The 15 Best Diamond-Selling Hard Rock and Metal Albums, Ranked

Here’s the main thing you need to know about our ranked list of the 15 best diamond-selling hard rock and metal albums: They’re all damn good.

Are you surprised? History is littered with platinum albums that range from mediocre to downright awful. But for a hard rock or metal album to reach that elusive diamond threshold — to sell 10 million copies or more — typically suggests some level of consistent, objective quality, regardless of your personal tastes.

The majority of rock’s biggest-selling albums were released between the late ’60s and early ’90s — a stretch of roughly 25 years that represented the halcyon days of the music industry. Record labels seemingly had a license to print money, and bands like Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses were smashing records left and right.

Many of the albums on this list predate the World Wide Web, and peer-to-peer file sharing and streaming services had yet to cannibalize the music industry and send all but the biggest artists back to the bread line.

How Are the 15 Best Diamond-Selling Hard Rock and Metal Albums Certified?

We’ve ranked these 15 albums in terms of quality, but we’ve also included the certified sales for each one. Those stats came directly from the Recording Industry Association of America’s website.

While some albums — such as Metallica‘s Black Album — were re-certified as recently as 2025, others — such as ZZ Top‘s Eliminator — haven’t been re-certified in decades. That means some of the albums on this list have sold more — possibly millions more — copies than their certifications indicate. Nevertheless, in the interest of fairness and accuracy, we’re sticking with the RIAA’s information. After the first 10 million it’s all just gravy anyway.

Read on to see the 15 best diamond-selling hard rock and metal albums ranked worst to best.