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The VENTURES are the biggest selling instrumental band in music history, selling more than 110,000,000 records and recording over 250 albums worldwide. They are without a doubt one of the most influential guitar bands of all time. This statement is made on the Wilson guitar site. Not sure of its accuracy. Are there similar stats for The Shadows music ?

Apart from Perfidia and Walk don't run they didn't influence me much.

The USA & it's neighbours are a huge market for record/tape/disc/video sales & as the Shads never did manage to "make it" in the US people like The Ventures & Duane Eddy who have both sold in excess of 100,000,000. ( and who are both still working/touring) did have a distinct advantage sales wise.

This why the Beatles/Stones etc...worked so hard to "break" America

Now, what would be interesting would be a breakdown by region of sales...............

Anybody have access to these figures ?

Dick.

I doubt that The Ventures - as good as they have always been - have recorded two hundred and fifty albums. It would mean having recorded at least three thousand tracks. Around twelve per LP in 1960, and probably sixteen or more for more recent albums.

Many (perhaps most) of those albums will be reissues or compilations.

Using number of issued albums as a basis for "greatness" is ill-advised. It would mean that (for instance) The Beatles - who have always resisted greatest hits albums, random compilations ot inclusion of their tracks for multiple artist compilations - were not so great.

As so often is the case, the USAian masses settle for the mediocre as far as music is concerned - and the Ventures surely fall in to that category with the exception of the Walk Don't Run era. Johnny & the Hurricanes knocked spots off them!

I have a few Ventures CDs and like a few tracks. I find it difficult to listen to an album straight off whereas I find I can listen to The Shadows much more easily.
However the Ventures must have a lot to offer to many people with sales of 110m. Personally there are many other instrumental bands that I can listen to in preference. Jo Meek has an album of instrumentals which I can enjoy. Also agree with Johnny and the Hurricanes

I have most of The Ventures' albums. All of the 1960's and 1970's albums in stereo mode on CD, as well as most from the 1980's (they didn't release that much in this decade, compared to the previous two) and quite a few from the 1990's and 2000's. Albums from the last two mentioned decades are much more difficult to get hold of, because most of them have only been issued in Japan. Also, those Japanese releases are quite expensive to collect for a European fan.
Regarding musical content, I like quite a few of the tracks by The Ventures. However, they released a lot of 'themed' albums and to be honest, I also find quite a few of their instrumental interpretations of other people's music uninspired and boring to listen to, especially the double albums "10th Anniversary" (from 1970) and "Only Hits!" (from 1973). Compared to these, I find The Shadows' albums from the late 1980's ("Moonlight Shadows" to "Steppin' To The Shadows") much more enjoyable.

If you look at the Shadows EP stats between 1960 - 1964 they must have shifted a monumental amount of EP's as they all sold extremely well.
The Ventures are good enough but i much prefer the Shadows, the Ventures tracks didn't seem to hit the spot for me.

I believe that the Shadows sold more albums during the 1980s than they did during the 1960s.