One thing you will notice about our Texas 30 list is that not everything that made the cut was a best-seller, though the albums have been heavily influential and may be in everyone's private collection. Just look at all the satellite blogs we have written around the Texas 30 mentioning the albums that didn't make the last 30.
Rewind:
Slideshow: The Texas 30 album covers
Listen To Our Texas 30 Picks On Rdio and Spotify Right Now
Beyonce Knowles has sold 75 million albums on her own aside from Destiny's Child, which has sold about 50 themselves in its own right. Knowles can count Dangerously In Love and I Am...Sasha Fierce as her main moneygrabbers, but neither are in the Texas 30.
George Strait has sold some 69 million albums, with his various greatest-hits releases being the biggest movers. The Pure Country soundtrack is no slouch either, at 6 million units sold. Only one of his studio discs came in (at No. 26), Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind.
Willie Nelson has raked in over 50 million units, as has Norah Jones, mostly from Come Away With Me. It was one of Willie's later-period works that made it in. ZZ Top has how-how-howed over 25 million albums, mainly off (of course) 1983's Eliminator.
Norah Jones, Come Away With Me (20 Million) Some estimates put 2002's Come Away With Me at more than 20 millions copies sold, going diamond in the U.S., with ten million copies by 2005. She's like the Adele of the early '00s, but without a weepy "Someone Like You."
Rewind:
The 10 Best Metal & Punk Albums Too Rough for the Texas 30
Texas' 6 Best Latin Albums of the Past 30 Years
ZZ Top, Eliminator (10+ Million) ZZ Top's loudest and brashest disc was last certified diamond in 1996, so no telling where it could be now. I know I buy at least a dozen copies of it a year to give to people I see in traffic.
Dixie Chicks, Home (8 Million) Not bad at all for a female trio from Texas, right? They have also sold rather well in Australia too, oddly enough. That Fleetwood Mac cover was a huge success for them, and "Travelin' Soldier" hit at a time in 2002 when it would become an anthem for families of deployed military folks all over the country.
Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power (5 Million) Something tells me that this one will just continue to sell as Pantera's legend grows and gets passed down to children and grandchildren. A recent reissue can't hurt either.
