Best selling albums of all time

What do you think the best-selling albums of all time are?

Yesterday I saw a list of the world’s 75 best-selling albums ever. I was surprised that though The Beatles have a few albums on the list…their highest ranking album is only at #15 (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band“).

I was surprised that Elvis Presley isn’t on the list at all, and I was disappointed that KISS isn’t on the list at all either.

Even though I don’t like his music, I wasn’t surprised that Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller” album is the number one best-selling record of all time (110 million units sold).

The number two record didn’t even sell half that many.
I have never owned a Michael Jackson record…but I do have the number two album.
What do you guess the second best-selling record ever is?

It’s “Back In Black” by AC/DC. An excellent album! Do you own a copy?

AC/DC "Back In Black" (49 million units sold)

Here are the top ten best selling albums ever:

1. Michael Jackson “Thriller”
2. AC/DC “Back In Black”
3. Pink Floyd “The Dark Side Of The Moon”
4. Meat Loaf “Bat Out Of Hell”
5. Eagles “Their Greatest Hits 1971-75”
6. Various Artists “Dirty Dancing” OST
7. Whitney Houston “The Bodyguard” OST
8. Andrew Lloyd Webber “The Phantom Of The Opera” (musical score)
9. Backstreet Boys “Millennium”
10. The Bee Gees “Saturday Night Fever” OST

I can’t believe Whitney Houston and The Backstreet Boys sold more albums than KISS, The Beatles or Black Sabbath!

Here are some albums that I own that are on the list:

AC/DC "Back In Black" (#2)

Meat Loaf "Bat Out Of Hell" (#4)

Led Zeppelin "IV" (#13)

Guns 'N' Roses "Appetite For Destruction" (#32)

Metallica "Don't Tread On Me" / ('The Black Album') (#50)

The John Lennon Museum is closing

I mentioned a couple of times on this blog that the world’s only official John Lennon Museum is in Saitama, Japan.

(See this post and this one.)

Well, I just found out that due to a declining number of visitors to the museum, it will close in 2010 October.

I’d like to see the John Lennon Museum but I’ve have never visited it yet mainly due to it’s fairly inconvenient location and the ¥1,500 (about US $12) per person admission charge.

But, since it’s scheduled to close in about ten months, I might visit it before then.

The news that the John Lennon Museum will close comes only five days after the 29th anniversary of John Lennon’s death…and also one day after I heard that Wendy’s fast-food restaurant is exiting the Japan market this month (Click here to read my post about Wendy’s Japan closing).

This museum’s closing reminds me of the closing of the Rock And Roll Museum in Tokyo last January.
(I mention it in this post).

Kamakura trip

Yesterday, my second daughter’s class took a field trip to 鎌倉 (Kamakura).

鎌倉 (Kamakura) is a city about 90-minutes south of Tokyo. It was the capital of Japan at one time, and it’s an old 下町 (traditional-style town).

鎌倉 (Kamakura) is most famous for the 大仏 (“Great Buddah” statue) that is there.

大仏 (Great Buddah)

Unfortunately, it rained all day yesterday, so my daughter’s field-trip wasn’t as good as it could have been.
We have been to 鎌倉 (Kamakura) as a family many times…Click here to see a post I wrote about a trip we took there last April (with photos of 流鏑馬 (Horseback Archery).

My daughter took the photo above of 大仏 (“Great Buddah“), and these photos:

+++

Today was my youngest daughter’s 学校公開 (Open School / “Parents Day”). Which is the day that parents can come watch their kids classes.

I watched my daughter’s Cooking Class. The class was right before lunch…they prepared a traditional Japanese meal and ate it for lunch.
They did a good job! 美味しそう! (It looked delicious!)

+++

In about 1992, a store that I liked opened in Tokyo.
It was called the “Rock ‘N’ Roll Museum“.
The store had sections devoted to The Beatles, The Stray Cats, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Guns ‘N Roses…and KISS (which is why I liked it!).

The store had a large statue of Elvis Presley out front. (Supposedly many Elvis fans contributed to the cost of erecting the statue…including American rock star Jon Bon-Jovi and former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi!)

I am using the past-tense when I refer to the store in this post because I just found out that after being open all these years…the “Rock ‘N’ Roll Museum” closed down about two-weeks ago.

This is right after another landmark store in Tokyo closed recently (Click here).

The last time I went to the “Rock ‘N’ Roll Museum” was on November 2, 2008. I mentioned it in a post (with a photo)…click here to see it.

渋谷フェスタ

This was a three-day weekend that just ended. Monday (November 3) was 文化の日 (Culture Day).

There were are always a number of festivals on Culture Day weekend.

On Sunday, we went to 原宿 (Harajuku) because my kids like to go shopping there (just like all teenagers in Tokyo do!) and from there we went to the 渋谷フェスタ (Shibuya Festival).

Harajuku is very crowded…especially 竹下通り (Takeshita Street):

Outside the World-famous Laforet store, I noticed that they already have their X-mas tree up!

We stopped by 明治神宮 (Meiji Grand Shrine). They were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the shrine’s being restored after the damage from WW2.

They were having a festival in the evening…but we didn’t stay for it.
At the shrine, we saw little girls aged 3 and 7 and little boys aged 5 who were there dressed up in 着物 (kimono) for their 七五三 (7-5-3 Festival). (You can read my short FAQ about that holiday by clicking here )

From there, we walked to 代々木公園 (Yoyogi Park). Every Sunday, many people gather in groups in or near the park and some groups are dressed as Cosplay and some are rock bands practicing and others are dancing groups, etc.
These are their hobbies and they like to meet at Yoyogi Park on Sundays and relax. But visitors to Tokyo might be surprised by some of them. (Until about ten years ago, there used to be alot more groups there on Sundays. The street outside the park would be closed to traffic on Sundays to accommodate them all!)

One of the most famous groups (beside the Cosplay) are the Rockabillies. “Rockabilly” is an early style of rock ‘n roll from the 1950’s that is basically a combination of rock and country (which was sometimes called “hillbilly music” back then).
The Stray Cats are probably the most famous rockabilly band…and they still have many fans in Japan.
Rockabilly style is leather, ’50s style tattoos, greased hair and hot rod cars…and ’50s rock music.

The Rockabilly groups in Yoyogi Park gather on Sundays and listen to their old rock music and dance. Many foreigners mistake them for Elvis impersonators. They listen to Elvis style music…but they’re not impersonating him.

Here’s a couple of videos of them:

Elvis is in 原宿 (Harajuku), though:

This statue of Elvis Presley is outside the Rock N Roll Museum store. They have sections devoted to Elvis, The Stray Cats, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, KISS, etc.

From there, we walked to the 渋谷フェスタ (Shibuya Festival).
There were lots of booths where you could buy food and beer, or crafts and goods, or play a game, etc. It was similar to 区民祭り (Residents Festivals).

At one booth they were making mochi, which is pulverized rice. And they gave it away until they ran out. We were able to get some each. It was quite good.

Here’s a video of them making the mochi. It’s called 「もちつき」 (“Mochi-tsuki”):

It was a fun day.

Here are some other pictures I took:

Here’s the CC Lemon Hall. (I hate that name. It used to be called 渋谷公会堂 (Shibuya Koukaidou) since it was built in 1964 for the ’64 Tokyo Olympics…until they sold the naming rights to a beverage company).
I saw my first concert in Japan here (Death Angel in 1991):

And we were surprised by the size of these cabbages:

And finally, we went home from 渋谷駅 (Shibuya Train Station). The intersection in front of this station is said to be the busiest intersection in the world.
Here are a couple videos of it that I took: