I found some stats on Wikipedia claiming the best selling artists... does anyone think its accurate?

The Beatles: 600 million

Elvis Presley: 600 million

Michael Jackson: 350 million-400 million

Madonna: 275 million-300 million

Whitney Houston: 170 million-200 million

Rihanna: 100 million

Prince: 100 million

Eminem: 100 million

Janet Jackson: 100 million

Tupac Shakur: 75 million

Beyonce: 75 million

heres the link

[Edited 1/28/13 22:01pm]

What happened to Nana Mouskouri? At any rate, I don't think Wiki is a good source for info.

I'm going to say that it's inaccurate because I'm pretty damn sure without even looking that The Beatles and Elvis have sold more than a BILLION records each, respectively.

JasonWill1980 said:

I found some stats on Wikipedia claiming the best selling artists... does anyone think its accurate?

The Beatles: 600 million

Elvis Presley: 600 million

Michael Jackson: 350 million-400 million

Madonna: 275 million-300 million

Whitney Houston: 170 million-200 million

Rihanna: 100 million

Prince: 100 million

Eminem: 100 million

Janet Jackson: 100 million

Tupac Shakur: 75 million

Beyonce: 75 million

heres the link

[Edited 1/28/13 22:01pm]

Well its missing QUITE a bit of artists

Just a few to name

ABBA- 350 million

Bon Jovi - 175 million

QUEEN- 250 million

Billy Joel- 160million

Elton John- 250 million

Barry Manilow 90 million

just naming a few but tons more they missed (left out )

Rihanna sold 100 million? yeah right

She has sold less than 25 million worldwide what kind of stan put that?

Of course this is not true.
The Beatles have sold over 500 million records.
Elvis - much much less. more than 50% of its sales are concentrated in the United States.

Is that albums and singles combined? Or just albums?

I'm talking out of my ass a little bit here but I believe that any numbers for sales pre mid seventies are basically guesses. In the U.S. there was no platinum certification until the early seventies and no multi platinum until the mid seventies. What does that mean? Well, I'm not certain but I don't think that sales were tracked nearly as closely then as they (supposedly) are now.

If the list factors in singles where are people like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra? Surely in their long careers they sold at least a hundred million? I suspect that they are omitted because the records of their sales are incomplete.

Kiss, Garth Brooks and Mariah Carey are all supposedly in the 100 million units sold club and none of them are listed.

rialb said:

I'm talking out of my ass a little bit here but I believe that any numbers for sales pre mid seventies are basically guesses. In the U.S. there was no platinum certification until the early seventies and no multi platinum until the mid seventies. What does that mean? Well, I'm not certain but I don't think that sales were tracked nearly as closely then as they (supposedly) are now.

If the list factors in singles where are people like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra? Surely in their long careers they sold at least a hundred million? I suspect that they are omitted because the records of their sales are incomplete.

Kiss, Garth Brooks and Mariah Carey are all supposedly in the 100 million units sold club and none of them are listed.

This is true i never quite understood how sales certifications worked back in the day

Like i remember they said Songs In They Key Of Life was the first Stevie album to be eligable for platinum status... and i know that Songs was not the first Stevie album to sell a million copies

Also i am pretty sure Led Zeppelin have sold way way way over 100 million worldwide as well as The Rolling Stones.

Yup Zeppelin sold over 300 million worldwide yet are not on here strange

I think ABBA ahs sold like 400 million worldwide as well.

Guys, the list, which is posted - this is not a direct order, he just picked his favorite artists.

According to this list (not quite realistic, IMHO)
Mariah Carey - 200 million
Led Zeppelin - 300 million
Kiss - 100 million
The Rolling Stones - 200 million
Garth Brooks - 130 million
Stevie Wonder - 100 million

In any case, I'm sure that the data for Elvis are very exaggerated, his sales in the U.S. are close to the sales the Beatles, but the Beatles have sold a lot more records in all other markets: Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.

ABBA - 400 million? on what planet? certainly not on planet Earth.

they had only one hit number 1 in the U.S., they did not have any really huge album. most successful Arrival sold about 11-12 million worldwide.
their sales 190-200 million (singles + albums)

[Edited 1/29/13 0:45am]

LiLi1992 said:

Guys, the list, which is posted - this is not a direct order, he just picked his favorite artists.

According to this list (not quite realistic, IMHO)
Mariah Carey - 200 million
Led Zeppelin - 300 million
Kiss - 100 million
The Rolling Stones - 200 million
Garth Brooks - 130 million
Stevie Wonder - 100 million

In any case, I'm sure that the data for Elvis are very exaggerated, his sales in the U.S. are close to the sales the Beatles, but the Beatles have sold a lot more records in all other markets: Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.

ABBA - 400 million? on what planet? certainly not on planet Earth.

they had only one hit number 1 in the U.S., they did not have any really huge album. most successful Arrival sold about 11-12 million worldwide.
their sales 190-200 million (singles + albums)

[Edited 1/29/13 0:45am]

calm your tits

I saw a special on VH1 from a few years ago that said that hence the ''i think'' part of the statement darling.

I've always been skeptical of Prince's "official" figure, to be honest.

Well, most of those figures. It just seems like they've taken the original sales of the albums from the first couple of years after their releases and then they keep adding to the numbers by some completely made-up manner as each year passes by.

Gunsnhalen said:

I saw a special on VH1 from a few years ago that said that hence the ''i think'' part of the statement darling.

Yeah, MTV, Reuters or Billboard talked about one billion sold records for the Beatles, and 750 million for MJ.
sometimes it is enough to connect a little logic.

LiLi1992 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

I saw a special on VH1 from a few years ago that said that hence the ''i think'' part of the statement darling.

Yeah, MTV, Reuters or Billboard talked about one billion sold records for the Beatles, and 750 million for MJ.
sometimes it is enough to connect a little logic.

Perhaps that is true since in some form of the world Rihanna has sold 100 million copies

I never know who to trust with these number what's a man to do!

Gunsnhalen said:

LiLi1992 said:

Yeah, MTV, Reuters or Billboard talked about one billion sold records for the Beatles, and 750 million for MJ.
sometimes it is enough to connect a little logic.

Perhaps that is true since in some form of the world Rihanna has sold 100 million copies

I never know who to trust with these number what's a man to do!

You know, maybe it's close to the truth.

Rihanna's albums are really not very successful, but she is huge as a singles artist
now the price of digital single is less than 1 dollar, so the sales of singles are at their peak.

in US top 100 digital songs ever Rihanna has 3 songs
We Found Love, Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris 4,283,000
Live Your Life, T.I. feat. Rihanna 4,212,000
Umbrella, Rihanna ft Jay-Z 4,000,000
her sales of singles have already exceeded 35 million in the U.S.

Rihanna has sold approximately 11 million singles in the UK alone.
and ranks second among women, after 5-6 years, she may well overtake the leader Madonna.

we have already at least 45 million singles sold in the U.S. and the UK (50-55% of the world market)
so sales of Rihanna's singles in the world are over 80 million
I think it is quite possible that she has sold 100 million worldwide.

You can buy "Diamonds" currently for $1.29 as a download.

Not really the same as buying the "The Wall" as a double vinyl album from a store, right?

And as an Irish man, I have to say the biggest band on the planet seems to have been left of the list..

Where is Crystal Swing!!!

http://youtu.be/5XSkstqN2T0

Of course I mean U2

JasonWill1980 said:

I found some stats on Wikipedia claiming the best selling artists... does anyone think its accurate?

The Beatles: 600 million

Elvis Presley: 600 million

Michael Jackson: 350 million-400 million

Madonna: 275 million-300 million

Whitney Houston: 170 million-200 million

Rihanna: 100 million

Prince: 100 million

Eminem: 100 million

Janet Jackson: 100 million

Tupac Shakur: 75 million

Beyonce: 75 million

heres the link

[Edited 1/28/13 22:01pm]

Yeah, I just looked at the link you provided and it seems like you left several people off this list. Donna Summer sold more than Beyonce and Rhianna.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Of course it's not correct. Prince sold more records than Madonna. He said so. And everything Prince says is the truth.

yes and still WB would give all their attention to Madge! She sold nothing, it's not fair.

mjscarousal said:

I dont think we will ever know an actual number for artists, but this list is obviously written by Rhianna's tour manager. But if it does factor in Singles sales then its possible, there is no way she has sold more than 25 million worldwide in albums, if even that much. So alot is missing from this list, i mean if you do count singles than the Brit pop girl groups like Spice Girls and Girls Aloud were both massive in europe, Girls Aloud scored 20 straight top 10's and thats all sales, there albums werent tremendous but the singles were big.

But it all depends what this "list" is factoring and who wrote it, you arent gonna get anything accurate, shoot the Beatles were selling for almost 50 years now, got only knows what they racked up, when CDs first came out they sold huge all over again for them. Queen, Abba, Zeppelin, Billy Joel i mean Billy had one album close in on 11 million and then the one right after it did 8 million in the USA alone, and all his others were gold-multiplatnum here, so he for sure is up there, Jovi passed 100 million a decade ago. and since then sold 20 million plus more worldwide.

These lists are nothing but penis waving contests for stans.

Who really cares that much?

kitbradley said:

JasonWill1980 said:

I found some stats on Wikipedia claiming the best selling artists... does anyone think its accurate?

The Beatles: 600 million

Elvis Presley: 600 million

Michael Jackson: 350 million-400 million

Madonna: 275 million-300 million

Whitney Houston: 170 million-200 million

Rihanna: 100 million

Prince: 100 million

Eminem: 100 million

Janet Jackson: 100 million

Tupac Shakur: 75 million

Beyonce: 75 million

heres the link

[Edited 1/28/13 22:01pm]

Yeah, I just looked at the link you provided and it seems like you left several people off this list. Donna Summer sold more than Beyonce and Rhianna.

yeah I tried to post the whole list but it wouldn't work, so I just decided to link it

Gunsnhalen said:

Rihanna sold 100 million? yeah right

She has sold less than 25 million worldwide what kind of stan put that?

She;s sold more singles than any other "artist" if I remember correctly.

Just saw the list. Someone completely changed it. It was a lot more accuratebefore. The Beatles had more. Elvis Had more. Abba had more than Madonna. How the fuck could Depeche Mode even possibly be that high on the list. That right there is a sign they never even had a U.K number one hit

aardvark15 said:

Just saw the list. Someone completely changed it. It was a lot more accuratebefore. The Beatles had more. Elvis Had more. Abba had more than Madonna. How the fuck could Depeche Mode even possibly be that high on the list. That right there is a sign they never even had a U.K number one hit

Actually the Depeche Mode number is pretty acurate, half of it can be given to "violater", i didnt see Duran in there unless i missed it because they are about 90 or so. It seems a few of the bands i mentioned got added in this list? Queen, ABBA, Jovi etc...all of a sudden are here. HOWEVER alot of those 100million are not accurate

AND NOTE the rihanna number is 25 million albums 75 million in singles. So alot of these numbers on here combine, and are total sales, with that being said lump in a-ha at 51 million, yup 36 million in albums and 15 million in singles over 25 years

[Edited 1/29/13 17:15pm]

Fuck all the moderators here who dont do a damn thing and tamper/edit peoples post

Now you have something to fuckin edit

lastdecember said:

mjscarousal said:

I dont think we will ever know an actual number for artists, but this list is obviously written by Rhianna's tour manager. But if it does factor in Singles sales then its possible, there is no way she has sold more than 25 million worldwide in albums, if even that much. So alot is missing from this list, i mean if you do count singles than the Brit pop girl groups like Spice Girls and Girls Aloud were both massive in europe, Girls Aloud scored 20 straight top 10's and thats all sales, there albums werent tremendous but the singles were big.

But it all depends what this "list" is factoring and who wrote it, you arent gonna get anything accurate, shoot the Beatles were selling for almost 50 years now, got only knows what they racked up, when CDs first came out they sold huge all over again for them. Queen, Abba, Zeppelin, Billy Joel i mean Billy had one album close in on 11 million and then the one right after it did 8 million in the USA alone, and all his others were gold-multiplatnum here, so he for sure is up there, Jovi passed 100 million a decade ago. and since then sold 20 million plus more worldwide.

Everybody except Rihanna, Beyonce and Tupac (love him) belong on the list.

You bring up a good point. Alot of times when people make these lists they factor in certain things. There are a ton of people missing from the list.