List of most expensive albums

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) with a reported sum of £25,000,[4][a] alongside Tommy (1969) and Pet Sounds (1966) each with a cost of $70,000,[6][7] as well as unfinished album Smile whose single "Good Vibrations" (1966) alone had a budget between $50,000 and $75,000,[b] more than most entire albums cost in those days.

[10] Accountant John McClain gave an estimated cost of $2.5 million for a Michael Jackson record in 1987.

Up to that point, a label might spent an average of $2 million in promotional campaigns for artists such as the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and Madonna, per release.

[24] The lattermost, had the biggest Warner Records promotional campaign for an album up to the release of Like a Prayer (1989) with $2 million.

[71] In contrast, according to Hank Bordowitz in Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business (2007), mounting a successful promotional campaign for radio stations can cost between $250,000 and $1 million per song.