List of best-selling sheet music

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A copy of "Old Folks at Home" (1851), whose sales are estimated at over 20 million.

This list contains some of the best-selling songs in terms of sheet music sales in music publishing history with reportedly copies of over 3 million. Figures on sheet music —as with record sales— reported by publishing firms were not always reliable.[1]

In the United States, before "Oh! Susanna" (1848) no American song had sold more than five thousand copies of sheet music.[2] Stephen Foster's "Massa's in the Cold Ground" sales of 75,000 copies by 1852, was considered "phenomenal" since music publishers did not try to promote songs.[3] The first song to became "popular" through a national advertising campaign was "My Grandfather's Clock" in 1876.[3] Mass production of piano in the late-19th century helped boost sheet music sales.[3] Toward the end of the century, during the Tin Pan Alley era, sheet music was sold by dozens and even hundreds of publishing companies.[4][5][6] Sheet music industry also suffered of music piracy with pirated reprints,[7][8][9] as well various fake books rose considerable amount of copies sold.[5]

Reports widely vary to confirm the first million-seller song in sheet music; examples include "When This Cruel War Is Over" (1863),[10] "After the Ball" (by 1892 or 1893),[11][12][13][a] and "Funiculì, Funiculà" in 1880.[15][b] From 1900 to 1910, over one hundred songs sold more than a million copies.[5] Various "hit songs" sold as many as two or three million copies in print.[11][17] With the advent of the radio broadcasting, sheet music sales of popular songs decreased and print figures failed to make a significant recovery after the World War II (1940s).[11] Exact figures are lacking, but in the 1950s, sheet music sales averaged 300,000 annually.[18] By 1966, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary informed 100,000 copies of a title were "rares".[19] "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" (1953) is believed to be the last song to sell one million of sheet music,[20] from that era. American musicologist Barry Kernfeld, said that in the 1950s, "a million-selling sheet-music title was entirely a thing of the past".[9]

From the album era, "Stairway to Heaven" (1971) by Led Zeppelin is the biggest selling piece of sheet music in rock history, with over one million copies sold, selling 15,000 units per year at some point.[21] In the digital era, "My Immortal" became an early example of healthy sheet music downloads, becoming the all-time best-selling sheet music download at Musicnotes, with over 8,350 copies until June 2004, outpacing "A Thousand Miles"'s 7,137 sales.[22] Occasionally, Billboard reported the best-selling folios and singles sheet yearly,[23] or by music publishing companies.[24][25]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference mark was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Steyn, Mark (2014). The Undocumented Mark Steyn. Simon and Schuster. p. 236. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c Furia, Philip (2016). The American Song Book: The Tin Pan Alley Era. Oxford University Press. p. 7. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  4. ^ Facts on File (2010). Careers in Focus. Infobase Publishing. p. 185. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Ball was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Tyler, Don (2016). Music of the First World War. ABC-CLIO. p. 4. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  7. ^ Hart, James David (1950). The Popular Book. University of California Press. p. 117. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  8. ^ Hardy, Phil (2014). Nickels & Dimes: Music Publishing & It's Administration in the Modern Age. Omnibus Press. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  9. ^ a b Kernfeld, Barry (2011). Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929. University of Chicago Press. p. 78. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  10. ^ Orodenker, Maurie (June 6, 1970). "Computerized Sheet Music Library Will Bow in Phila". Billboard. Vol. 82, no. 23. p. 10. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  11. ^ a b c Hull, Geoffrey P. (2004). The Recording Industry. Psychology Press. p. 70. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ball2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cryer, Max (2008). Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Favourite Songs. Exisle Publishing. p. 142. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  14. ^ Julien, Olivier (2018). Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  15. ^ Plastino, Goffredo; Sciorra, Joseph (2016). Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject. Scarecrow Press. p. 2. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  16. ^ Fishman, Howard (2023). To Anyone Who Ever Asks. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 6. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  17. ^ Kohn (2019). Kohn on Music Licensing, 5th Edition (Plan IL). Wolters Kluwer. pp. 6–7. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  18. ^ Coleman, Ray (1996). McCartney: Yesterday-- and Today. Dove Books. p. 163. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  19. ^ United States House Committee on the Judiciary (1966). Copyright Law Revision: Hearings Before Subcommittee. United States Government Publishing Office. p. 278. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  20. ^ Humphries, Patrick (2012). Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock & Roll. Biteback Publishing. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  21. ^ "Led Zeppelin". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. July 12, 2000. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  22. ^ Bessman, Jim (June 12, 2004). "Evanescence's Immortality". Billboard. Vol. 116, no. 24. p. 36. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  23. ^ "Best-Selling Folios, Single Sheets of 2000". Billboard. Vol. 112, no. 53. December 30, 2000. p. 53. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  24. ^ Lichtman, Irv (February 17, 1996). "Print on Print". Billboard. Vol. 108, no. 7. p. 50. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
  25. ^ Lichtman, Irv (April 17, 1999). "Print on Print". Billboard. Vol. 111, no. 16. p. 56. Retrieved September 13, 2023.


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