It’s not always easy to work out a list of the best bands. At least when it comes to supergroups there is a narrower range to choose from. Although over the years there have been plenty of these star musicians collaborations.
Perhaps we should start with what makes a supergroup. I’ve written about them here previously, looking at the 1960s and 1970s in particular. To be consistent, I’ll keep applying the same criteria here as before. That means we need some musicians famous in their own right already coming together to form a group. The group then has to release at least one album together and complete a tour rather than a one-off gig.
Before we get to that top list I should warn you that some great supergroups with fantastic albums haven't made this list, in case you were wondering where they are. The likes of Humble Pie, Blind Faith, and Derek and The Dominos were all around one to two million in album sales and fell just short of this top dozen.
Top 12 Supergroups with multi-million album sales
Others didn't quite make it, they didn't meet the supergroup criteria above. That ruled out Led Zeppelin, Trio, and the Buena Vista Social Club for example. Let's get down to that top twelve now using worldwide album sales, as reported by bestsellingalbums.org to rank them in order.
12 - Cream - 5million album sales
The trio of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce as Cream became one of the top supergroups in many ways, especially musically. But it's worth remembering they were only around for three years in the late 1960s. Cream released four albums in that time reaching around 5 million sales over the years.
Although they are at the lower end of this supergroup dozen they are likely to be one of the first names most people think of when the word supergroup is used.
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