- Who
- Buena Vista Social Club
- What
- 8,000,000 unit(s) sold
- Where
- Not Applicable ()
- When
The eponymous, Grammy-winning album from the Cuban collective Buena Vista Social Club has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. Encompassing the genres of son, bolero and danzón, the 1997 release brought together 20 of Cuba’s finest musicians, including vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer (1927–2005), pianist Rubén González (1919–2003) and vocalist/guitarist Compay Segundo (1907–2003), with US musician Ry Cooder enlisted by the record label World Circuit as producer. The album inspired Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999), and in April 2022 the LP was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the US National Recording Registry, “based on [its] cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage”.
At the 40th Grammy Awards in New York City, USA, on 25 February 1998, Buena Vista Social Club won Best Tropical Latin Performance (now Best Tropical Latin Album), with the award presented to Cooder as producer. The album was certified Platinum (for 1 million US copies sold) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2000.
In 2021, a 25th anniversary edition of the album was released, featuring the remastered original album and a disc of previously unheard bonus tracks and alternate takes from the 1996 recording sessions at Havana’s EGREM studios.
