Things were done differently then. Back then it was about making singles go gold or platinum. You easily buy a 45 of the latest single out, causing people to not buy the album. Now, singles are rarely released for sale because the labels want to push album sales. So, it isn't far off that the numbers of albums sold back then were much lower than these days. I'm sure there's a way to research the number of albums sold for an artist in the 50's and 60's during the year of release and compare it to know. I don't think the numbers would be the same

Yes, I know. But it's very difficult to find sales figures for albums of the period. Big stars like Elvis did sell huge numbers, though (his total album sales were certainly more than 10 million).

I'm sure they were for lifetime sales, but do you really think he sold 10 million of one album during the first year of release? I don't think so. Just take into consideration that the population was much lower than it is now