My Love is the twelfth studio album and third English-language album by Canadian singer Celine Dion. It was released by Sony Music on 9 November 1993. The songs were produced mainly by David Foster, Ric Wake, Walter Afanasieff, Christopher Neil and Guy Roche, and four of them were written by Diane Warren. The album features cover versions of "The Power of Love" and "When I Fall in Love".
Walter Afanasieff, formerly nicknamed Baby Love in the 1980s, is an American record producer and songwriter. He was a collaborator with Mariah Carey on her first six studio albums. He won the 1999 Grammy Award in the Record of the Year category for producing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, and the 2000 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical.
My Love Is Your Love is the fourth studio album by American singer Whitney Houston, released worldwide on November 17, 1998. The album is one of the best-selling female albums of all time, selling over 10 million copies worldwide. It was Houston's first studio album in eight years, following I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990) although she had participated on three movie soundtracks during that period. My Love Is Your Love is composed of mid-tempo R&B, hip hop soul, pop and dance music, produced by musicians such as Whitney Houston herself, Rodney Jerkins, Soulshock & Karlin, Missy Elliott, Wyclef Jean, David Foster, Lauryn Hill, and Babyface.
The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album is a soundtrack album from the film of the same name, released on November 17, 1992, by Arista Records. The album's first side features songs recorded by American singer Whitney Houston, who starred in the film, while side two features the work of various artists. Houston and Clive Davis were co-executive producers of the record.
Falling into You is the fourteenth studio album and fourth English-language album by Canadian singer Celine Dion, released on 11 March 1996 by Sony Music. The follow-up to her blockbuster album The Colour of My Love (1993) and French-language D'eux (1995), Falling into You showed a further progression of Dion's music. Throughout the project she collaborated with Jim Steinman, who wrote and produced "It's All Coming Back to Me Now", among others. Several songs were produced by David Foster, including Diane Warren's "Because You Loved Me". In total, Dion worked on the album with fourteen producers and a variety of songwriters and musicians.
The albums discography of American singer, actress and producer Whitney Houston, who is known as "The Voice", consists of seven studio albums, eight compilations, three soundtracks, five box sets and six extended plays. In 1985, Houston released her self-titled debut album. The album would go on to spend fourteen weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, earned three number one singles in a row on the Billboard Hot 100 including "How Will I Know" and "Greatest Love of All" and ended the chart year of 1986 as the top album of the year, according to the chart, earning Houston a distinction as the first female artist in history to earn that honor. The album would become the first studio album by a female artist to be certified over ten-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in January 1994, later earning a Diamond certification and would go on to be certified fourteen-times platinum, tying with Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time, as the highest-certified debut album by a female artist in history. It would go on to sell 25 million copies worldwide and earn a Guinness World Record as the best-selling R&B studio album by a female artist in the United States. Houston's second album, Whitney, was released in 1987 and became the first album in history by a female artist to debut at the top of the Billboard 200. It also became the first female album to spend its first ten weeks at number one, eventually staying there for eleven consecutive weeks. The album earned four number one singles in a row including "I Wanna Dance with Somebody ", which helped Houston become the only artist to produce a record seven consecutive number-one hits. The album would go on to be certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of ten million equivalent album sales and would top the charts in numerous other countries, eventually selling in excess of 20 million copies worldwide. Houston earned a third consecutive top ten album on the Billboard 200 with the release of I'm Your Baby Tonight in 1990. The album would help Houston become the first female artist to earn multiple number one singles off three or more albums.
The Chopard Diamond award, or simply the Diamond award, is a special award of merit given by the World Music Awards to recording artists who have sold over 100 million albums throughout their career.
Celine Dion is the eleventh studio album by Canadian singer Celine Dion, and her second English-language album. It was released by Columbia Records and Epic Records on 30 March 1992, and features the Grammy and Academy Award-winning song "Beauty and the Beast", and other hits like "If You Asked Me To" and "Love Can Move Mountains". The album was produced by Walter Afanasieff, Ric Wake, Guy Roche and Humberto Gatica. It reached numbers one in Quebec and three in Canada, where it was certified Diamond for shipments of over one million copies. At the 35th Annual Grammy Awards, Celine Dion was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The album has sold over five million copies worldwide.
These Are Special Times is the seventeenth studio album and sixth English-language album by Canadian singer Celine Dion, and also her first English-language Christmas album. It was first released in Europe on 30 October 1998, by Columbia Records. In the United States, it was released on 3 November 1998 through Epic Records. The album features cover versions of popular Christmas songs and original material, including "I'm Your Angel" and "The Prayer". Dion worked with David Foster and Ric Wake, who produced most of the album. These Are Special Times was released after two of Dion's most successful third and fourth English albums, Falling into You (1996) and Let's Talk About Love (1997).
Canadian singer Celine Dion has released 137 singles in both English and French discography as a lead artist. According to Billboard magazine, Dion is the world's best-selling contemporary female artist of all time. As of 2021, she has reportedly sold around 200 to 250 million records worldwide. Referred to as the "Queen of Power Ballads", Dion has released a string of worldwide hits, with "My Heart Will Go On" being her career's biggest hit, with estimated physical sales of over 18 million worldwide, making it the 2nd best-selling physical single by a woman in history. It reached over 117 million radio impressions during its peak, becoming the most-played radio hit in history and became the best-selling single of 1998 worldwide. "Because You Loved Me" is her biggest hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, spending six weeks atop the chart and selling six million copies in its first six months of availability worldwide. "Pour que tu m'aimes encore" was the 4th biggest hit of the 1990s in France and has sold over four million copies worldwide.
Canadian singer Celine Dion has released 27 studio albums, seven live albums, 20 compilation albums, and 25 box sets. Referred to as the "Queen of Power Ballads", Dion is the best-selling Canadian artist of all time and the best-selling artist in the Nielsen SoundScan era in Canada. Dion is also the second best-selling female artist in the United States since Nielsen began tracking sales in 1991 with over 53.2 million albums sold in the country. Guinness World Records recognises her as the Top Selling Album Act in Europe with 33 million certified album sales since 1996. In 2003, Dion was honored by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry for selling 50 million albums in Europe. Billboard placed her second among the best-selling female album artist of the 2000s Decade in the United States with 17.3 million albums sold via Soundscan. According to Billboard, Dion is the sixth Greatest Billboard 200 female solo artist of all time, as well as the eighth Greatest female solo artist of all time in Billboard's chart history.
The 2006 World Music Awards were held in London, England and hosted by Lindsay Lohan on 15 November 2006.
The best-selling album by a woman is True Blue by Madonna, which had sold almost 17 million copies by October 1990.
Enya continued to enjoy steady success during the Nineties up to her 2000 album A Day Without Rain which sold 15 million copies
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.
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.
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Releases first album I Dreamed A Dream through Simon Cowell's label. Sells 10 million copies worldwide.