For all those who picked Led Zeppelin for the 70s category I do agree they were popular but wasn't The Who just as popular? I remember the debate between those two groups and it was always a tie.
Bear in mind The Beatles were not only huge in the 60's but figured very heavily in the 90's and 00's. They had three consecutive Number One triple albums in America in 95-96, outselling their 60's selves on a number of stats and their '1' album was the biggest seller of the 00s decade in America and many other countries with themselves being number 2 bestselling artist below Eminem. Add to that their chart presence as a band or solo artists in the 70's and 80's and their continuing high-profile in this decade and they really wipe the board.
STAMP OUT THE BEATLES!
[Edited 9/7/14 18:38pm]
[Edited 9/7/14 18:40pm]
“I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions.”
-Robert Anton Wilson
Bear in mind The Beatles were not only huge in the 60's but figured very heavily in the 90's and 00's. They had three consecutive Number One triple albums in America in 95-96, outselling their 60's selves on a number of stats and their '1' album was the biggest seller of the 00s decade in America and many other countries with themselves being number 2 bestselling artist below Eminem. Add to that their chart presence as a band or solo artists in the 70's and 80's and their continuing high-profile in this decade and they really wipe the board.
STAMP OUT THE BEATLES!
[Edited 9/7/14 18:38pm]
[Edited 9/7/14 18:40pm]
I'm not aware of this but based on your description it sounds more like a simple surge of sales rather than The Beatles being one of the hottest acts of the decade. There certainly wasn't anything remotely near the level of Beatlemania in the 2000s.
Bear in mind The Beatles were not only huge in the 60's but figured very heavily in the 90's and 00's. They had three consecutive Number One triple albums in America in 95-96, outselling their 60's selves on a number of stats and their '1' album was the biggest seller of the 00s decade in America and many other countries with themselves being number 2 bestselling artist below Eminem.
There's the Cirque Du Soleil Love show which is still running, the Across The Universe movie and the Rock Band video game. There's also Let It Be...Naked and the recent Live At The BBC 2 and A Hard Days Night being re-released to movie theaters in summer 2014 and the upcoming remastered mono LPs. The Beatles still has books written about them after over a thousand over the years and continue to get featured in magazines. Paul's & Ringo's All Star concerts are popular. Not bad for a group that broke up in 1970.
You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton
I'm too lazy to go through each decade but I'll throw out Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix, Al Green, Michael Jackson, Prince (obviously), U2, Kiss, Rolling Stones, Bee Gees, The Doobie Brothers, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon (even though I don't know much about them)
Whenever I try to do something like this, I just end up relising how broad and diverse music really is. You'd have to do this by genre really.
60's: Frank Sinatra, The Supremes, The Beatles (James Brown a close runner up) 70's: David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Willie Nelson 80's: Prince, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen 90's: Tupac, Nirvana, Garth Brooks (as much as I loathe him) 00's: I'm out of my element when it comes to what was big in the 00's despite being born in 96
So I'll do some older stuff instead
40's: Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, Muddy Waters 50's: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley (Simply for his icon status, personally I do honestly prefer Jerry Lee Lewis or Carl Perkins over the King).
I'm a little curious about including Elvis as one of the big guys of the 60's. I mean, in terms of sales he was big, but he was more making movies and singing soundtracks he was contractually obligated too rather than making music he thought was good or wanted too.
There's a story about him being given "Old McDonald had a farm" to sing for one of his soundtracks and he was so ashamed of how far his material had fallen artistically he refused too until he was promised it would only be in the movie. Not on any of his albums.
Old McDonald appeared on the soundtrack to the movie "Double Trouble". I like Elvis, but even the man himself regarded a lot of his 60's stuff as a joke.