Top artists and songs of the 2000s (By sales and awards)

Album Sales

Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP in Store | Kevin.Mazur/GettyImages

According to information collected on Rate Your Music, the following table documents which albums sold the most copies in the 2000s. Interestingly, none of the top ten albums were released later than 2004. In fact, six of ten were from 2000 alone. This is likely due to the extreme decline in physical music purchases following the launch of iTunes and music pirating websites like Napster and Limewire.

Ranking	Album, Artist	Copies Sold
10	Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent	8.13 million
9	Country Grammar, Nelly	8.48 million
8	Oops!...I Did It Again, Britney Spears	9.20 million
7	Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park	10.03 million
6	Confessions, Usher	10.04 million
5	The Eminem Show, Eminem	10.09 million
4	The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem	10.62 million
3	Come Away With Me, Norah Jones	11.02 million
2	No Strings Attached, *NSYNC	11.16 million
1	1, The Beatles	12.7 million

Thanks to Billboard, we do have information on the top-selling album of each year. However, it's worth mentioning that six of those albums didn't even hit $5 million in sales.

The top-selling albums of each year in the 2000s are as follows:

2000: No Strings Attached, NSYNC

2001: Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park

2002: The Eminem Show, Eminem

2003: Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent

2004: Confessions, Usher

2005: The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah Carey

2006: High School Musical, Various

2007: Noël, Josh Groban

2008: Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne

2009: Fearless, Taylor Swift

The next slide shows what music had the most success judging by radio airplay and digital sales.