Billboard revealed last month that Bob Marley & The Wailers Legend —A collection of hits first released in May 1984 by Island Records — was the best-selling reggae album for the second year in a row, according to his New Year’s Reggae Albums graphic.
What was unclear at the time, however, was the extent to which the album surpassed all other top-level titles on the list. Legend it easily surpassed the rest of the albums within the top 10 of the combined ranking, and did so with plenty of space left over.
According to data provided in DancehallMag from the Billboard MRC Data sales tracker, the album actually sold out 609,000 sales and streaming units in the United States by 2021. This included 179,000 in pure album sales, while on-demand audio and on-demand video streams stood at 528,314,000 and 50,801,000, respectively.
Reggae albums, which ranked No. 2-10, sold less than 30,000 copies in pure album sales in 2021. This included a second entry for Marley at No. 9 for the group’s album. Or album.
MRC data sent DancehallMag the following table, which illustrates Marley’s distant first place in terms of reggae music consumption through sales and streaming in the United States last year.
| Classification | Artist | Albums | Album sales | OD audio transmission | OD video transmission |
| 1 | Bob Marley and The Wailers | Legend | 179,000 | 528,314,000 | 50,801,000 |
| 2 | Shaggy | The best of Shaggy: The Boombastic Collection | 2,300 | 159,339,800 | 39,229,600 |
| 3 | Stick figure | The world on fire | 7,100 | 92,252,800 | 4,697,400 |
| 4 | Sean Paul | Dutty Classics Collection | 600 | 177,203,000 | 67,767,100 |
| 5 | Stick figure | Embedded in stone | 6,600 | 87,975,500 | 7,296,800 |
| 6 | UB40 | Great successes | 2,200 | 93,179,200 | 13,607,200 |
| 7 | Jason Mraz | Look for the Good | 3,500 | 123,545,500 | 14,380,300 |
| 8 | Sean Paul | Dutty Rock | 400 | 94,111,100 | 22,753,700 |
| 9 | Bob Marley and The Wailers | Or | 3,700 | 491,933,600 | 45,637,000 |
| 10 | Marley passes | Top place | 2,900 | 42,736,200 | 9,186,200 |
According to Billboard, Legend he had also won the number 6 in the The best end-of-year R&B albums and number 32 for the best end-of-year R & B / Hip-Hop albums for albums sold in the United States in 2021.
It is the best-selling reggae album of all time, with over 15 million copies sold in the US, over 3.9 million copies in the UK and approximately 33 million copies sold worldwide. In 2003, the album was number 46 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, maintaining its ranking on a revised list in 2012.
Legend had debuted at number 54 on the Billboard 200 in 1984, with 14 tracks from Marley’s most beloved songs: It’s this love, no woman cries, three birds, stand up, buffalo soldier, exodus, I shot the sheriff, stir it; The BBC song of the century One Love, Redemption Song, Jamming i Waiting in vain.
It was a regular event on the 200 chart, until 1991, when Billboard made “old” albums ineligible for the chart. In 2009, Billboard repealed this rule and the album returned to the charts and later reached number 5 in 2014.
As of January 11, 2022, Legend ranks first during the 105th consecutive week of the weekly Billboard Reggae Albums graphic. Similarly, Billboard had changed its rules, allowing the 37-year-old album to rule the weekly Reggae list, unopposed, since January 2020.
