10 Best-Selling Rock Albums Of The 1980s
5. Hysteria - Def Leppard (25,000,000)
Def Leppard could have also made it onto this list twice, as their 1983 album Pyromania also sold like hot cakes.
No pun intended.
Surprisingly, this British band actually performed better over in America than they did at home. Pyromania only achieved Silver status in Blighty, but went 10 times Platinum in the Star Spangled land.
Pyromania may not have cracked this list, but its successor certainly did.
Hysteria built on the achievements of its predecessor and then some. It was also a monster seller in America, but this time the British audience was behind it too. It went double Platinum in the UK and sold strongly in Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand too.
Songs like Animal, Armageddon It, Rocket, and Pour Some Sugar on Me helped this album achieve estimated total sales figures of 25 million. That's a whole lot of people headbanging to Sheffield's finest.
This was the peak of Def Leppard's powers, as they'd never reach these sorts of numbers again. Though, when it comes to outstanding producing hard rock albums that stand the test of time, doing it once is more than enough.