News The Rolling Stones records ranked by album sales
It’s not an exaggeration to say that The Rolling Stones are the biggest band on earth. “If you start me up, I’ll never stop,” Mick Jagger sang as a kind of warning for the band’s enduring and industry-gripping career. From their origins in the 1960s right through to today, they’re one of the top success stories in the history of music as they went from Ealing jazz clubs to the biggest stages on earth.
That all comes down to one thing: the music. The Rolling Stones have provided no end of timeless anthems that only seem to get more popular as the years roll on. Tracks like ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ are written into the world’s songbook as anthems nearly enough for the whole world to sing along to. Passed down from generation to generation, they’ve gathered a vast, varied and ever-growing fan base for their fuss-free rock and roll.
At the helm of it all stands the most famous frontman in music, Mick Jagger. Backed up by his lifelong friend and collaborator, Keith Richards, the duo feel like the two of the last remaining oracles from the obsessed-over era of the 1960s and ‘70s. Still performing, touring and making new music, the 80-something-year-olds show no sign of stopping.
As they keep going, the album sales keep racking up. They sit in the top leagues of the best-selling artists of all time, with an estimated total sales of over 200million records. In physical formats especially, the band’s albums remain some of the most sought-after vinyls around as an essential part of anyone’s collection. Also adding to those numbers day after day are their streaming returns, as Spotify has them clocked in at an average of 28.2million monthly listeners.
But with a huge back-catalogue of 31 studio albums, 13 live records and a whole host of compilations and singles, which album comes out on top? Out of all The Rolling Stones’ records, which is the best of the best sellers?
The Rolling Stones albums ranked by sales:
Out of all of The Rolling Stones’ albums, their 1971 album Sticky Fingers is the best seller with an estimated total sales number of over 22million. This is supported by physical sales as the album, with its famed Andy Warhol cover and zipper feature, making it a sought-after addition to vinyl collections. Housing anthems like ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Wild Horses’, it’s one of their most beloved records.
1.Sticky Fingers – 22,431,000
2.Let It Bleed – 22,187,000
3.Aftermath – 20,841,000
4.Some Girls – 18,984,000
5.Tattoo You – 16,897,000
6.Out of Our Heads – 16,734,000
7.Beggars Banquet – 16,217,000
8.Goats Head Soup – 12,493,000
9.Orphan – 11,814,000
10.Exile on Main St – 11,243,000
11.Emotional Rescue – 6,935,000
12.Voodoo Lounge – 6,814,000
13.Between the Buttons – 6,289,000
14.Steel Wheels – 6,284,000
15.Bridges to Babylon – 5,128,000
What is The Rolling Stones’ best-selling single?
The Rolling Stones’ best-selling single is a two-fold answer as the physical sales versus digital ones make a huge difference, splintering off between sales upon release versus the ones racked up over time.
Their top-selling physical single is ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, which has an estimated sale of 5.2m units. Released in 1965, right at the start of their booming fame, fans scrambled to get the seven-inch with the forgotten track, ‘The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man’, as its B-Side. Only eight weeks after its initial release, the track was a certified gold record as over a million copies had been shipped.
In terms of digital sales, however, the top is ‘Gimme Shelter’, with an estimated number of 3.3m sales. This is quickly followed up by ‘Sympathy For The Devil’, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and ‘Start Me Up’, which all sit as their best-loved and widest-known tracks.
What is The Rolling Stones’ worst-selling album?
Their lowest sales number belongs to their forgettable 2016 record, Blue & Lonesome, with only 1.8m sales. Despite being their first release since 2005, the record failed to make any enduring hits and was a largely unremarkable blues album. It does, however, sit as the final Stones record with their original drummer, Charlie Watts, who sadly passed away in 2021.
Despite giving the band their first chart result in 18 years, their most recent album, Hackney Diamonds, trailed just behind as the second worst-selling album.
