Who were the most successful artists of each decade?
Who were the most successful artists of each decade?
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2000s
Any analysis that attempts to compare one year with another has to take into  account the different levels of charts for different eras.  When examining the greatest song act , greatest songs and greatest album raw scores were adjusted to allow entries from the 1920s to be compared with  those from the 1990s .  This wide range of source dates meant that we could not  combine information from the song and album charts.
When looking at the artists with most chart success in each decade this restriction can  be relaxed.  In this list we have combined song and album success, but only compared  entries across a single decade.  The album scores have been given twice the weight of  the songs (for the decades where albums were being sold).  Here we list the world's top  5 artists of each decade, a more extensive list can be seen on the individual decade pages .
Decade
U2
This approach to calculate success has been selected because it is  a relatively objective measure that can be used to compare and contrast acts from the 1930s and the 1990s .  It ignores  measures that can't be verified (like claimed sales and revenues), ones that  vary systematically from one decade to the next (like tour sizes and  movie/ pop video audiences), or measures that are impossible to obtain  (like amount of media reporting).  If your favourite artists are not  as high up the list as their own publicity would suggest we see that  is a problem with their hype, not with our measure.
We'd be interested to hear about any alternate measure of success that  is both objective and applicable across the decades, especially if you've  actually gathered any data and made it available anywhere.  We'd also be  interested if you can suggest ways that our measure could be improved, or  ways that it systematically misrepresents particular acts.  We're completely  uninterested in hearing why your favourite act should be listed  higher, once the rules are set the results are automatic, no-one gets  to adjust them.
As with all the complex calculations described on the site you can decide to try a different approach .  If your analysis shows something  interesting tell us about it.
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30 Aug 2016
standard of music
Someone asked is anything after 1979 considered music. Well look who wasBritain's biggest selling artist that year (well one of them).......Gary Numan. Enough said.
16 Jul 2016
All my respect.
In reading the conversations with many people who seem to lack a third grade skill of reading your site before posting opinions or subjective, baseless commentary, you maintain a tact and veer away from personsal atracks (for the most part unless their ignorance is really begging to be pointed out). Kudos, to you and all of your colleagues and/or collaborators hard work in sorting the data and creating a methodology to explain your results.
I think my only suggestion I might give to help is, maybe (and forgive me if I missed it somewhere on your site), take artist's song data and give a higher weight so songs that stayed higher on charts longer the normalize the album data because I feel fairly confident that there is a direct significant correlation between song success and album sucess. I just think that sucess of an album (suspicious opinion ahead) due to one song (example, Pornograffitti by the band Extreme by people looking for the song, "More Than Words" might be artificially boosting some artists on your scale where it might not be truly replective or their sucess.
Undoubtedly, certain artist's, like Madonna, I would see no reason for album data to skew results like an outlier. Maybe weight the time of sucess of sucessful songs on the album as pre-scale to the album weight.
As with all data outliers will skew results in some area, but you can't just ignore artist's in you case.
I truly hope you don't take my suggestions in a nefative light. Your team undertook a huge project and have you results well laid out and explained in detail.
Again, all my appreciation for all you hard work. Thank you for yourinvestment of time to make short cutter like myself to have a great place to trust the facts of what I read.
Thank you for the suggestion.  It is a topic that we have dicussed between us a few  times, unfortunately the conclusion we have come to is that putting extra weight on  long runs near the top won't work for this data.  The reason is that many of the source  charts don't have enough detail available.  This is especially true for the earlier  charts and those from the less well represented countries.  If we were to restrict  ourselves to only cover the period after, say 1980, or to only deal with the USA & UK then we have a more detailed look at runs.
Our companion site (http://chart2000.com/) shows what can be done if all the weekly position data is available. In that case we add up the success calculated daily to estimate the overall success of songs, albums and artists. That site only deals with music since 1 Jan 2000, because we have fairly complete data after that date.
The issue of "other factors" having significant impacts on song and album sales has always been with us, from Bing Crosby's 1930s radio shows to the boost in sales for "Purple Rain" in May that followed Prince's death. We naively believe (and indeed hope) that these things tend to even each other out.
24 May 2016
Is anything after 1979 even considered music?
YMMV
6 May 2016
Prince+
Hendrix may parallel Prince on guitar...Stevie Wonder may parallel Prince onpiano and keyboards...Larry Graham may parallel Prince on Bass...Dave Grohl may parallel Prince on drums...Michael Jackson may parallel Prince on singing and dancing...and Bob Dylan may parallel Prince in songwriting...BUT they would all need to collaborate with each other to parallel ONE PRINCE.
6 May 2016
Emperor of Pop
Stevie Wonder: "If Michael was the King of Pop, Prince should be the Emperor" So if chart success doesn't prove to you that Prince was the greatest, Stevie just did.
Emperor > King+
30 Apr 2016
The artists for the 1960s+
Elvis Presley should be the number one artist because he sold as many albumsor nearly as many albums as the Beatles and he was ju because he sold as many albums or nearly as many albums has the Beatles and he was a solo artist. There were four Beatles so technically this personall there were four Beatles. So technically Elvis sold 4x as many copies for each of the band members in the Beatles.
Or maybe all of Elvis' hits should be credited to the songwriters?
22 Apr 2016
Another one gone...brought me to this list.
Now Prince is gone too (RIP)..I was searching for the most popular artists for every decade, and this brought me to your list.
I respect your approach of course, and futhermore it has brought an interesting pov. I didn't downloaded your lists, but by reading the comments I see you based them on the album/singles/chart positions.
Statistically the best approach would be the following, by using and combining the following parameters:
List 1: List of most sold copies for album and singles in total, recalculated to an average by deviding this number by the total albums/singles released from that artist.
List 2: List of chart positions based on singles and albums, total.
List 3: Idem as 2 but now recalculated to the avarage chart position by deviding the total number of albums/singles by the everage chart position.
List 4: List of most won awards
List 5: Idem dito as 4 but recalculated to an average based on the total amount of albums/singles produced.
List 6: List of most earned (only by the total of albums/singles sold, and by sponsor contracts).
List 7 List of most viewed youtube videos. Of course, there has to be a method to recalculate it in regards to eras where youtube was know. So that elvis, beatles etc are being included fairly.
List 8: List of artist ranking based on singing abilities, vocal range.
List 9: List of artist ranking based on dancing ability.
List 10: List of artist ranking based on instrumental abolity.
List 11: List of most songs written by the artist themselves, recalculated to the average of all produced albums/singles.
List 12: List of most talked/written/tabloids occurrances.
The results of all these list should be combined, and the artists that has the highest avrage positions on all these lists are the BEST!
I don't know who would top the lists, but if I would have to guess, it would be Michael Jackson.
The most sold copies is an artifact of the evolution of the music business.  Had CDs  been around when Bing Crosby was active the order would be different.  So that doesn't  work.
The total scores, is what our list provides.
The average scores (total divided by count) provides a top 5 of 1: Michael Hutchence, 2: The Beat of the Earth, 3: U.S.D.A., 4: Pink Cream 69, 5: Dir en grey
Michael Jackson comes below 450 on that list.  Interestingly the highest artist with more  than 3 albums in that list is Madonna
Most won awards just depends on what awards you count.  And is unfair to early artists  from before there were many awards
Most earned (inflation adjusted), how would you measure such a thing?  Everybody lies
Singing, writing and instrumental ability.  According to who?
Dancing ability?  Are we talking about musicians?  The fact that Bob Dylan can't dance  (AFAIK) has no impact on what I think of him as a musician
Best writer.  Ah that has a possible way to measure.  Maybe look at how many cover versions of  their songs have become hits for others.  That I would be interested to see.  Personally I  suspect that The Beatles, Bob Dylan and David Bowie would head up that list.
Most Tabloid?  I personally don't care, the fact that Garry Glitter has a lot of  Tabloid coverage certainly doesn't make him a better musician (or make his music "better")
Now this is, of course, just my opinion.  I would be interested to see any analysis  you do along these lines.  Feel free to use the data we provide to help.
17 Apr 2016
The Platters
Seems strange that the Platters didn't make the list. +They were trailblazersin bringing "black" music to the white charts, and had many successful records, and gold albums. +For some reason, they seem to slip through the cracks, so to speak, in spite of their amazing success i the l950's.
Look on the 1950s page.  They are artist #18 of the decade and artist #2 of  1956 (and artist #122 of the whole site)
12 Feb 2016
This isn't right
I'm gonna suggest that you should make a different strategy for artistsuccess. Prince in the 80s made an album nearly every year compared to Jackson. Jackson made 3 ( not counting "victory " because he barely took part). So clearly Prince will be higher because he made way more songs and albums. That doesn't mean he is more successful it means he had way more exposure opportunities yet his best album doesn't compare to jacksons . Your status system is flawed. What you should of done is total number of hits divided by albums or songs as a term for value of weight.
What you suggest would focus on the most high scoring albums or songs,  we already have a listing for that.
If we measure an artist's average album success, as you suggest, then the top  10 (of all time) looks like:
1) Marty Robbins, 2) James Horner, 3) Heaven 17, 4) En Vogue, 5) Al Jarreau,  6) Bloc Party, 7) Sting & The Police, 8) Billy Talent, 9) Janis Ian, 10) The Temptations
With notable artists:
691) The Beatles, 606) The Rolling Stones, 690) Michael Jackson
If you want to find a measure which forces Michael Jackson to  the top then this isn't it.
9 Feb 2016
Neil Diamond v Michael Jackson
Could expand or explain on Elvis Presley's hits or gold records.  I confess I am not sure which era is which anymore but he and/ or Neil Diamond must surly be on a list BEFORE Michael Jackson! They certainly have more voice range than Michael ever did to my mind!
26 Jan 2016
i think u hav a bad way of figurin out thees things
15 Jan 2016
Flawed criteria+
Your criteria is flawed. I think you systematically created a formula to place Michael Jackson low on your list. He only released two albums in the 80s and due to a technicality he wouldn't have the opportunity to chart as well as Madonna who released albums as frequently as she visited the toilet.
Through all your endeavours and failings to make an accurate criteria here are a few other questions I pose.
1. Stevie Wonder had three of the best records ever released in history in the 70s. All three were critically acclaimed and influenced the very artists you've listed (Elton John said Songs In The Key Of Life was the greatest record of all time), yet Stevie Wonder misses your list completely.
2. I assume chart success is simply limited to western world countries that monitor their chart, which leads to a misleading title 'Most successful artists of the US in each decade' would be accurate. Your title is misleading, so your research and findings are amateur. If your research doesn't include every country of the world, it should be clearly stated.
3. Chart success as the only means to measure a musicians success is incorrectly labelled. Success is also measured through endorsement deals, awards of recognition, contract signings, world tours, television ratings, etc. For example, statistics that are readily available and work WITH your theory of 'no opinion - facts' would say Michael Jackson signed the biggest endorsement deal of the 80s with Pepsi. Michael Jackson won more awards than any artist in the history of music, including artist of the year and decade of every awards show in the world including the grammys, AMAs, world music awards, etc. Michael Jackson signed the biggest recording contract of all time in the 80s with Sony. Michael Jackson's 1984 Grammy awards are STILL the highest rated Grammy awards of all time with excess of 50 million viewers. Michael Jackson's performance at Motowns 25th anniversary had over 50 million viewers.
Quite simply, your criteria is flawed and you cannot generate a 'comeback' todisprove my claims because I am stated facts. Your criteria is one dimensional and lacks common sense.
The thought that the scoring system was especially designed to put down  Michael Jackson is... quite mad.  If we wanted to reduce a single artist's  impact that would be easy, but why would we go to all the effort of creating  such a comprehensive listing (with data from 1900 for example) if our goal  was so stupid?
1. "Stevie Wonder misses your list completely": "Songs In The Key Of Life" is listed and Stevie Wonder is in the top artists of the 1970s.
2. "limited to western world countries": you obviously have not looked at  much of this site.  If you had you would know that we have put a lot of  effort into getting as good a "world view" as possible.  We certainly  cannot be accused of overly focusing on the US.  The fact that there are  no available charts for minor countries doesn't matter because more than  90% of the worldwide revenue for music is generated in just 23 countries, the ones  we cover.  Even if that extra data was available it wouldn't contribute to  a "world view"
3. Other measures: Your suggestions rather illustrate the point, first of  all there are no reliable sources for any of the measures you mention,  just look at how Jackson's fans lie about the sizes of world tours  etc, secondly even if there were such "facts" available the selection  of which to include and what weight to give them would provide ample  opportunity for promoting favoured acts or eras.  Your statement that "Michael Jackson won more awards than any artist in the history of music" is exactly the type of subjective unverifiable thing we try to avoid.
"I am stated facts" you have some facts and some opinions, and the facts you do are just isolated items. The fact that the 1984 Grammy Awards had more viewers than any other says more about US TV viewing habits than about Michael Jackson's success. When "The Beatles" was on the Ed Sullivan show 60% of all televisions that were turned on in the USA were watching them. We can't see any reasonable way to compare or contrast these two "facts".
The fact is that, as far as we can see, consolidating chart input is the least bad way to measure the success of musical acts. If you can think of a better one set up your own web site. Once you've done that come back and tell us about it, until you've acually put some work in your opinions are pretty much worthless
9 Jan 2016
hows this decade going?+
hey whos in the lead so far for this decade? top 5. ?
The way we gather data is very good for periods longer than about 10 years  ago.  We don't trust our results after about 2009 so any results for  the current decade are, at best, dubious
7 Jan 2016
C'mon
I'm pretty sure janet was the second most succesful artist of the 90's andmichael was the N.1 artist of the 80's pls
...and yet the data tells a different story
We'll stay with the data rather than your unsupported suspicion
18 Dec 2015
I thought for sure Three Dog Night would be in the top 5 for the 70's
They don't even make it to the top 50 of the 70s.  You can see why on their  artist page, first while they had success in the USA they didn't do well  elsewhere, secondly their period of greatest success straddled the 60s and 70s.
If we were to list the top acts of 1965-1974 they would be about 57th
13 Dec 2015
No Benny Goodman?
Honestly pretty surprised to see no Goodman for the 30s. I trust your system,but I gotta say, I found that very interesting. Also, that Al Jolson came in second behind Paul Whiteman. Very cool chart here. Definitely not surprised to see Bing in first place for 2 decades, though. That man absolutely dominated the airwaves.
If you look at the 1930s page you will find Benny Goodman at number 7 for  the 1930s.  Given that he had few hits 1930-1934 that feels about right  to us.  He was the top act of 1936 (by our numbers)
This is just one of those artifacts that comes from splitting decades  at the 9 / 0 boundary.
7 Dec 2015
Did you change it?
You know I'm looking at the older comments saying that Mariah Carey should be the number 1 artist of the 90's but I'm looking at the table above and Mariah is number 1. So did something change, was there a mistake?  I know that she was #1, like EVERYBODY that lived in the 90's knew that, it was +Mariah>>>>>everyone else lol. Like no joke, I mean great for her she is very talented.
There was no mistake, the thing is that the order of these lists is determined  by the data.  The main thing that has changed is that the way the numbers are  combined has been refined.
We are sure that the current results are more acurate
3 Dec 2015
you are a**
micheal Jackson at 4 in 1980!!!!!!!!!!!!!When did you born? <long rant insulting all Americans who dislike Micheal Jackson>
9 Nov 2015
70s best live band and top selling records
25 Oct 2015
Linda Ronstadt+
Surprised not to see her listed at all, particularly in the 70's. Didn't she rank at all?
She had the 35th song of the 1970s and is artist 551 of all time (in v2.3.67), but not in  the top 50 artists ofthe 1970s. Not enough hit albums basically.  Remember that albums contribute twice  what songs do.
Of course you can download the CSV file and try some alternative way to calculate
23 Sep 2015
backham
i think this vote got trouble. about 80's , 90's
Michael jackson is the most successful of all time in 80's and 90's ,Everyone around the world knows who he is and how much talent he had , he also is the most famous person in the world that ever live.
This is not a vote, here we deal with facts not opinions, Michael Jackson  had fewer hit songs and albums than the artists listed higher.  By that  definition he was not "the most successful of all time in 80's"
Here no one votes
What about Cher? She had hits music almost every decade from the sixties on
She had hits, but not many until the 1990s, see her page
19 Aug 2015
Mariah
Since when did you change her rank? I've read some old comments and the argueswere about why Madonna was no.1, not Mariah. Did you change your calculation or something :-?
We did change the calculation.  The version numbers indicate the scoring system  (as well as fixes in the data).  The 2.X scoring switched the order. To be honest for the 1990s whether Madonna or Mariah are number one in the 1990s depends  on the fine details of the calculation, in reality they are close enough to each  other that the difference isn't significant.
We can say that the two of them are well ahead of the rest of the 1990s acts
10 Aug 2015
The 80s
What about Phil Collins? Tallying his work from Genesis and his solo career,he has more hits and chart time than anyone from the 80s.
30 Jul 2015
1980s
look, you can debate musical talent, influence, whatever you want. but interms of SUCCESS in the 80s, michael jackson was on top. i'm not even defending him because i'm a fan, i'm just basing it off numbers. of the top 10 highest grossing tours #2 is bad tour (second to pink floyd only by 6 million dollars and they did 63 more shows on their tour than bad tour) and #6 is the jacksons victory tour. his two solo albums are both in the top 30 highest selling albums of all time, thriller being #1. he spent the most weeks of any artist in the 80s on the charts, most #1 hits, most #1 hits from a single album in the 80s. i don't know what more needs to be said, but yeah. just some facts.
Fewer hit songs, fewer hit albums, lower on our list.
Your opinion and claims don't matter (our opinion doesn't either)
15 Jul 2015
This is genius.
I see you guys have received a lot of hateful comments, and it saddens me to see people unable to look past their preconceived notions of who should be where. I admire your logarithms and think it's very cool to be able to look at various points in history and see who is on top and when.
One suggestion I have, and I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement, but what if there was an option to remove certain songs/albums from a musician's calculation and see how important that particular song/album was to that artist's career. Just an idea, but I think it'd be cool to add in. Anyways, don't let anyone stop you! Good luck!
Interesting suggestion.  Actually since we make all our data  available (as a CSV file) anyone can try various combinations  using that data.  If anyone finds a good way to apply  these ideas we'd be interested to hear from you.
28 Jun 2015
Hahaha, mj only fourth in the 80's? stupid!
Ha Ha, Unhelpful comment from a Michael Jackson fanboy?  Predictable!
6 Jun 2015
Are u kidding me? Usher has the MOST number #1 hit singles and the biggestselling album 'Confessions' within the entire 2000's decade, and isn't even in the top 5??
Did you read what it says at the top of the page? "the results presented for the  time since the year 2000 should be treated with caution"
In case you are wondering that means it cannot be trusted
18 May 2015
Metrics to estimate significance of creative works
Hello. I think you might find this paper interesting. It's a Cross-evaluation of metrics to estimate the  significance of creative works, it applied to films, but it might be interesting the same method applied  to the music industry. Hope you find it useful! Here is the link: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/5/1281.abstract
Interesting, since it relies on "references" from one work to another  I can't see how to apply it to music (at least at the level of songs  and albums we deal with).
But its good to see other approaches, thanks
5 May 2015
2010s page?
I think I know the answer to this question but when will the current decade get its own page?
That is a really good question.
First let me say that you can generate pretty much what that page would have on it from  the CSV download file (with a little sorting).
As we've said in many other places it takes about 5 years for the results we create to be "reliable" (becuase of missing data and issues with consolidation, etc) so at the moment  we would not trust any of our own results from later than about 2009.
The site generation software could easily be modified to start generating the  2010s page now, but the results would be so questionable that we would not  be happy to put them out there.  Our guess would be that we would wait until  we had a few reliable years before turning on the 2010s page (something like  2019?)
The "correct" way to solve this issue would be for someone to create a  companion site that does this type of global consolidation but only for dates  after, say 2000, that way it could take advantage of the greater volume of  data available and avoid the heavy maths we have to do to fairly combine  the 1930s with the 1990s.  If anyone fancies taking on such a challange  we'd be happy to discuss.
15 Apr 2015
One way of calibrating success
This is just one way of calibrating success. There are many other ways as well. For example, fame, worldwide album sales, world tour grosses or the number of total attendees, success in specific genres etc. I really haven't listened to much of the people on this list/whatever. If you take any of these into account, the list would be very very different.
The fact that you've chosen to overlook Celine's 2 of 30m+ albums in the 90s  and Michael Jackson's 2 40m+ albums in the 80s (which are both in the top  10 best selling albums of all time) shows that you've chosen a very odd way  (although it could be a way) of showing success.. oh wait, you haven't even  mentioned how you've measured the 'success'... <various unreliable claims and a long rant removed>
This is a relatively personal account of mine but Prince never was as famous or popular as Michael (although I like prince a lot too) worldwide. I live in Pakistan, and believe me almost no one in my city knows about Prince - and I live in one of the + biggest cities of the country - whereas almost everyone knows about Michael (and most of them admire his dancing/singing/music).
Don't trash musicians just because of their hype.
First lets deal with your claims, while it is likely that "Thriller" sold  more than 40M copies (and it is almost certainly the best selling  album of all time) "Bad" probably sold more like 30M copies and is almost  certainly NOT in the top 10 selling albums of all time.
And that is exactly the issue, some measures, such as worldwide album sales,  world tour grosses and number of concert attendees have no reliable sources and  a lot of silly claims.  Using them to assess success would deliver unreliable  results.  As for "success in specific genres" we don't even know where we could  find such a measure.
In contrast "position in charts" is possible to find for periods starting  in 1900 and is reliable from the 1950s onward (in some places).  The claim that we have not  mentioned how we convert chart positions to a measure of "success" is  both insulting and clearly wrong.  We have described in detail how these rankings are  generated (just follow the links on this page and actually read the text rather than guessing what it  will say).  We have also provided the raw data so you can do your own calculation, and invited  anyone to explain either why this approach is unfair to certain artists or suggest how it could  be improved.
One possible measure that would be an improvement would be to look at all the material  released by an artist and see what proportion of it reached the charts.  However we don't  have the resources to discover *all* the releases by the 32,450 artists who have hits. If you think you can do that we'd be interested to look at the results, if you  are not prepared to put in that work we'll continue to rely on our results (we have  done the work you see)
We don't see how the statement that, according to our measure, in the 1980s U2 had more  success that Michael Jackson is in any way "trashing" him.  This is just a statement of fact.
10 Apr 2015
Thank you for creating this very informative site. Some of the artists listedas being the highest charting of a certain year or decade are completely different to what I had expected, but I trust that your data is far more reliable than my guesses.  It's also interesting to see who the top artists of the early decades are - I would imagine that most people nowadays have never heard of Billy Murray or the Peerless Quartet, and yet they were once the most successful artists in the world.
I'm also curious about how much these lists would change if you did it for ten year periods starting at a different point, e.g. 1975-1985, 1985-1995, etc. I'm guessing that some of the artists on these lists only rank as highly as they do because they happened to have all of their hit singles and albums within particular decades.
Thanks for the kind words.  You raise an interesting question, given that  one could claim the main "seismic shifts" in music occurred in, say 1957,  1964, 1978 and 1995 then the periods 1945-54, 1955-64, 1965-74, 1975-84 etc  would each seem to be more internally consistent than the arbitrary division  by decade.  When we're using this data to generate our own "hits of the era" playlists  we tend to do so for 5 year periods (1965-69 for example).  The decades just seem  to us to have too much diversity.
We would agree that the division into decades does artificially favour certain artists, of  course shifting to 5 year periods or starting each decade at a different "year number" would boost a different (but just as arbitrary) set of artists.
But you don't need to wonder about who would be, say, the highest scoring artists for  albums from 1985-1994, you can download our CSV file and quickly do the calculation yourself  (the answer is "U2", "Madonna" and "Prince" are all about the same and ahead of all the  others, unless we allow "Original Soundtrack")
Playing with the CSV file in a spreadseet provides some interesting insights into  the "bigger picture".  We would recommend it (but, of course we are data nerds).  If  you find something interesting we'd like to hear about it.
25 Mar 2015
Celine Dion at the first.
In the 90s, Celine Dion should be at the first ,and not Mariah Carey.
24 Mar 2015
No matter what, the most important is not the number 1 place, is who you love.I love Madonna and she is my always number one, and the only QUEEN.
7 Mar 2015
The Osmonds
Many do not realize that The Osmonds have sold over 100 million records.  In the early 70's they beat out both The Beatles and Elvis for the most gold records received in one year at 10. +A record that is still held today. +Although known for their bubblegum image, The Osmonds wanted to become a hard rock band but were held back by their label. +With the release of "Crazy Horses" and "Hold Her Tight" you can get a feel of where they wanted to take their tunes. +Underneath all the sugar, these guys were really good.
6 Mar 2015
World outside UK and USA
MJ made his own music ! And he did play instruments. MJ didn't need anyinstrumentalist to create songs for him. He made the melody and all the arrangement himself. If someone else played instrument while recording the song in the studio, that doesn't make him/her the composer. If i repeat a song on some instrument that makes me a musician ? Am i the composer of that song now ? Beatles and Prince fans have the most dumbest ramblings on internet. Even some of the people on x-factor and American idol can sing and play instrument simultaneously.
In our experience it is very clear which artists have the dumbest fans on the internet
17 Feb 2015
MJ
Also, Jackson had to fight to get his #1 song on MTV solely because he was black.  Beatles didn't ever have to worry about things like that.
17 Feb 2015
MJ
In response to (2 post down). Micheal Jackson did not need any sessionmusicians. I suggest you listen to his bedroom recording of Billy Jean. Not a far trip to the released version. It is also quite obvious, if you know a bit about lyrics, to see who wrote them. He wrote his lyrics. They were the most important thing that drove his music.  It really sounds like you don't know what you are talking about.  The Beatles used many session musicians too: George Martin, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, and countless horn & string players. The Beatles admittedly lifted many riffs. There is no reason for your comment.  Oh, & I'm a bigger Beatle fan than you.
17 Feb 2015
Success
Definitely wrong to include Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. They should beexempt because they were married to the CEO of their record company.  Without that endle$$ promotion, they would not have amounted to much.
We measure success, it doesn't matter what caused it.
13 Feb 2015
For the person who said Garth on trails Elvis and the beatles
Check your stats
In 2013 Garth was offically listed the 3rd biggest selling solo artist in theUSA of the sound scan era, From the late 80's early 90's. Believe it or not it is face. Now is 2015 he is number 2
25 Jan 2015
Michael Jackson V The Beatles
Why do MJ fans think that if they shout loudest then they will change the stats on their fave artist. MJ was a great live performer. However, he had to hire dozens of session musicians  to make the music on his albums.  He also had to hire many professional songwriters to compose or  co-compose his recorded songs.  MJ was one of the great 'pop' singers of the 80's and yes, he was  a brilliant live act.  I am a Beatles fan.  I am happy with their stats.  I will not shout out that  they should have the best selling single album.  I am happy with their overall album and singles  sales.  They remain the biggest selling music act in history due to their original songs and their  innovative musicianship and recording techniques.  IT is impossible for any act to hold all the  records.  But the Beatles continue to hold their own. MJ fans should be happy with what he did  achieve in his time. He is still popular today and remains as big as Madonna or Prince. Celebrate that.
24 Jan 2015
Deyy. You should list him coz he ruled the music!
5 Jan 2015
1980s
Michael Jackson should with out a doubt be at number one for the 1980s.Michael Jackson had the 1st best selling album of the 1980s which is also the biggest selling album ever (Thriller), Michael Jackson has the 2nd best selling album of the 1980s which is among the best selling albums ever (bad). Michael Jackson had more number ones than any other artist, had the most successful concert series and sold the most records. He became the most famous person in the world, revolutionised pop music and you can really justify putting him at number 4. He holds every musical record possible in the 1980s so your list is extremely inaccurate and your excuses are also inaccurate. Michael Jackson is the king of pop and the biggest selling artist in the world. He has influenced all of the most successful artists of the last few decades. If you can really look beyond those achievements by a Michael Jackson then you don't deserve to post on the internet because you're information is highly inaccurate and absolutely ridiculous. You claim that record sales don't apply yet you've placed Elvis and the Beatles at number one for that exact reason. Stop being so ridiculous and open your eyes to the truth and the success of Michael Jackson.
Its true that "Thriller" was the biggest selling album, but "Bad" was certainly NOT the second biggest seller of the 1980s and he certainly did NOT have more number ones than other artists in the 1980s. Making exaggerated claims, like that he sold anywhere near the same total as The Beatles or Elvis just demonstrates why our data driven approach is so necessary. The fact that Michael Jackson fans shout louder and are more abusive than others does not prove anything good about him.
As we've explained a few times we don't "decide" to put him 4th, that's where  the actual chart data places him.  Even if we agreed with you that he in some way "should" be top in the 1980s we'd have to find some strange combination of scores  to put him there.
The fact is that its the data that places him as the 4th artist of the 1980s  and no amount of shouting will change that.
2 Jan 2015
Sales are limited by population - clever list
Great article, and much more meaningful than grouping them all together to compare head-to-head. It's amazing what pops up - e.g. Glenn Miller. World population was much smaller at the start of the 20th century than today, and so of course were the US and UK populations. As a percentage of population, those earlier acts like the Beatles or Bing Crosby are far more impressive. It wouldn't be too hard to do some quick calculations, based on populations at time of release, to create a meaningful top 10 that compares across decades, although there are other factors to consider, such as technology and globalisation of music sales. It's always tempting to prioritise music from within our own lifetime, and to ignore stuff we didn't grow up with, e.g. by Bill Murray, who I'm not familiar with except as an actor. As a music lover, though, I want to go and seek out this stuff.
1 Jan 2015
top ten singers
Many years ago I read a newspaper article naming the ten best singers. Hereare eight: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Arethra Franklin and Barbara Streisand. By chance do you know the two other singers? Your lists make a lot of sense.
5 Dec 2014
Prince outsold Michael Jackson in the 1980s? I think not.
Read what the page actually says, then comment
4 Dec 2014
Decades
I noted Madonna was the 2nd most successful female artist for 3 decades. She has sold more than 400 albums, she is an iconic woman proudly compared in sales with Michael Jackson, Elton John, Pink Floyd  and other great artists.
27 Nov 2014
Really Prince? Queen should be the #1
"Should" is beyond our remit, we list "was"
16 Nov 2014
5) Lana Del Rey  4) Beyonce 3) Britney Spears 2) Adele 1) Eminem+
20 Sep 2014
Not satisfied+
Hey I wonna know where is Taylor swift . One of the most successful country music singer and now also on pop music. +I think this list is wrong .....
As the text says the data is only reliable up to about 5 years ago (that is 2009).  Most of  Taylor Swift's hits have been later than that.
5 Sep 2014
Music
Elvis was more successful because there wasn't as many options in music fromthe 40s-50s. Once the 60s came, music progressed to many variations which gave customers more options to choose from thus minimizing the individual success of all artist. That should be computed in your cheesy algorithm, as well as the civil rights act of 1964 which gave blacks completely equal rights. Your arrogance in your so called unbiased algorithm doesn't take into account the different races individual circumstances, which culturally affect product sales. It is impossible to make an accurate algorithm to determine a music artist success through many decades without taking everything into account. The only way to compare musicians without any bias is to put them in the same decade facing the same obstacles, which is impossible. The rest is just a matter of personal tastes. My opinion is that through cultural obstacles, Michael Jackson is the most successful. In terms of combination of songwriting, creativity, originality, skill, coupled with top hits and album sales, the most successful is the Beatles. I give you credit for trying, this is still biased, even though it does not reflect your own personal biases.
We discuss at length the various ways that our algorithm is biased, it is  not perfect but it does try and take into account the ways that different  periods interact with the charts.  We think the result is about as neutral  as it can possibly be.
Your suggestion that race should have any type of role is insulting, only an American would think so. Your mention of US domestic politics clearly demonstrates that you are American. The data here comes from countries outside the US, most of whom are a lot less racist than the US was for the period covered.
Michael Jackson as the most successful artist despite cultural obstacles -  you must be joking.  I suggest you read about the lives of  Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Nina Simone and even Jimmy Hendrix,  clearly you don't know about even US history.
5 Sep 2014
are you kidding me
are you kidding me??? +what a load of bollocks and your lame excuses for youself serving fantasy charts holy crap you ball of tripe and such an waste of web space with your unsubstantiated wax banter and patter.
Feel free to not look here again then
30 Aug 2014
This is right!
Mariah should only be First! No questions should be asked enough haters,Mariah has sold over 212 million albums CERTIFIED but her teams says 275! It's a marketing gimmick, Mariah has #18 hits to her name seventeen self penned, I can't Name anyone to this day that can turn a note into the ground lift it up with a butterfly belt as high as she wants and take it further with her whistle xx she has no limits she's the queen bitch of what she does and as she came back you should all know she's coming back for all your asses!! #MC #often imitated never duplicated!
Your opinion is noted, other opinions are also available
27 Aug 2014
+I knew I would find shady here
21 Aug 2014
What of beyonce??? She sure is the artist of 2000s! She is currently the higest paid black female artist from her Mrs carter show tour??? How come she isn't on the top five list????
The song list is always about 5 years behind (so currently its only OK to about 2008)
So, as it says in the text, this is not really trustworthy, other sites will  have better data
14 Aug 2014
80s
MJ was the biggest selling artist of the 80s & you can't denied that. Prince &U2 is not that well known all over the world like MJ & Madonna is. Prince most well known album is Purple Rain which only sell 20 million copies worldwide & it's not even closed to how many MJ's Thriller & Bad album sell which were released in the 80s. Also has the most sold out tour dates in the 80s too. So MJ is the most successful of the 80s.
The list is not based on sales numbers (because in reality no-one actually  knows those).  Madonna had more number one songs and more number one albums,  so she scores higher.  It doesn't matter how much you think Jackson "deserves" to  be higher (or even what our opinion is), the order on this page is determined by  the facts not opinions
14 Aug 2014
Uk sales+
In the UK Shakin Stevens was the biggest selling singles artist of the 80'showever using both Singles and albums i doubt he would be No 1.+
This list combines singles and albums and covers the whole world.   We suspect the fact that he does not appear is entirely fair.
4 Aug 2014
Michael Jackson is #1. +PERIOD.
HOW DARE YOU PUT THE KING OF POP AT #4 FOR THE '80s?... <rant deleted>
<other posts from the same place also removed>
26 Jul 2014
The proper way to compare record sales
You have to adjust for population growth if you use sales.
That is true.  You also have to find reliable sales numbers.
(and what about the impact that the war had on sales in the early 1940s?)
25 Jul 2014
Elvis has once again +been declared 'The biggest selling solo music act of alltime' by RIIA in 2014. He will always be KING and no other artist can touch him.
8 Jul 2014
music
this topic is subject to many different opinions, some are based on pureprejudice ,as a long time music lover, i was born during the birth of rock and roll which also competed with pop music,country and what was then called soul music or r and b, jazz was also popular among some, if you turned on the radio these were your options,its my opinion that the best music as far as melody goes and pure variety of subject matter was 1964-1974, i notice whent he +who the +sold more records question comes up among the younger generation most want to claim its their generation . the problem is they dont have the facts to defend their positions, so there must be a standard you can go by, if we consider total sales which is really the only way to see who had the most mass appeal, , not just certain races or social groups or cultural groups, or age groups, it is a fact that elvis sold more than the beatles.and the beatles sold more than michael jackson, now considering all of these had long record selling time spans,(michael was just a kid and in my opinion was the jackson five,) this is the 123 of record sales, mariah carey is in there too.the fats are allthe others did not or will never come close to these ,no matter what people say.rap and hip hop are sold to a very small base of people compared to these 3 or 4, i can see why,i dont care what race an artist is good songs or singers +you cant help but like them, stevie wonder, the motown sound had a huge audience among a broad range of music lovers, not just white, there is no way you can compare these artists to todays hip hop so called artists, their subject matter is sex sex sex, for the most part and the melodies suck compared to motown ,todays country music all sounds the same with few exceptions, no individuality, now you can say my opinion is based on my +age, not true, my opinion is based on my ears, good melody and good subject matter distinct voices instantly recognized after hearing it only once. karen carpenter elvis, +jackson, lennon mccartney, so many others,diana ross, dion warwick, +these are timeless songs and artists all the others will never come near their talents. melody was lost at some point, subject matter was lost at some point,songwriters who could write about all kind of subjects, not just relationships and sex was also lost at some point, +elvis sold +more records than ANYONE +thats a fact ,the beatles are second, both are still selling records among old and young, the beatles had more influence on music lovers than any group in history, thats fact not just opinion,
19 Jun 2014
Michael Jackson owned the 80s
I'm quite horrified to see that MJ has been ranked 4th in the 1980s. Clearly your so called "complex calculations" logic is nothing but a joke and this site has been put up by some dumb biased Madonna & Prince fans. Please visit wikipedia and read the Guiness book of World records to know more about MJ.
This site is for those that want to use the data to come to their views. You should feel free to believe Wikipedia and not let facts cloud your opinions
29 May 2014
All you Mj fans
John Lennon said it best "before Elvis there was nothing". Mj was more plastic than human. When he died, they probably  melted him down into a Lego, so little boys can play with  him for a change
21 May 2014
PRINCE EL CAPITANO PER SEMPRE
PRINCE FOR TALENT, MUSICAL GENIUS, INGENUITY AND LIVE PERFORMING BY FAR EL NUMERO UNO
21 Apr 2014
list of century
for sales of records; 1. The Beatles, 2. Elvis 3. Abba for importance and influence; 1. Beatles, 2 Elvis 3.Dylan. Michael Jackson or Madonna do not come close. And of course Mariah Carrey or any  hiphop act does not come close. Infact; in records sold(or downloaded, or paid, The Beatles outscore any other  artists since 1992.Including U2 Maodnna Eminem Mariah Carey and Prince or Michael J.
16 Apr 2014
elvis vs mj
Clearly, on this site and a few others, the mj fans can't accept the fact that Elvis sold more and had way more hits around the world than he did.
12 Apr 2014
Elvis is overrated
Simply claiming that people have changed something forever shooldn't raisethem on a pedestal. Hitler also changed the course of history, but he's certainly nobody to worship. Regardless, let me make it clear that Elvis was good, but by no means equivalent to Michael Jackson. No, i'm actually not that big of a Michael Jackson fan (Mariah Carey's my favorite) and I wasn't born until 1997, proving that my opinion is impartial and not bias in anyway...
I understand that the author of this used an algorithm and was unbiased, but for the record this is my input for the whole MJ vs Elvis "controversy"
We agree, Elvis was one of the most influential music acts of all time,  Michael Jackson was not even the most successful act of the 1980s.  They  are in no way equivalent.
The idea that because you are young you are impartial is in direct  contradiction with our experience.
So we would disagree with your opinion that "Elvis is overrated", but  the goal of this site is not to change your strongly held opinions, it is  to provide impartial evidence for those who are still open to discussion.
11 Apr 2014
haha
Prince a bigger artist than Michael Jackson? It`s the total album/singles sales worldwide that counts. According to the RIAA Michael Jackson is nr 7 of all time best-selling artist in the US with sales of 75.5 million. Madonna? Nr 15 with 64.5 mill. Prince is waay down at 36 with 39,5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists_in_the_United_States
In the Uk, List of best-selling music artists in the United Kingdom in singlessales lists Michael Jackson at nr 5 with singles sales of 15.3 million. Prince is at nr 54 with only 5.3 million. What is your definition of success? If a an artist release an album that stays on the top spot for 37 weeks and another that stays on the top spot for 6 weeks and selling almost 100 million combined (Thriller and Bad), Neither Batman, Around the world.. and Purple rain was at number 1 more then 40 weeks combined. Michael Jackson sold 110 million albums in the 80s, more than Madonna and Prince. So he had more success
First of all our calculation shows that Prince had more success in  the 1980s than Michael Jackson.  On this site we have used five different  methods to calculate success across decades, each has been explained in  detail.  In none of those 5 does Prince score higher than Michael Jackson.
The Beatles two and a half times more US sales, Elvis with almost twice as  many US sales.  So clearly your evidence supports the conclusion that  Michael Jackson is nowhere near either of those acts.
I don't know what source you are using for UK sales figures.  Worldwide sales  figures for the 1980s are unreliable and certainly useless as evidence.
Our criteria for success are clearly stated, the input data is documented.   We report the results of applying systematic processes to defined inputs,  we won't fiddle our results for anyone.
28 Feb 2014
erm what about.............. DIANA ROSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She was artist 35 of the 1980s
Remeber this listing combines album and song success
26 Feb 2014
Nice to see an objective system at last
Having followed music sales for many years - I have always been annoyed howhype doesn't always fit real life sales or how success in one country is 'sold' by hype as being typical of global success. I think hard-core fans should just accept that their favourite acts may well not have been as globally successful as they would have liked - stop rallying against a very fair system of calculation here and just be glad of whatever successes their favourite acts have had - sales aren't everything!
22 Feb 2014
next decade 2010
When are you going to put out the next decade list... 2010's?
The data from after 2009 is, at best, of limited value.  We  won't be consolidating this data for a while yet.
14 Feb 2014
Michael Jackson: Incorrect 1980's Placement
ACTUALLY: Michael Jackson IS listed as Billboard's Artist Of The Decade...
Speaking of the false king and culture-thief Elvis, It's reported Michael sold more records  since his death than Elvis and John Lennon combined since theirs.
This list is about worldwide success (not just success in the US like the  Billboard list).  Also it follows a published approach (rather than being  swayed by aggressive fans and media notoriety).
The phrase "it's reported that" is a clear flag of your lack of any real data  to support your views.
10 Feb 2014
Bing Crosby
It is now clear that Bing Crosby was the man.
Well he was well before my time, it appears from my research that Bing has more number One/top thirty  hit's that anyone else.
In fact no one even comes close, in addition to no one being Number One for two decades in a row.
Mr. B. Cosby accomplished the above during the Great Depression and World War Two, which is quite remarkable.
I might add that Bing was a hugely popular radio/movie star +being Number Box office from '45-'49 as well as receiving academy awards. While, I love Elvis, the Beatles, & Michael Jackson the facts speak for themselves that B. Crosby is the MAN.
That is certainly a valid position to hold.
Our estimate is that any one of Bing Crosby, The Beatles, Elvis, Paul Whiteman, Frank Sinatra or Glenn Miller  could feasibly be claimed to be the most successful musical acts of the 20th century, depending on how you combine  the evidence.  For most approaches the top act works out as Bing Crosby, The Beatles or Elvis, but the others  turn up for some metrics.
Our calculation is that if Madonna continues to be successful for another decade or so she would join that  elite list.
It depends on how you estimate success, but our numbers indicate that Bing Crosby is certainly one  of the top 3.
9 Feb 2014
How?
I am curious as to how you calculated this.
The details of the various calculations are all described on the site.  The way the main "score" is calculated is described in the "How the site is generated?" FAQ page.
9 Feb 2014
U2
Are U2 really the 14th highest selling artist?
This site does not track "sales" since there is no reliable source for that information and  comparing sales in the 1940s with those in the 1970s would be a stupid thing to do.
According to our analysis (which is detailed in the FAQ) U2 are the 14th most successful  song artists of the 20th century.  They are the 7th most successful album artist.
Our uninformed guess would be that they are certainly in the top 20 best selling artists  of all time (but as we said we have no good evidence for that)
2 Feb 2014
Meh
A little embarrassing to be associated with those other MJ fans, but im an MJ fan all the way . Regardless of the stats though, I still think the Beatles,  Elvis and MJ are the three best and i dont even like the Beatles. As for  Elvis, hes definitely the King of Rock but Jackson was the King of Pop. That  said I'm curious to know who is more known worldwide, Elvis or MJ.
21 Dec 2013
elvis
isnt it great to upset the jackson fans, they just cant belive that elvis is the real king,
14 Dec 2013
how is garth brooks not on the list for the 90's
He is listed for the 1990s, artist 16 for the decade is pretty good for  someone with so few song hits outside the US.
This site lists artists which have had significant impact round the world
25 Nov 2013
Comment
Reading through most of the comments on this page, It amazes me how many people get really pset that there favorite artist/band is not listed as the biggest seller in a particular decade.  Firstly, Its on record sales, If they are not top they did not sell enough. Secondly, you love that artist/band, why should it make any difference to you weather they are top or not?
Simple.
You would have thought so wouldn't you
16 Nov 2013
MICHAEL JACKSON
Michael Jackson was a huge pop star back in the 1980s and I understand why hisfans think he should be No1 for that decade. But they forget that Michael was not very prolific as a recording artist or writer. He only wrote 26 recorded songs by himself on his studio albums, without any professional co-writer help. All other songs were written for him. And he had to hire musicians to make his music. He only released 1 album on average every 5 years. But, the Beatles deserve their rating. They recorded and released 11 studio albums in just 7 years. They wrote over 200 recorded songs in just 7 years. And that music not only made them the biggest selling music act in history but it also changed the way popular songs are written and recorded.
15 Nov 2013
Elvis
Thats a joke, Elvis stoled from black artist. I have never heard black orwhite artist wail and rock like Elvis in such songs as Jailhouse rock and Little Sister and sing ballads like Cant help falling in Love. A black artist did reord Hound Dog (written by a White guy) but its nothing close to Presley's vesrion. That like saying Ray Charles stoled all his music from a white artist because whites invented the piano.
14 Nov 2013
Eminem = Rap God
8 Nov 2013
Mariah carey annaylated the 90s highest vocal range to this day more albumssold and more no.1 hits than any one in the game still ripping it with #beautiful goin classic mariah no.1 in over 30 countries and sold PLATINUM +
1 Oct 2013
Eminem
haha while all of you are debating about Michael Jackson, im sitting here happy that my man Slim Shady made it on the list. LEGEND FOREVER GO EM!
15 Sep 2013
Elvis
It's always nice to hear how big Elvis was, and indeed he was a great singer and performer. And along with the Beatles and Dylan one of the greatest influences in music. But as it comes to songwriting, he has achieved nothing. All the big hits are written by other people. And that's why the Beatles and Dylan are both bigger than Elvis.+
9 Sep 2013
MJ V ELVIS.+
I'm sorry. Elvis was good. But he was in no way bigger than Michael Jackson atall. Elvis stole alot of dance moved and his singing style from black artists as mainstream media back the blew it up to be something new and original.
Michael Jackson and Madonna are both the King & Queen of pop. This whole chart is sketchy.
Evidence?
The 50s weren't even Davis' best decade.
19 Aug 2013
What's in a name pt. 2
Thank you for answering my question, "how much does a name influence the success of an artist?" Your reply was, "How would you define a test to measure such an effect?  The data is available for download, if you can use it to answer  that question we'd like to hear about."
Honestly, I was asking for your personal opinion on the matter. I'm in theprocess of finding the information to support my argument that an artist name is VERY important, but I would like to hear what you have to say about it. It seems like all Male artist with no more than 2 syllable first names and last names are often very marketable and liked the most. Paul McCartney may be the most successful solo male artist there is, counting his work with the Beatles, but his name is an exception because of his history with the Beatles. Madonna is another exception that falls into the category of one word names being easier for fans to remember. I have to do a lot more research but I would like your opinion on what is in a name and it's correlation with success. I honestly don't think Bob Dylan would've made it as "Robert Zimmerman" or Jimi Hendrix as "James Marshall Hendrix." It just doesn't roll off the tongue right, haha.
I really don't have a good feel for the impact that an artist's name has,  as you say Robert Zimmerman or Priscilla Maria White don't sound like pop  stars, but maybe that's just because they changed their names, if they  hadn't maybe we'd have thought that anyone called "Bob Dylan" was never going to hit  the big time.
But just looking at the successful artists doesn't tell you anything, you  have to contrast their names with "typical" showbiz names (and where you  get them from is a different question).  I guess you could look at all the  artists that "broke" in a particular year and contrast those that became  a success with those that didn't...
Like I said, we'd be interested in your results
16 Aug 2013
Where is avenged?
If you mean the group "Avenged Sevenfold" it will be some time before  they accumulate enough hits to be on this list.
14 Aug 2013
From Bing Crosby to Emminent M- +wow
Kind of tells you how far we've regressed, doesn't it. From the style and crooning of Bing, Elvis and even the classic Beatles to the crap of Rap
Wow.
30 Jul 2013
The sun never sets on a legend !!
Elvis wont be beaten there will never be an entertainer who will be thatunique to impact on people lives around the world like he did and even though he as been dead for over 35 years he still as big draw to his hometown of memphis and continues to sell records and gain gold and platinum awards year on year!!
19 Jul 2013
Most successful artists of each decade
Marcia - here is a starter. +There are many sites that list top songs through the decades. +Let's see what exciting sheet music or albums you have to share.  I can't wait!!!!
Meri
1 Jul 2013
Queen of Pop
Madonna should be 1 in 80s and MJ 2 but ok...80's,90's,00's she is #2 and she deserve this..!!!!!!
27 Jun 2013
RIAA says Elvis sold the most
While I enjoy diversity and the talent the many artists have displayed over the years, I wanted to know which artist sold the most records. It wasn't as close as I thought.
According to the R.I.A.A., the governing body that certifies Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum Record Sales, (Recording Industry Association of America) the Leading all time Artist in Record Sales is ELVIS PRESLEY. Elvis is the leading sales artist for both Solo Artist or Group. Elvis has sold over 2.5 Billion Records Worldwide. ( A Billion is 1 Thousand Million). Elvis has been on the charts more times than any other artist or group. Elvis has the most hits in the Top 100, the Top 40, The Top 10, and has had 32 Number 1 Records. Elvis is the only artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Country Music Hall of Fame, The Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and The Rythm and Blues Hall of Fame.
John Lennon said: "Before Elvis there was nothing". Bruce Springsteen said: "There are pretenders and contenders... but their is only one King". Elton John said: "There is no one greater as an artist on this earth, Elvis was my inspiration... he is the Man. Period."
Paul McCartney said: "I thought the Beatles had gold records, until I had a private tour of Graceland... the hall of Gold says it all... Elvis has the most Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum sales of all of us.... amazing man... simply amazing".
According to the R.I.A.A., with help from EMI, the Beatles place number 2 on the list of All Time Record Sellers with nearly 1.6 Billion Records sold worldwide. Hey Jude was their Biggest selling record followed by Yesterday.
Michael Jackson made the top 20, placing number 16 on the list of all time Record Sales. His Album Thriller is the Biggest Selling Album of all time with over 50 Million Copies Sold. Michael's personal sales as a Solo Artist, along with the Jackson 5, has sold a total of 185 Million Records worldwide. (His Album BAD sold 22 Million copies).
These certifications, current as of March 1, 2009. Every 3 months the R.I.A.A., with the help of BMI, and ASCAP... update record sales awards.
So, there ya go folks. Those are the true facts. And, I might add, Elvis, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson continue to sell records daily.
So, their record sales will continue to increase. But remember, in Elvis and the Beatles day, you had to sell 1 million copies for a single, and 500 thousand for an album to be certified gold. Now days, you only have to sell 500 thousand singles and 250,000 albums to be certified gold. That's what makes the sales records of Elvis and the Beatles even more impressive.
The Fans and Other Entertainers called Elvis, "The King of Rock and Roll". The term "King of Pop" was self imposed by Michael Jackson. It stuck from there, but Michael called himself that... that's what he wanted to be called.
The Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., named Elvis Presley, "The Greatest Entertainer of the 20th Century".
Source(s): The Recording Industry Association of America, ASCAP, BMI, Billboard Magazine, RCA Records/BMG Records.
18 Jun 2013
What's in a name?
Through your research, how much does a name influence the success of an artist?
Also, do you think this new trend of one word names for artist is more beneficial to an artist career than the conventional two names?
How would you define a test to measure such an effect?
The data is available for download, if you can use it to answer  that question we'd like to hear about it
17 Jun 2013
1920s and 1930s
From what I have been hearing around I thought that George Gershwin would have been more successful during these  decades. What place is he in right now?
We list the performers not the writers
16 Jun 2013
mj to be number 1+
Michael Jackson should be number 1 in the 80s. Thriller sold 65-110 million copies and bad sold around 40 million no other singer could  match them sales.
Firstly this is about success across the whole decade, other artists  had more singles and albums in the charts.
Secondly no one who has actually examined the evidence could  possibly believe 110 million copies, and anyone that suggests  that number cannot be taken seriously.
12 May 2013
Elvis No1
Elvis should be in top 5 in 70s. +He spend more time on the UK charts than any  other artist in the 70s-- Most weeks on UK Singles Chart by decade 70s- Elvis Presley 331weeks Elton John 223 weeks Diana Ross 220 weeks Paul McCartney/Wings 216 weeks Rod Stewart 209 weeks
PLUS had many big hits in the 70s worldwide like The wonder of you,   Burning love, Moody Blue, Way down, My Boy, You Don't Have to Say   You Love Me, My Way, and Always on my mind. King of rock and roll.
Our algorithm says Elvis is 11th.  We think that reflects  his global performance.
If you disagree download the CSV data and try your own  approach, tell us if you find an analysis that puts Elvis  near the top for the 1970s
11 May 2013
???
How did Mariah Carey not make the top 5 artists of the 2000's decade??? Her album The Emancipation of Mimi was the best-selling album of 2005.
We are almost certain that "X&Y" by Coldplay outsold it even in  the US in 2005.  Being a top artist of the deacde requires more  than one top album
9 May 2013
I wonder if madonna was more successful in 80s than m.j!
In the 1980s - Madonna: 4 number one albums, Michael  Jackson: 2.  Madonna: 14 number one songs, Michael  Jackson: 13
Our algorithm says that Madonna tops Jackson in the 1980s (easily),  but we provide the data (in the CSV file), download that  and see what the order is when you try your method
28 Apr 2013
Most Successful Musical Act
Elvis Presley is the Greatest Selling Musical Act of All-Time bar none. Sony,his current music company, have recently stated that his Worldwide sales are over 1.1 Billion. That is more than The Beatles or Michael Jackson. In fact, Michael Jackson's sales do not even total half of what Elvis has sold. One only has to do the math for the number of albums Jackson has released to see this. If every album sold as many as 'THRILLER' or BAD' he would still be nowhere near 500 million in sales. Of course, Elvis was far more than just a singer/entertainer but quite an historical figure. It was he alone who broke down social and cultural barriers in 1950's U.S.A. making it easier for all artists who followed in his footsteps. In doing so he paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. Elvis was the complete package: he had the talent, the looks, the voice, the charisma, the moves, the attitude and was extremely humble with it. Today, Elvis is still the template by which success is measured in the music industry and his voice and image are everywhere from motion picture films (his image is even featured in the latest futuristic Tom Cruise film) to musical stage plays to touring concerts and TV soap operas to being the most impersonated entertainer ever. Elvis is also the most photographed person of all-time. He was simply THE BEST and truly 'sui generis'.
26 Apr 2013
elvis presley
Just a thought but I would think Elvis would be in the top 5 for the 70s
Our estimate is that Elvis was the 11th artist of the 1970s based on  hit songs and albums
14 Apr 2013
Thank You
Thank you for using DATA to come up with the CORRECT figures.  This page is packed with reliable information that is not biased in any way, shape, or  form.  Thank you for standing firm with results when some posters try to argue  otherwise.  Some people can't appreciate anything.
12 Apr 2013
Garth Brooks trails only the Beatles and Elvis in alltime record sales...
That is so obviously wrong its not even worth reading your rant any further
9 Apr 2013
Lex
The younger generation doesn't know shit about Elvis Presley. His legacy died a long time ago... ...even little kids know who Michael Jackson is...
White people don't want to accept the fact that MJ was bigger than Elvis and The Beatles...
Your racially based bias in favour of Michael Jackson is both blatant  and deplorable. It has no place in any rational discussion.
We use data rather than personal opinion to assess success, Prince had  more hits in the 1980s. Your suggestion that we have in some way  promoted hime above Jackson because we are "white people" is both  insulting and obviously stupid.
6 Mar 2013
Are you a fan of Prince? Just curious
Not really.  But there again that's the whole point, our opinion  shouldn't matter.
5 Mar 2013
Gross sales
I'm wondering whether you have sales figures for individual records. I'm particularly interested in when any jazz-oriented artist first reached the million mark. Did the  Original DIxieland Jazz Band? Paul Whiteman? Ted Lewis? Thanks for your help.
We don't trust any published sales figures.
Wikipedia claims that the first "Gold Record" was presented to  Glenn Miller in February 1942 to celebrate "Chattanooga Choo Choo" which had sold 1.2 million copies.
Given the fact that the war caused there to be fewer artists  with bigger sales, our guess would be the first million selling  records would be in the early 1940s rather than the 1930s.  We  would suspect that Glenn Miller really was the first artist  to reach this mark.
There are few enough reliable sales numbers from the 1970s,  so finding this type of information for the 1930s would be a welcome  surprise (if you know of any please tell us)
4 Mar 2013
MJ V ELVIS
No doubting MJ's musical talent @ stage presence. However, he never eclipsedeither ELVIS or the BEATLES & probably never would. As good as he was, those two were proven to be more successful & probably more popular. They were all great though.
28 Feb 2013
LEGENDS
I'm happy to see many legends as The Beatles, U2, MJ, Madonna, Prince and Elvis Presley. They are not only the most successful artists, but legends too, people will remember them forever.
There are also some other lucky artists that that somehow managed to enter thelist but then they weren't being successful as Mariah Carey and wait for Britney.
27 Feb 2013
THE BEACH BOYS
There's gotta be something pertaining to the Beach Boys. The greatest sellingAmerican rock band ever and the most important, influential and timeless. Maybe they didnt surpass the Beatles in sells but certainly in quality and longevity.
The Beach Boys are listed as the number 5 artist of the 1960s
25 Feb 2013
14 Feb 2013
THESE ARE FACTS
I commented here back in 2009 complaining about madonna being #1 and mariah #2 in the 90s. look now, 4 years later, they are finally reversed. nice update,  huh. mariah would win by miles in the 90s if asian countries tally their own  charts. we all know how BIG she is in Asia. even bigger than MJ and The  Beatles. Not a Madonna hater, but nobody really cares about her in Asia.
Proof: Her highest grosser tours never had a stop in Asia (one in Israel, but  that's somehow in Europe)
10 Feb 2013
Nirvana
Where the hell is Nirvana?! They were way more successful than Mariah Carey and they changed music forever.
Artist number 6 of the 1990s (by our metric)
27 Jan 2013
Queen
I'm glad to see Queen so high on pretty much all lists. After The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, they are up there along with other great bands. There are  several poll critics and similar stuffs employed in here, combined with charts  stats, which is something I don't share. Not questioning it, just mentioning  it isn't why I would opt to do myself. I suppose that if no "critics" lists  were used, Queen would be higher as they were always hated by most of them.
24 Jan 2013
The Beatles
It always amuses me that Michael Jackson fans think that MJ was the biggeststar in music. And yet, he was not. His sales began to decline after the early 90s, and if it was not for his death, those sales would remain in decline. However, the Beatles continue to sell to each new generation as if they were a new act. Every several years there appears to be a new wave of Beatlemania sales. Great music will live forver.
21 Jan 2013
The Beatles
It is interesting that Michael Jackson fans are so convinced that their idolshould be the best selling music act in history. And there is no doubt that MJ still has a lot of fans. However, if they took the time to research official music data sites such as RIAA, they will discover that the Beatles are the top selling act in USA with MJ at No 11. Or check out Musicwire for the top selling acts 1991 - 2012. Beatles are No 2 and MJ is not in the top 10. In fact, he was not even in the top 50 until he died. And there is always the Guniness Book of Records that shows the Beatles as the top selling act in history with Elvis as top solo act. MJ was popular in his day, but MJ fans think that popularity in record sales continued into the 90s and 2000's. He was a good singer, but remember, there were many writers and musicians who made his music.
8 Jan 2013
just wanting clarification
I was just trying to make sure I am understanding the method by which the list was compiled. I understand this list goes by number of hits and worldwide placement of said hits, but does it count the number of weeks at the position, or just the position in general? I.E., if an artist had say 4 top 10 hits each of which spent 3 weeks in the top 10, vs. an artist with just 1 top 10 hit that spent 15 weeks in the top 10, who would be more successful per your method? Would it be the artist with more top 10 hits, because they had more hits, or the other artist with more weeks in the top 10, who only had the one top 10 hit?
The calculation is described in one of the FAQ pages.  We don't take account  of the number of weeks because quite a few of the source charts don't have  that information.
We do publish the data in the CSV file, so you can try using another method,  tell us if you find anything interesting
20 Dec 2012
America the Beautiful
I'm a huge arabesque fan & of Turkish music, too. Ibrahim Tatlises has sold 100 million records across a number of countries in the Arab region. What about Um Kartom (Egypt)? She was the voice of the Arab world until her death at 92.
In America, my favorite in the 80s was Madonna; glad to see the she rates number #2 across three decades. So Prince beats Michael Jackson - though I liked Michael better, for me it was Off the Wall and Thriller; the rest was junk. Prince's Dirty Mind and Purple Rain were worth the money. U2 also deserves (and has earned) the right to be top 5 over three decades, like Madonna. Thanks for going ALL the way back to the very beginning of the twentieth century - very fascinating! How about Rihanna? I bet she will be the top artist of the "teens", as she has 12 billboard number ones and counting. Lastly, where are Abdel Halim Hafez (Egypt)? Ferdi Tayfur (Turkey)?
Harout Pamboujkian (Armenia)?  Again Ibrahim Tatlises has sold many records in  countries where his language is not spoken
Thanks for the kind words.
The artists you mention are not listed just because we don't have any good  chart listings for Egypt, Turkey or any of the Arab countries.
12 Dec 2012
mj is 1
michael jackson is clearly the biggest star of the 80s and probably the  most talented performer of all time. u2 deserves there spot if you where alive then youd know u2 was the biggest band of the 80s. nirvana should have made it for the 90s.
11 Dec 2012
Elvis is still the best and most successful. EVER The King
21 Nov 2012
Michael Jackson vs Prince
I'm sure by your criteria Michael Jackson places third for the 80s. But if the question comes up Who Was the Biggest Star, who had the broadest fan base, who will be remembered, who stands out in the public consciousness and who is the greatest talent from that period. It is clear to most people the answer would be Michael Jackson.
To tell you the truth he kind of Creeped me out toward the end of his life butthere is no denying his talent. Prince is a flash in the pan by comparison. I know you will say that's my subjective opinion and I am entitled to it. That doesn't make it any less true.
That's your subjective opinion and you are entitled to it.  Other people  would have different views.
3 Nov 2012
Just to understand your list
Is your list based on number of released albums and singles, or is it based on  number of hits? And if it is based on number of hits is there a fixed amount  of points that the artists get for each hit? Or do you also wheigh in the  amount of sales each hit sold?
What I am asking is:
if you compare two artists and the first artist had 1 hit that sold 100  million copies, and the other artist had 5 hits that sold a total of 50  million copies. Which of the two artists would be ranked highest?
John/RIAA Washington
The answer to your questions is on the "FAQ: How the site is generated?",  it explains the algorithms used and why they are as they are.
To clarify one point sales figures can't be trusted.  No one knows  the real sales figures for "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", anyone who  claims they do is either deluded or lying.
31 Oct 2012
charts
Fascinating work. Only thing I can't reconcile is absence of acts who make RIAA top ten in all time album sales (US & Canada). For example Garth Brooks  is 3rd on that list behind Beatles and Elvis, Eagles are 5th, Pink Floyd 7th,  Streishan 8th, George Straight 9th.  Seems your calcs are too pop heavy,  whereas RIAA measures sales regardless of genre.  And I get your worldwide  emphasis, still seems there is a need to differentiate between CD sales and  popularity of pop singles thru airplay, sales, downloads etc.
Garth Brooks is already in the "most successful artists of the 1990s" list.  He is rated as 16th.
You ask if our calculations are "pop" heavy, we would say that they  are not, our goal is to reflect Worldwide success and Country Music has  had little impact outside North America.
A French speaker might just as well complain that our focus is too much  on songs in English.  We would claim that the most successful songs of  the last 100 years happen to have mostly been in English, because of  the market available and the emphasis of the record companies.  We list the songs  with greatest success, and they happen to be in the English language,  this reflects the world, its not because we have a bias against French  lyrics.
Similarly the "Pop" genre has greater success round the world as a whole than  Country Music, Disco, Reggae, J-Pop, Barbershop, Progressive or Skiffle.   We would claim it's not that we have "pop heavy" calculations but  just the way the world is (or rather was).
We would certainly be interested to explore the difference between  album sales and "the popularity of pop singles".  Outside the USA and  the UK we don't think we have enough data to make a reasonable job  of that.  This tends to be an area where personal opinion (especially  when loudly expressed by fans) overwhelms any attempt to take a  more measured (and data based) approach.
28 Oct 2012
Bee Gees not on list?
I am baffled by the Bee Gees omission during the decade of the 70's. For four years no one could touch their numbers.
We are baffled by your bafflement.  The Bee Gees are number 6  in the list of artists of the 1970s (look at the 1970s page).   Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Abba and Led Zeppelin all  had more hits (especially when albums are taken into account).
Four years is less than half the decade
24 Oct 2012
You're missing George Strait in the 90's or Garth Brooks. Strait has the most number one singles of all time in any genre and Garth was a huge crossover  artist. And Strait has 39 albums produced. Queen could also be used for the  70's. Not a bad list at all otherwise. Good job.
The total number of national number ones number one songs George Strait  and Garth Brooks has had in the Billboard Hot 100 is zero.  We ignore  all genre specific charts, being number one on the country  music chart has almost no impact outside the USA.   Neither artist has had much success outside the USA.
Queen are already in both the 1970s listing and the 1980s  one.  They had more worldwide success in the 1980s.
(Personally I think their 1970s albums are much better than  the 1980s material, but my tastes have no influence on the  order - Steve)
20 Oct 2012
Partly correct list
Interesting list you've put up. However not completely correct. Like  most people state here (maybe just because they are fans), Michael Jackson should  be put as the number 1 artist in the 80s. I've worked 34 years for RIAA (and  still do)...
I'll come back with all the information you need...
John/RIAA Washington
First your claim that "most" people here feel Jackson should be considered  the most successful artist of the 1980s is quite wrong.  Most of the pro-Jackson  posts here come from just a handful of IP addresses, there are clearly  more individuals that disagree (but they each write fewer posts).
And I'm afraid you are completely wrong, the data here IS completely  correct.  We've said many times why claimed sales numbers are a bad indicator of  success (and often obviously lies as well).  You, of course, are welcome  to give them more importance and credibility than us.
The way we work is that we clearly define the criteria for measuring success, then  crunch the numbers and present the results.  We don't start by assuming  that we know which artist is "should" be top and find evidence to support  our personal biases.  Even if we disagreed with the results the rules we  have set for this analysis would not allow us to later fiddle the results and place Michael  Jackson at the top of the list.
So the data listed here IS completely correct.  You might claim that it is incomplete  (which of course it is, for this topic all such sets are incomplete).  You  might also claim that the metrics we use are not appropriate (but then you'd  have to propose some better measures of success of course).
We'd welcome any suggestions you could make to improve the way we define  success (and, for example, giving special favour to any particular artist  would not be an improvement).
When you provide actual information (that we can access in independent  sources) rather than unsupported assertions we'll be interested to  see how we can use it.
28 Sep 2012
90's
Very interesting list, most of the artists are living legends that continue having successfully careers, I've to admit I'm surprised the fat Mariah Carey  was successful in 90's, Who is she? I saw her on a clip with Nicki Minaj, and  in some photos of an American show, but that's all. In 00's list she almost  dissapear from the list. I don't have anything against her, but she is  overrated. I bet this new decade she won't appear on the top 40.
16 Sep 2012
WHERE IS LINKIN PARK
12th highest placed act of the 2000s
As the text on the years after 2007 says our data has  some issues so the decade 2000-2009 might generate some  dubious results.  But placing Linkin Park below, Eminem,  Madonna, Britney Spears, Coldplay and U2 and above  Radiohead, Alicia Keys, Green Day and Nickelback  seems reasonable to us.
12 Sep 2012
Where's Whitney?
What about Whitney Houston? How did she not make the top 5 in the 80s or 90s?She had 2 of the biggest selling albums of the 80s and THE biggest selling  album of the 90s - The Bodyguard.
Maybe because she released fewer albums? I don't know, just seems weird that Whitney Houston is nowhere on this list, she was a huge star. Or maybe because her peak was from 1985-1995 so it split between two decades?
Fewer albums, scores split between the decades, yes both those contributed.
4 Sep 2012
I've done some research myself and I've concluded that, in terms of top 20  hits worldwide in the 80s, you get:
1. Prince - 28 2. Madonna - 24 3. Michael Jackson - 23 4. Bruce Springsteen - 17 5. U2 - 16
I don't think Michael and Prince fans should fight about this. If somebody's  your favorite artist, then listen to their music. They don't have to be #1 on  every list for you to like them. This man (Steve, I think) is very good at  calculating these numbers and sales, and after doing research myself I am  convinced that the top 5 of his 80s list is completely correct.
Prince scored five #1 albums worldwide and twenty eight top 20 hits. It's  quite plainly obvious that he was, in terms of charts, the most successful  artist of the 1980s. Madonna followed closely with four less top 20 singles  and two less albums. Jackson's argument is way overdone. Because of his  two-album input, he's at 4.
U2 has the least hits out of the 5, but four #1 albums puts them much higher.  And Bruce Springsteen, while he had a pretty good time with 17 hits and three  #1 albums, falls one album short of U2. Even though he has one more hit than  them, albums count more so U2 is obviously ahead.
Just because Jackson was super-popular in America or U2 in Ireland etc... does  not mean they had the same level of success on charts or worldwide. It's a  little weird seeing Jackson at 4, but after doing your own research you'll  realize that Steve did a great (and accurate job).
What a great summary (and we're not saying that just because you  agree with our results).
We'd be interested to learn more about your research.  Especially the  sources of chart data you used.
31 Aug 2012
@the guy who wrote "2 all yall MJ fans"
U actually forgot Do me Baby, Dirty mind, and raspberry beret, this brings prince's # up to 29 top 40 hits in the 80s alone :)
30 Aug 2012
Michael Jackson
I have heard lots of no 1 songs in my life but I could only remember the songs of Michael Jackson, personally I believe he is the most successful  artist of all time no matter how many hits the others have, Michael is the  most influential successful artist of all time to most people.  No list  is accurate not even yours so it doesnt really matter.
24 Aug 2012
Interesting list
I think this is in all honesty an interesting list, as you can clearly see the  changes between the centuries. As a 70s fan of course I may be extremely biased  towards Bernie, Elton, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles due to having a truck full of  vinyls from that time. But from an unbiased view: whether this list is 100%  accurate may still be debatable (as with all lists and things on the internet)  but it still shows us a decent amount to judge for ourselves what we find as  music. After all, music is music, love is love and people are people. This is  simply market sales, so there's no need to get too annoyed or saddened if your  favourite artist is not on the list, seeing as this is just statistics.
We would claim that unlike most "things on the internet" we have provided  enough links to allow the reader to check that we are being as accurate  as we can be and to tell us how we could do better.
We would agree that "whether this list is 100% accurate may still be  debatable".  That just comes with our choice of subject (and the duration  we attempt to cover).
This list is, as you say, "just statistics".  As you suggest it should  provide a starting point for each reader's personal view.  But outside  personal opinion what else is there but "just statistics"?
22 Aug 2012
Number 7 in the 1990s and number 15 in the 1980s.
15 Aug 2012
this is for yall mj fans
to all you Jackson fans, let's see the results... I will write all Top 40 hits for prince in the 80's (not just in US, ANYTHING that charted in any world chart is included), and the top 40 hits for Jacksonn
prince: I wanna be your lover, controversy, 1999, little red corvette, delirious, when doves cry, let's go crazy, purple rain, i would die for you, take me with you, pop life, kiss, mountains, girls & boys, another love hole in ur head, sign of the times, if i was your girlfriend, u got the look, i could never take the place of your man, alphabet street, glam slam, i wish u heaven, batdance, party man, arms of orion, and scandalous
prince = 26 hits, three #1s, three #1 albums
jackson: shes out of my life, the girl is mine, billie jean, beat it, wanna be startin' something, human nature, pyt, thriller, farewell my summer love, girl ur so together, bad, the way u make me feel, man in the mirror, dirty diana, another part of me, smooth criminal, leave me alone, and liberian girl
jackson: 18 hits, seven #1s, two #1 albums
I apologize for the length, but this is obviously in Prince's favor. He had more #1 albums, and more Top 40 hits worldwide. Sorry Mikey fans, but Prince WINS!!!!!!!
Oh, and I looked at Madonna's sales... she had 24 Top forty hits, just 2 less than prince, but a considerable amount more than michael. Considering she has the same amount of #1 albums as Prince, but two less hits it makes sense Prince is one ahead of her.
although it seems madonna had more hits than him, prince (surprisingly) is ahead of her in terms of worldwide sales.
6 Aug 2012
Best voice ever !!!
Mariah carey has broken almost evrey record there is, she has more nr one hits in europe and asia than madonna, madonna is a overated singer, mariah carey is  named the voice, and she has own more than 10 oustanding awards and some of  them where made just for her, mariah carey is better, hotter and bitchas she  has wrote her own thing all the way through her carrier. She has influsend  almost every big artists now, from beyonce to simon cowell, you dont have to  love her but threat her like one of the kind cause she is truly amaziing, #the  voice
We "threat" her just like every other artist, and will continue to do so.  The  thing that counts here is actual achievment, not personal opinion.
2 Aug 2012
Do these statistics really answer the question of "who is the most successful artist"?
I want to make one thing clear before I make my comments: I am not stating who I may like better or who I am a fan of. I am simply stating my opinion as to how the basis of the statistics may not be indicative of who is more successful. Instead, these statistics should be used as PART of the analysis when indicating who is more successful.
So it seems like the way you've listed these acts is more about quantity over quality. Yes, Michael Jackson only had two albums released in the 80s (plus he released some songs off of the "Off the Wall" album in the very early 80s.) This is a lot less than the other folks on the list. So when talking about quantity, yeah MJ is behind.
But trying to measure quality on a statistical basis is a lot harder. For example, while MJ had one superb hit, Madonna had to make two hits just to equal the impact that MJ had. And if you had to ask anyone, from the elderly to the young who were the biggest names in music it would be MJ, the Beatles and Elvis (this has more to do with the quality of the music & their impact rather than the quantity). So what that Mariah had more number one hits than Elvis, he still had a much bigger impact than her.
And Rihanna for example has had more weeks at number one than Michael Jackson, are you ready to say that she is now more successful than him?
Anyway, what I'm basically trying to say is, is that there is more than just "how many hits the singer has had" that makes them successful. This website is just looking at one question, and thats fine if that is all you want to rank these artists by.
But if you really want to know who is the most successful singer, you've got to look at the whole picture, and in my opinion this website hasn't done that.
First, to be clear, we do not just "count the hits" to come to the results  we have, we do assign different weights to number one hits, top ten hits  and those below.  We have applied a number of different ways to measure  success in the charts and they almost always come to similar conclusions.
Of course any measure of "success" ends up being subjective.  So some  of what you say is a valid set of reasons to be wary of any "fact based" measure of an artist's success.
However in any such discussion people hold irrational views (we include  ourselves in that statement).  In our opinion any analysis based on actual facts  is always better than personal views.  We don't know of any other measures  that are better than chart success, if you have any (concert attendance,  mentions in history books, plays on mp3 players) then we would be most  interested to see your data.  Until you make that available this data,  flawed as it is, is the best available.
There can be no better illustration of the dangers of subjective  measures of success than your suggestion that "anyone" would list  Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Michael Jackson as the three most  influential artists of the 20th century.  That might be true of  those who were teenagers in the 1980s, or fans of the Jacksons  but we would guess that most of the people we know would name  Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Abba, Elton John, Queen  Glenn Miller or others before getting to Jackson.
If we were to ask about the most important artists of the 1980s  then we would suspect Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson would  be the obvious candidates, but even then Michael Jackson would  probably be last (which is what the chart data says as well of course).   We do, of course, understand that this reflects more on the  people mix with rather than the wider world.
By using chart data we have an objective measure that is not  influenced by a small number of vocal and aggressive Michael  Jackson fans, in the way that, for example Wikipedia is.   It is also true that some of the sensational aspects of Jackson's  life (and death) have given him a high level of coverage in the  tabloids.  But media's obsessions and the bully-boy tactics of  devotees should not be allowed to impact an objective assessment  of the real musical impact of any artists.
So we agree that measuring chart success does not deliver the complete  story, but it is certainly an important element and, at the moment,  the best data we have.  If there are other reasonable objective  measures we'd like to know what they are.
30 Jul 2012
are u telling me PRINCE had more worldwide success than material girl  record-breaking MADONNA??????
i doubt the purple one could surpass Madge in sales, impact, album, etc.. in her biggest decade, the 80s!!!!!! how could he sell more than her when she  has more top 10 hits in one decade than he had in his entire career?
Yes, that's what the numbers tell us.  The main reason is albums.  This  metric puts more emphasis on album success and Madonna's first real  hit album was 1984.
The numbers would, of course, come out differently for the period  1985-1995.  If you want to use a different calculation (or a different  date range) then download the CSV file and see what results you get.
9 Jul 2012
Nice list; Beatles still rule
I enjoyed your list, and loved your Buddy Holly explanation; "impact" is  different than pure chart performance. Also applies to The Doors and other  seminal artists; but I like your "metric".  You must thank god for the Beatles  when developing a list like this; it makes the number one artist a simple,  unassailable choice.  However, it looks like Japan has surpassed the USA as the number one market for recorded music as of 2011. Good thing they love the Fab  4 too!
8 Jul 2012
everybody is good at singing if they try.
4 Jul 2012
In the 80's,
prince - fourteen top ten hits (us), six top ten hits (uk), three #1 albums (us), one #1 album (uk), four #1 hits (us), and zero #1 hits (uk)....
madonna - seventeen top ten hits (us), twenty one top ten hits (uk), three #1 albums (us), three #1 albums (uk), seven #1 hits (us), and six #1 hits (uk)...
u2 - three top ten hits (us), ten top ten hits (uk), two #1 albums (us), four #1 albums (uk), two #1 hits (us), and one #1 hit (uk)...
michael jackson - thirteen top ten hits (us), fourteen top ten hits (uk), two #1 albums (us), two #1 albums (uk), seven #1 hits (us), and three #1 hits (uk)
sorry i wrote so much, but based on this information... i understand if Madonna is in front of Michael jackson, (and while I love prince i still think madonna had more success and should be #1), I don't understand how U2 is #3??? if not Michael Jackson at #3 after Prince and Madonna, why not Phill collins or george michael?
madonna - #1 prince - #2 mj - #3
u2 is way too far ahead in this chart than they're supposed to be
thanks for ur time
Your numbers are strictly US & UK, once the rest of the world is taken  into account, especially Europe, U2 pull ahead of Michael Jackson because  of the number albums they released.
Of course we've just picked a scoring system that we think is fair.  If you  download the CSV file you could try a different approach.  We'd be interested  to hear about any alternative that works
24 Jun 2012
Your list is based on what?? Try to do something else because you don't knowwhat you are talking about!!
Our list of sources and the way we calculate scores is very well  documented here.  If you want to actually suggest an alternative  we'd welcome your input.
17 Jun 2012
Commenters
How is it so difficult for people to understand that this list was drawn from  facts and not emotion? 'Bob Bobson should be number 1 cuz I love him and have  all his albums and he was really big in Western Chile.'
Hilarious.
15 Jun 2012
Rick Astley
Rick Astley is supposed to be in that chart, his Never gonna give you up, was the umber songs of all time in europe and America and almsot all over the  world.
The song "Never Gonna Give You Up" is in the chart (at number 23)  and Rick Astley was the 3rd most successful act of 1987, but he  didn't have nearly enough hits to make the 50 highest placed act  of the 1980s.
7 Jun 2012
Old vs new
Hi, great list, I was just wondering what kind of quantities earlier artists like Billy Murray and Arthur Collins sold in, would their sales be  anything in comparison with today's biggest artists like lady gaga or Katy Perry?
Sales of what exactly?  If you mean sales of physical disks then no, the real  kick off of sales came a different times in different markets (1955 or so in the US,  a couple of years later in other countries).  But then again Lady Gaga and Katy Perry  sell fewer physical disks than did the artists of the 1990s (because much of their  revenue comes from digital).
However for Billy Murray and Arthur Collins their revenue didn't come from records,  it came from sheet music, radio performances, films and live shows.  How would you  compare selling a movie seat to someone in 1939 to see Judy Garland sing "Over the Rainbow" to selling a ringtone of "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008?
Also we don't know of many trustworthy sets of sales statistics  anyway.  It is really quite hard to know how many copies of The  Beatles "Abbey Road" were ever really sold, especially when you  take into account that at the time of its release it was illegal  to buy it in Russia (so everyone did).
This is why we don't place much importance on absolute sales numbers,  we feel that the music charts (which have been arround in some form  since the 1890s and in pretty much the current form since the 1950s)  are a better way to measure musical success.
Of course if you can suggest ways we can improve we are always  happy to hear them.
29 May 2012
MJ
Haha. How old are you? That's obvious you are not objective and you know whatfck your list fck your sources thats all wrong michael was the best in 80's 90's and shut the fck up! ;)
Ah, another objective and constructive comment from a Michael Jackson fan.
28 May 2012
JUST MY THOUGHTS
Do you consider sales in Asia? You were talking about POPULATION in one of the post here.  Asia, i think accounts for a third of the world population. And  also, if you were only taking into account songs and album sales, this list is  NOT totally representing the most successful artists as opposed to the title "Who were the most successful artists of each decade?".
No disrespect.  Just some of my observations.  Decent list, anyway.
Actually most of the time we discuss success in terms of revenue, not  population.  The population of China and India dwarfs that of the  USA, however the revenue from those countries is a tiny proportion. Have a look at the FAQ on "Why are there so many/ so few USA based  charts?".
The biggest problem is with reliable statistics, the Billboard chart  has its issues, but we don't know of any data that gives even a hint  of what is commonly heard in China (for example).  Given the level  of pirate sales of CDs across the whole of Asia (at least up to a few  years ago) we suspect there is no way to even come close to knowing  if Michael Jackson was more popular that some local artist in 1983,  or if Madonna outsold Nirvana in India in the 1990s.
Our experience is that we hear Western music when we are in India and  the Far East (China not so much, but the ex-Soviet countries certainly). But in the US and Europe we never hear Indian, Chinese or Far Eastern  music.
So we agree that in terms of population our listing is  unfair.  We'll use any sources we feel we can trust (like the Hong-Kong  gold albums, but we know that's a special case).  But we feel that  our current list is as good as we can get within the constraints we  have.
But, BTW, we certainly welcome any suggestions for how we could  improve, so thanks for the input.
25 May 2012
1990's
How was Mariah careh more successful in the 90s than oasis blur suede shovelhead spice girls backstreet boys eminem Williams elastica kylie minougue space garbage  catatonia take that travis Gomez all saints kula shaker madonna blondie guns and  roses stone roses bluetones james... I've yet to meet anyone that can name 1  Mariah careh album! She had a couple of Little songs that did well in local markets  like the US but nothing more... My top artists - 50s elvis 60s Beatles 70's abba  80's madonna 90's oasis 2000's eminem
This is worldwide success, not UK success.
"local markets like the US" - since the US market is at least three  times the size of the UK one this is an interesting phrase that tells  us where you are comming from.
16 May 2012
Queen Of Kings
42 number 1 hits on the Billboard Dance Charts (Girl Gone Wild being the most  recent - thanx avicii !) 38 Top Ten Hits (US- the most), 62 Top 10 UK hits.  Ever since 1984 EVERY MADONNA SINGLE reached the UK Top 20 - that was, until "Miles Away"(2008) failed to crack one of the top 20 slots. Biggest Grossing  Tour By A Solo Artist In history (Stick-Sticky & Sweet -- luv to say that).  This, ladies and gentlemen is remarkable. Most recently she became the solo  artist with the most #1 albums in the UK. You just can't make this stuff up..
....And the two most painful things for a madonna fan to hear: *deep breath*  Into The Groove being a B-side to Angel in the US (becoming her biggest hit in  the UK with over 800 000 singles sold) & the second being...*bows head* 6 #2  hits (more than any other artist in the US). If all those went to the peak  position and "Groove" was actually released as a single we would not have been  stuck at "cherishing" a thought of 19 #1's (HEY, it could have been).
(Btw Madonna won the 1990 VMA Artist of the decade award, not Michael Jackson.  So why is the award suddenly named the "MJ Video Vanguard Award"? - you do the  research) michael jackson I find too creepy, sorry. I know it's about the  music I KNOW, but there's just something still bugging me...
Madonna is the REAL DEAL. Ladies and gentlemen, this woman may be the greatest  recording artist to ever live, check wikipedia's page and you'll see "1982-present", then look around at other artists - they GONE! People telling  her she's "old" she should stop making music (the same stuff whitney was  told-screw that) and all of you will jump on the "I love madonna since the  get-go" waggon just like yall did with MJ. (Nothing personal, just intentional  :)
Madonna will continue being QUEEN.. But for now, let's just wait for MORE hits heading our way... Love this threat btw-(did my research :)
13 May 2012
The Beatles
Although Eminem is the biggest selling act of the 2000's, let us not forget that the Beatles total sales for the past 10 years places them at No 2. Not  bad when you consider these sales are only based on the album '1', 'Love' and  their re-released 'remastered' collection. The Beatles were the No 1 selling  act of the 1960's and remain the biggest overall selling music act in history.  In fact, if you were to put all of Michael Jacksons and Madonnas sales together,  they still fall short of the Beatles.
28 Apr 2012
Divas
If I may add this, First Madonna is one of the most arrogant female artist...  Not even MJ liked her, She think shes the best in everything, only what she  can do is going naked in some magazines... <boring rant trimmed> You say only succes in the USA? You know how many people live in the USA? around  the 350 million, thats almost whole Europe, Madonna is just a whore...
The population of Europe is more than 500 million.  The population of the USA  was estimated as 312 million in 2011.  So success in Europe is just as  important as success in the US.
24 Apr 2012
I am not surprsed Mariah Carey is the Most successful artist of the 90's. She sold loads and has had major success. Considering Madonna has been around a lot longer  than Mariah, Mariah has made pretty amazing accomplishments and she has been a huge  influence on many stars today, such as: Beyonce, Alexandra Burke, Christina Aguilera,  Melanie Amaro, Leona Lewis, Kelly Rowland, Michael Buble, Justin Bieber, R Kelly, Usher.  Michael Jackson has also expressed his absolute desire for Mariah Carey as have Whitney  Houston, Simon Cowell,Cheryl Cole and more. She is considerd as one of the best voices  on the planet.
23 Apr 2012
music question (that may not appear in the above)
I'm trying to get an answer to two questions.  The first question is... whose (singer-artist-performer) first twelve albums all contained at least one  top-10 hit on hot-100?
The second question is....what rapper with at least one top-40 hit on  Billboard Hot 100 is named after a real drug kingpin who spent over  10yrs. in jail?
could you provide some assistance with these two...?thanks+
The obvious candidate for the first would be Elvis (or The Beatles)
We list chart hits, we have little interest in, or knowledge of,  rapper's names.
14 Apr 2012
jimm382@googlemail.com
If you can't find any sources for Guinness world records why don't you buy the  books on amazon so you can't get this chart sorted and I don't like mj or any  of his music but even I know that bad was the second best selling album of the  80s and also why isn't adele in the chart she had massive success worldwide.
This website is dedicated to worldwide statistics. "Bad" may have been the  second highest selling album of the 1980s in the UK (behind "Brothers in Arms" we would suspect) but it certainly wasn't the second in world sales (if RIAA  is to be believed).
If someone claims that Thriller was the best selling album (which it was in the  world, but not in the UK), they can't also claim that "Bad" was second (which  it was in the UK but not in the world)
Adele's albums are too recent for the statistics to have settled down yet.   The way we gather and analyse data delivers good results after about four years,  so you shouldn't really trust our listings from years later than 2007 (as it explains at  the top of those pages)
All data gathering techniques suffer from similar restrictions, we're just a  bit more up front about explaining under which circumstances you can't trust  our results.
3 Apr 2012
u2
Hi, I was wondering why U2 are #3 on the 80s chart. I like the band and all,  but their hits only started coming around 1984-1985, halfway into the decade  and before then they only had New Year's Day at #10 in 1983.
Since this chart is based on chart success, how did U2 beat out so many other  artists with only about a handful of Top 10s?
Thanks
As it mentions in the text this ordering is by total success (not just songs),  the album success has been given three times the weight of single success, so  the top artists here are those with both albums and singles in the charts.
If you want to discover who we rate most highly based only on singles success  you can download the CSV file (from the versions page).  A quick session in a  spreadsheet program reveals that based solely on singles success (as listed  in version 2.1.12) the top 5 artists of the 1980s were: 1: Madonna;  2: Michael Jackson; 3: Prince; 4: Phil Collins; 5: U2.
Of course that is using our selected approach, you might want to try a  different criteria, that is exactly why we make the CSV data available.  If  you find anything interesting we'd like to hear about it.
1 Apr 2012
Really interesting list!
I wonder if there is a way to include concert revenue / merchandise revenue as  a way to further measure success.  U2, for example, generated a ton of money  (and publicity) through touring--and even today, they are regularly in the top  5 tours worldwide whenever they go on the road.  If we look at merchandizing,  it might propel a band like KISS much higher in these charts--their brand has  enables them to make money in substantially more ways than just album sales.   +It would even be possible to look at the revenue generated by films and music  videos--The Beatles had a series of hit movies that are not measured simply in  album sales, for example, and The Band's Last Waltz concert film has been  highly successful in terms of sales as well.
Great work all around, I'm taking a History of Rock and Roll class, and I found looking at this list to be highly educational!
We would be interested in such a listing, but can't think of any  reliable way to gather the basic data.
18 Mar 2012
Styx
I'm just curious where Styx fits in, as they are not listed at all in the top 50 for 70's or 80's. I recall hearing "first group with three consecutive  triple platinum albums" or some such.
That is a good question, There are two different reasons why they don't  get placed in the top 50s for the 1970s or the 1980s.  First of all their  peak was from 1975 to 1984, so when we look at either 1970-1979 or 1980-1989  the hits they have are split across the boundary.
One option is to download the CSV file (from the versions page) and try some  analysis, lets total up scores for 1975-1984, mutiplying album scores by 3 to  account for their higher value.  Then we can sort by the results and we find  that Styx is artist number... 59 (just after Rush).
And that leads to the second reason why they don't make the decade list, they  didn't have much success outside North America.
Personally I (Steve) think this is a surprise, I think they are one of the best  groups of their period and would have guessed that they "should" be in the  decade list... but on this site us administrators don't get to pick, we just  have to list the results that come out.  Of course, as we keep saying, the  listing here shows success in the charts, not how good an artist is.
8 Mar 2012
shit list
This list and the criteria is flawed from the start. To be an artist of a  decade you just need to release two albums per year score a hit or two here  and there and you are on the top. If you want people stop attacking the table, you should change the title from "Most successful artist  of the decade" to "Artist with the most shit released and charted"
No artist managed to release two high charting albums a year for the  whole 1980s, if any had they would deserve to be ranked highest (and  would be top of this ranking).
Your approach seems to be to adjust the ranking criteria to make sure that  the artist you want to be top arrives in the number one position.  We  don't think that is a good metric (to put it mildly).  Your closed mindset  is the opposite of the approach we have taken, we believe in listing  actual verified evidence of success, without any regard of our personal tastes.
When criticism is based on verifiable evidence, or constructively suggests  improvements to our sources or metrics we pay attention.  When the stupid  tell us what results we should have got and pepper their posts with swearing  and insults we don't.  We don't want to release a listing that panders to  ignorant idiots.
3 Mar 2012
Shouldn't buddy holly be one of the top 5 in the 50s
Where an artist "should" be is often different from where the  actual numbers place them.  Buddy Holly had a very short career.
We would agree that the number of actual hits he had does not  reflect his impact (and in my personal opinion the quality of  his music).  But on this site we process the chart numbers, we  don't let anyone "adjust" the results (even us).
26 Feb 2012
Prince
Hi, nice to see Prince as #1. He deserves it.
I got a question though. A lot of websites claim Prince sold 80 million  records worldwide, while others claim Prince sold 100 million records  worldwide. I personally think its the latter, because Prince has been around  forever, but could you clarify it the best you can?
Really appreciate it. Thanks.
(P.S. I'm the same guy who wrote the My Version of 80s List and Oh OK :)
As you will have seen elsewhere we have a lack of faith in all  claimed sales numbers.  We would guess that both numbers are wrong.
25 Feb 2012
BAD WAS THE SECOND BIGGEST SELLING ALBUM
I saw where you guys told someone that MJ's album BAD wasn't the second biggest  selling album.  During the 80's decade, it was said that BAD was the second biggest  selling album right behind Thriller.  Now it's not the second biggest selling album  of all time, but during the 80's it was the second biggest selling album.
"Bad" was 8xPlatinum in the US in 1994.  Eagles album "Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975" was 29xPlatinum for an album released in 1976.  The albums "Four Symbols (Led Zeppelin 4)", "The Wall" and "Rumours" were all released in the 1970s and have considerably higher  overall sales than "Bad".
If you had misread the original claim and you thought that "Bad" was the second highest  selling album of the 1980s then look at AC/DC's "Back In Black" released in 1980, 22xPlatinum  in the US.  Also "Brothers In Arms" and "Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, Volume I & Volume II" both released before "Bad" and have much higher overall sales.
These numbers are consistent across the whole world (we just used the US figures because  they are easy to validate)
So sorry but the claim that "Bad" was ever the worlds second highest selling album is  just wrong.
25 Feb 2012
Michael Jackson
I'm really starting to hate these Prince fans who think MJ didn't do anything... (long dissertation on Michael Jackson's genius deleted)
The one comment from a Prince fan doesn't quite yet match the volume of  input from Jackson fans
16 Feb 2012
Prince
I love alot of MJ's music but I am really starting to hate these "MJ fans" they are everywhere and if their man is not #1 on every list they have  aneurysms!!! Prince owned the 80s!!! get over it! he was waaay more prolific!  Could play tons of instruments!! obviously had more hits in the 80s so  naturally that means he made better music and he ACTUALLY MADE better music  (wrote, composed and arranged all his songs) and didnt need no quincy jones to  do it! Prince truly performed live, unlike mj who lip synched and just danced  like a Las Vegas performer or imitator!! Prince is more talented and a  waaaaaaaaaaay better musician. he invented his own musical genre (minneapolis  sound) MJ invented nothing all his moves were rip offs and his # 1 song  (Billie Jean) was admittedly ripped from Hall and Oates hit song "I can't go  for that"
I dont hate MJ but when comparing him to my all time favorite artist  MJ is getting tossed under the bus!!
15 Feb 2012
United Kingdom
Wow Mariah Carey is the second biggest selling artist of the 90's in U.K behind only madonna!
Wow... Thats realy true... But Mariah +Rules the U.S and Japan/Asia during the 90's...
Very nice thread... I like it...
15 Feb 2012
Madona Rules the music and world...
15 Feb 2012
WORLD MUSIC AWARD & BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARD
WORLD MUSIC AWARD - State Mariah Carey is the biggest selling music artist of the 1990's ...(long rant making various unsourced assertions removed)...
Your statistic is wronged biased favor to your favorite artist, this is 100%  inaccurate and its clearly shows your ignorat in music industry, you dont know  calculate!
You don't know who our favourite artists are, we might be "ignorat in music industry" (we don't know what that means) but we do "know calculate".
If you can't quote reliable sources, make reasoned (and reasonable)  suggestions, and avoid personal attacks please go and participate in a forum  that better matches your biases.
3 Feb 2012
Madonna
The Biggest Selling female artist of all time is Madonna - doubt any female artist is ever going to beat Madonna.
Mariah has about 200 million to go to beat Madonna
3 Feb 2012
me
I think you need to more clearly articulate the name of the list ... As far as  I understand it is based solely on the success in the charts and only in the  United Kingdom, because if you take into account all the factors: the success  of the charts, album sales, the impact and popularity, it is it is clear that  Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd should be on the list
Robbie Williams Number 2 in the world in the 00's ..... you're  kidding? He does not interest anyone outside of UK
Sorry, but you do not know anything about music.
The lists are indeed based solely on success in the charts, but not in the  UK.  As you would have seen if you had bothered to look at the FAQ page  that answers "Why are there so many/ so few USA based charts?" the UK  provides about 20% of the source data.
The page about the 2000s says quite clearly "the results presented here  should be treated with some caution, there are other sites that focus on  the more recent information, their data is probably better".
However your suggestion that Robbie Williams did not have any success  outside the UK is wrong.  He had number ones in Ireland, New Zealand,  Spain, Holland, Switzerland and Germany.  Again if you had looked at the page  you would have seen those entries.
3 Feb 2012
Wow/ You really hate MJ with passion
30 Jan 2012
Mimmi
I know that Madonna and Prince had more album released in the 80s but MJs 2  albums had monstersales, Thriller with 30 million and Bad became the second  bestselling album of all time, both Madonna and Prince had great sales but  none of their albums sold like MJs. MJ did became the artist of that decade  because of his huge album sales so i dont know, yes Madonna and Prince had  more hits but MJs songs spent more at the top, either way MJ already owned  that decade so none of this matters really
The purpose of this site is to inject a more objective note into these  types of discussion.  For example while we don't place much faith in estimates  of album sales your suggestion that "Bad" was, at any point, "the second  best selling album of all time" is clearly wrong.
We understand that our asking fans (any fans) to restrict their web comments to  provable sources is unlikely to have much impact.  if you don't like our way of  estimating overall success then don't use it.
26 Jan 2012
Marie
And please, Michael Jackson was the mos successful artist of the 80's, not Prince neither Madonna ! With just his 2 best selling albums released in the  80's ,Michael surpaseed Madonna and Prince in the 80's !Wake up,people !
...and "Candle in the Wind '97" sold more copies than any other single  so Elton John was the most successful artist of the 1990s
26 Jan 2012
Marie
Mariah Carey was the most successful artist of the 1990's worldwide... ...The 1998 Guiness Book of World Record ...mentions clearly that Mariah Carey is the most successful artist of the 1990's.
We doubt that the Guiness Book of World Records said any such  thing.  Firstly we've seen that type of claim before (but usually  for different artists).  Where is a source we can check?
Secondly, any claim for "success in the 1990s" made in 1998  has to be at least a bit suspect
Finally it doesn't matter anyway, we claim here that by our metrics  of success she wasn't, and your opinion doesn't alter that (and  of course nor indeed does ours).  Extra data, a reason for rejecting  existing data, or a suggestion for how to tune the metrics might  change the results.  Unsourced opinions won't.
24 Jan 2012
artist of 1980
Noticed that Def Leppard, Journey, John Mellencamp not represented  even with monster albums in the era. Not popular elsewhere?
Indeed.  Look at the artist's pages for these three artists  (they all make the top 1000 artists in both album and song charts)  you will see that they didn't have stunning success in the 1980s,  but their continued success into later decades means that they  do end up in the overall charts.
18 Jan 2012
Zeppelin & Floyd
I am somewhat surprised to find that Led Zeppelin wasn't on the 70's list. They were huge back then, along with Pink Floyd. 2 of  the greatest and most well known bands of all time not even up there...
We think you have misread the list.  Led Zeppelin is the 7th artist entry of  the 1970s (Pink Floyd are number 8).
Of course you have to remember that Led Zeppelin decided to not release  singles in the UK (which was almost 15% of the world's music market), and  despite that still made number 7
15 Jan 2012
1990's
Mariah Carey followed by Janet was the best selling artist of the 1990's
...and of course that must be true because anonymous sources on the  internet that don't mention where they obtained their data are never  wrong
14 Jan 2012
Amazing I always thought Tom Petty Was pretty sucessful in the 1980's. Now that I think about it though I guess he never had a huge single or album.  Great list and great website!
6 Jan 2012
This page is great!
While I thoroughly understand the arguments of the Michael Jackson  fans (which I am also), your ranking system also makes complete sense.
Keep up the good work.
9 Dec 2011
Didn't achieve nothing
I'm not trying to start an argument I have another question.  So MJ didn't  achieve anything on both the U.S. and U.K. charts or is that he just had more  success with the U.S. charts, then what he had with the U.K. charts.
9 Dec 2011
Artist of 1980's
I like MJ, but I'm not an obsessed fan. Guinness Book of World Records listed MJ as the Most Successful Entertainer of all time. You that they go by facts,  so if he was listed as that why is he number 4 on you guys list.
We think you have misquoted, he is listed as the highest earner after his own death,  but given inflation that is not too surprising. We can't find any reputable source  that states Guinness have claimed he was the "Most Successful Entertainer" of all time.
19 Nov 2011
WOW!
this must have taken ages, thank you so much! +Great work! Have used it to do a rundown of songs that were being sung over the decades for my Grandmother's  90'th birthday (coming up in December)
I think they will love it!
Thank you.
That's exactly the type of use that the site was designed for,  we hope your family enjoy the selection.
11 Nov 2011
Oh OK
After I posted my comment up, "My Version of the List", I realized  I sounded kind of stupid and misinformed. You're right. Although Michael  Jackson was very popular and Thriller is the best-selling album of all time,  Prince definitely had more albums, and together, their sales probably beat  MJ's by some. Prince is very well as #1, and Madonna is undoubtedly #2.
Sorry guys. I understand your list now that I've opened my mind to statistics  rather than global opinion. And your list didn't say, "Most Popular Artists  of Each Decade". It said "Most Successful", so... big difference...
But I was wondering... how come Prince is #5 in the 1990s? Wasn't that his harder period when his music barely went gold? I was just wondering. One more  thing. I saw a list of best-selling artists worldwide, and it listed Beatles  as #1, Elvis as #2, and Michael Jackson at #3. MJ has sold about 700 million,  and Prince 80 million. Of course, I could be wrong, so could you explain?
Thanks.
It is a pleasure to have users with such a constructive and open attitude.
If you look at Prince's page, at the "Artist Profile" picture in the top  right, you will see that he continued to have some success every year  in the 1990s.  Contrast that with, for example, Michael Jackson's profile  you will see that he tended to release albums every two or three years  (rather than every year).  Also Prince's solo career was fairly "focused" between 1980 and 1998 (or so), while Jackson's started earlier and finished  later.
There are two things to say about comparison with "global sales" sites.  Firstly  as you mentioned our goal is to list success in charts round the world, not to  estimate global sales.  Otherwise we'd ignore acts from the 1930s whose careers  were over by the time record sales started to become important.  That is exactly  why we list "Most Successful" rather than "Biggest Sellers", or "Most Popular",  or even "Best".
The second thing is that we don't believe that anyone really knows how many  records The Beatles, Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson really sold.  If there  were statistics that we found even close to believable we'd use them.  That  is exactly why we restrict ourselves to "Most Successful in the Charts".  We  have never found a "global sales" site that we find convincing (of course your  milage may vary).
We would claim that the listing on this site should help inform discussion  about music.  If this listing suggests that, for example, your  1987 retro playlist should include Rick Astley its up to you to realise that  you really dislike his music and cut out his songs.  If someone is claiming  that The Doors were the fifth most successful group of the 1960s we provide  suggestions for 20 bigger groups.  If someone claims that "Eternal Flame" was  a bigger hit that "Poker Face" this site provides some evidence to help  with that discussion.
There are some things we would happily claim, for example that The Beatles were  clearly the overall most successful act of all time.  That result seems to come out  whatever reasonable measure we use.  We'd also happily state, for example, that  Roxette were not amoung the 50 most successful musical acts of all time but they  were in the top 500.  But we wouldn't want to be much more precise than that,  their exact position depends too much on the particular scoring method.
We are always looking for ways to improve our listing, from discovereing new  source charts, tuning the scoring approach or doing extra analysis.  Anywhere  that we can't defend our approach or results to honest questions should be  reviewed and revised (that's exactly why the version 2.0 listing has such  a radically different scoring).  We always welcome input from those willing to  have an open mind and look forward to any other questions or suggestions you can  provide.
7 Nov 2011
Can anybody tell me who mariah carey is??
Hello! I'm from Rio da Janero, Brasil and I've got tired of reading of the "fight" between mariah carey(??) and madonna. Nobody here knows her, that's  why I can't understand why the comparation. And Just for the record i'm not a  madonna fan, I'm a huge fan of Michael Jackson and the beatles I was just  wondering who the hell is that woman, is she from the states?
14 Oct 2011
why was led zeppelin not in 1970 list
Led Zeppelin are in the 1970s list, they were the 7th highest placed  artists of the decade.  They released no singles in the UK during the  1970s, that was enough to ensure they didn't make the global top 5.
27 Sep 2011
Marcus
This site really sent some fans into a frenzy, but facts are facts. For anyone  who wants to find out the real figures and truths about chart/sales fact then  visit The United World Chart, Billboard Top 50 Hot 100 Artist of all time and  the Guinness Book Of World Records.
No, Michael Jackson is not more successful then Elvis, The king is still the  King in the US and Charts all over the world. The Beatles are in a category by  themselves, no band comes even close to their achievements. And as far as Female  Singers, the ONLY name on top is Madonna.
Even Billboard placed Madonna ahead of Elvis in their Top 50 Artist of all time, she was second only to the Beatles. In the United World Chart, as far as number one/top 10 singles she's even ahead of the Beatles. Sorry for all the fans, but Celine, Mariah, Britney, Janet are not even mentioned in the top 10 world-wide sales artist of all time. The facts are the facts, so accept them!
27 Sep 2011
My Version of 80s List
At #1 would probably be Michael Jackson. You are absolutely correct in saying  he has only 2 albums out in the decade, but maybe u are forgetting that they  were HUGE. After Thriller, he was the biggest icon on earth, he made girls'  hearts melt, he had the hottest music... In the 1984-1985 era he was so famous  for his hospital and charity and acknowledged by Ronald Reagan himself.   Everyone loved him and went crazy. In the 1986 period, he was number-one Mr.  Talked-About when he got paler and had rumors. And, in the late 80s, Bad was  about one of the biggest decade hits, with 5 NUMBER ONE HITS, and a great new  fashion. He was indisputably the biggest star of the 80s, anyone u ask will  tell you. And if he was only #4, then how come the ENTIRE FRIKKIN world, from  children to adults, know and cherish his name???? "Billie Jean","Thriller", "Beat It", "Bad", "Dirty Diana", "Smooth Criminal", and "Man in the Mirror" are legendary!
Prince, in my opinion, was amazing too. He was the biggest, hottest bad boy  for most of the mid-80s, and really had some sparkling hits on the charts. His  hair was amazing, and his driven lyrics amazed and caused controversy. "Little  Red Corvette", "Let's Go Crazy", "When Doves Cry", "Raspberry Beret", "Kiss",  and "Batdance" were his biggest hits in the decade, and he made girls go nuts  with his revolutionary music. I really love Prince. But... on a scale of Most  Popular 80s Artists, Prince would definitely rank #2 after Michael Jackson.  Yeah, he had a lot of music, but hell, only the adult population have fond  memories of him. And though he had about 11 #1 hits worldwide, he only had 5  in the U.S. Michael Jackson had #13 worldwide. And I think Prince's symbol-era  really hurt his starpower bad.
Madonna would definitely be #2 or #3, somewhere with Prince and Jackson. She  was the biggest, most beautiful woman in the 80s teenage boys had posters and  girls were so inspired! she had great music and she totally was the Queen. Her  many hits are still, to this day, not forgotten. If anyone were to be higher  than Michael Jackson, it would be Madonna.
And where the hell is George Michael on this chart??? he was huge too for his  voice and looks in the mid-to-late 80s! He was so famous!
And, concluding this, Michael Jackson had the most starpower, is recognized by  the Guiness World Record Book as the Most Successful Performer Ever, and has  sold copies so high that only Elvis and the Beatles shunted him to #3.
He deserves to be #1, Madonna #2, and Prince #3. ...and somehow u2 is higher than michael jackson...
A well reasoned description of your personal picks.  Of course  our listing only relies on chart success, not notoriety nor "fame". We don't place acts by where they "deserve to be" but by  their actual success in the charts.  On this site no-one gets  to vote, not even us administrators.
You claim that Michael Jackson was "indisputably the biggest  star of the 80s", that is clearly not correct, there are people who  disagree with your opinion.  Given that U2 had 8 albums that were  international hits in the 1980s, and during the same period  Michael Jackson had 2, there are at least grounds for discussion.
George Michael's ranking (at 48th) suffers from two facts, first many  of his hits are credited to Wham! (at 34th), secondly the fact that  his first success was in 1984, almost half way through the decade.  If  a listing of success for 1985-1995 were calculated he would, no doubt,  be much higher.
If you want to try doing that analysis the CSV file (on the "Versions" page)  contains all the information you would need.
21 Sep 2011
Phil Collins
Surprised no one mentioned Phil Collins on here as one of the most successful of the 1980s.  I am a little shocked he doesn't land in the Top 5. Where does  he land according to your data?  He had 7 number one singles in the 80s (the same  amount as Madonna and 3 more than Prince), and sold 24 million certified albums  in the US. Where does he stand then? And just curious, but if you factored in his  work with Genesis would he place as number 1? Becuase I believe the 2 combined  would give him the most top 40 hits of the decade.
If you look at the list on the 1980s page you will see that using our  metric we calculate he was the 7th artist of that decade.
Of course our calculations don't include his participation in Genesis
2 Sep 2011
Well Done
Ha Ha, I bet you feel like a stuck record don't you, trying to get it into peoples heads that this list is based on FACTS OF SALES and not fans  fantisies. Brilliant list, thank you. I too was suprised by some of the  results... But I don't dispute them. A fact is a fact whether people wish to  believe it or not !!!! Unfortunately, MJ fans seem to "twist" the facts  slightly to suit themselves. He was big (huge infact) for 2 out of 10 years in  the 80's ..... Get over it.
27 Aug 2011
Great but wish I saw Cher+
The list is great I guess it depends on the definition of successful. Would have liked to have seen Cher. Obviously when people think of 60s they think of  Beatles and when the think 80s they think Michael Jackson.  But the 90s make me  think Cher.
As you say it depends on the definition of success.  By our calculation  Cher was the 33rd highest rated artist of the 1990s
Our calculations suggest Madonna, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion were more  significant.  And personally I'd have picked one of those three before  Cher, but obviously that's not your experience.  It would be a boring  world if we all agreed
20 Aug 2011
mc
no, mariah has been named the most successful and biggest selling female artist in the 90s!, she has sold 120 million albums, and over 20 million  singles in the 90s alone, selling 40 million more albums and 10 million  singles than madonna.
mariah is the biggest selling non asian artist in japan, selling 18 million albums there, twice as much as madonna.
"has been named", by who?  We generally don't believe sales figures, especially  when no source is given.
Mariah was most successful in the US, but Madonna outsold her in the  rest of the world.  In our opinion the balance of evidence is that  Madonna had more global success in 1990s.
14 Aug 2011
nothing wrong with the list
I'm a fan of Michael Jackson but I do believe that he wasn't the biggest seller of the 80s, Madonna definetely sold more albums worldwide than  Mariah Carey and Eminem was by far the most successful singer or rapper  of the 00s
8 Aug 2011
Get over MJ
wow, people on here really need to stop obsessing over Michael Jackson. it has been two years since he died, and people are still angrily defending him  whenever someone says he was not the best-selling artist or all-around  greatest musical artist of all-time.  I bet most of these assumed young  defenders didn't even care about him before he died.
25 Jul 2011
Love it!!!
Amazing list. And the Beatles are my favorite band, so I'm glad to see it at the top of the 60's column. :)
3 Apr 2011
Michael Jackson
The reason I think Michaqel Jackson should be placed higher than number four for the 80s is these reasons:
- As mentioned, he won an unprecedented 8 grammy awards in one ceremony
- Despite the discredited 100 millions copies, whether it is 50 million or 100 million, it is still higher than any other album by a large margin.
- Furthermore, the album bad,is in some ways even more successful than thriller, generating 4 US number ones of one album, which was a record at the time. Furthermore, globally 9 out of the 10 original tracks were number one in one country or another.
- An arguemnt you presented was that he had no 'solo' hits in 1985. This is true. However I will argue that despite releasing less singles in the 80s than other artists, his ratio of successful singles to singles release is the highest. i.e. Prince made 6 studio albums in the 80s of which only 3 were number ones, and only one in the US/UK. Michael Jackson released 2 albums in that decade, both of which were number one and are in the list of best selling albums.
- Now i will list some artist you have labelled above Michael Jackson in the 80s and how many number one singles they achieved globally in the 80s; Prince 10 (out of 47), David Bowie 6 (out of 30), Rolling stones 3 (out of 22). Now Michael Jackson... 15 (out of 22). Feel free to challenge this information.
- I understand that Michael Jackson had a controversial private life but it often bothers me that people let this interfere with his musical success.
- If you consider many aspects of music to get your results, then I think its worth adding that Michael Jackson's Bad tour was the largest attending concert even, until that record was broken in 1993 and 1997, both by Michael Jackson again!
- Michael Jackson is also the artist to receive the most American music awards and is one of the highest awarded artists of all time and Guinness world records most successful artist of all time. Please reconsider... Thank You.
You have presented a reasoned argument with a number of interesting  points.  If we had a website that listed the "best" artists you're points  would be valid.  However on this website we use the number of entries in  charts round the world as a measure of "success".  We feel that this  provides a measure that is more objective and less subject to individual  biases (including especially our own biases).
Our goal on this page is to find ways to objectively measure how  successfull each artist is.  Considerations of individual award  ceremonies or the success of individual albums in certain countries  doesn't really cut it.
Just to clarify we don't list David Bowie or The Rolling Stones above  Michael Jackson for the 1980s.  In our 1980s list (based on the 1.08 data) the  top four slots are 1: Prince, 2: Madonna, 3: U2, 4: Michael Jackson.
Your idea of masuring the proportion of all releases that became hits  is an interesting one, we suspect that would work as an objective measure.   We don't know how you'd gather a list of all songs released by every major  artist in a selection of the countries of the world, but if you could do that  we'd be interested to look at the results.
We have some sympathy with your claim that chart success is just one  measure and, for example, live concert size might be an additional measure.   However again we don't know where reliable figures can be obtained for  a reasonable number of acts (we know lots of places where unreliable  figures can be found for just a few acts).
So, we will continue to measure success by the number of hits in charts  round the world, and by that measure Michael Jackson will continue to be  below Prince for the 1980s.
14 Mar 2011
Whitney, Janet and Michael
Both these artists were huge in the 80s and most of the 90s, but I guest they didn't make the 80s list because they started out in the mid-80s.
Just curious where they ranked on the list of the 80s and 90s. Whitney probably ranked higher because she is more successful on the charts and in record sales.
PS I agree, Michael is probably the most successful artists of all time but he didn't top the 80s list because he only released 2 albums. In the years he did release an album, he was the top artists of that years. If he had released one album almost every year, then that would keep his momentum going pushing him to the top no doubt.
The rankings by our criteria are already shown here.  You could try out various  other comparisons using the spreadsheet of data that we provide on the versions  page.
For example how about scatter plotting year v score for albums by  those three artists from 1980 to 2005?
We'd be interested to see any results that provide insight
3 Mar 2011
The beatles
They are the most suuccessful artists of the 60s and i would say are the mostsuccessful artists ever. Yes jacko fans the beatles are more successful than you're boy toy
23 Feb 2011
some of the greatest rock bands like nirvana, guns and roses, bonjovi, ledzelpein, the who, black sabbath is not included in this list anywhere.  also what about linkin park or metallica, it looks like this list is dominated by few particular forms of music like pop, rhythm and blues, funk.  why didnt one of theses bands at least make it to the list?
This is a listing of the bands that were successful in the most charts,  so it will be dominated by music that has a wide audience across many  countries.  As you say it is dominated by "pop".
Notice that the title of the page talks about "success" not about "quality".  I'm sure we can all list artists that have been  successful without ever being "good".
Speaking personally I would agree with many of the choices you list, however on this site personal opinion is ignored (even our own). We actually work quite hard to ensure that the only thing that counts is the source chart data and all personal bias is removed.
So don't use this for your personal playlists, although it might remind you of a few forgotten gems. However, if you're creating a playlist for lots of people (especially if they come from a wide variety of places) it might be a good place to start.
17 Feb 2011
Pleased to see a rapper, especially Eminem, on this list, with such music legends :)
17 Feb 2011
wheres cher!
By our metrics she was the 33rd most successful artist of the 1990s.  She  just didn't have enough entries to make the top 5 in any decade.
30 Jan 2011
Ok ...yeah he only released two albulms always preffer qaulity over quanity and he had 8+ number one singles in the 80s plus did prince Madonna ect embark on a 125 million dollar world tour ?!!! NO therefore how the hell is prince more succesful than MJ ?!! I mean thriller was flying off the shelves same with bad and he was also in the victory tour so .... I don't know how you can come up with MJ being in 4th place that's just ridiculous !
13 Jan 2011
The Beatles
I think your assessment is fair and accurate. I find it amusing that MichaelJackson fans think the hype they read about him being the king of pop makes him the biggest selling artist of all time. It would appear that he has to sell a lot more records to catch up with Elvis and the Beatles. And based on the sales of his new album 'Michael' I do not think he will ever outsell the Beatles.
3 Dec 2010
CELINE DION is the most successful artist of the 2000s
No, clearly she isn't.
24 Sep 2010
Madonna/Michael Jackson/Prince/U2/Mariah
It seems to me that people checking out this website expect to see a "Most  Famous or Well Known Artist Countdown" instead of a statistically correct  chart success countdowns, even if in your country people know more one artist,  which makes you think he/she should be more successful than other artists  don't forget there are almost 200 more countries in the world that may have a  different favorite artist, which that doesn't matter anyways because what  counts is how high the artists charted in all those countries.
Most of the time people don't even recognize the artist when he/she has a big  hit in their country because they only listen to them on the radio, they may  not have TV, even if they have TV is hard to recognize an artist more if they  tremendously change their appearance, for example, Madonna tends to do so a  lot. Also keep in mind that when an artist is able to have a hit in a country  is because radio airplay, sales and currently digital downloads contribute in  placing a single in the chart. So even though, there is no "Best Selling  Singles/Albums of All Time" there are "Best Charting Singles/Albums of All  Time" where you can indeed find the best charting singles and albums. Radio  airplay, sales, digital downloads and also individual statistics that each  country may use to contribute to a single/album placement in their popularity  chart is what makes a single/album become a top 20, top ten, top 5 or a number  1.
Everyone who visits this website, please realize it is not "Sales Countdowns", "Popularity Countdowns" nor "Quantity of Awards Won by Artist Countdowns", it  is "Singles and Albums Charting Success Countdowns" that are presented to you  here. It is not this website's fault that Michael Jackson charted more poorly  than other artists like Madonna, not only in the world, but even in the U.S.A.  alone Madonna is more successful than Michael Jackson when it comes to chart  success, although that doesn't take away the fact that Michael Jackson is in  more tabloids, newspapers and articles because of his media invaded life.
For all of those non-believers for this website's credibility please check out  The United World Chart website, which is a statistically correct (without  public vote) world chart countdown website since the creation of their music charts,  but they are still compiling all their charts to fill in the gaps, if you go  to http://unitedworldchart.de/ you'll see what I'm talking about. If you do go  to the United World Chart website make sure to click on the STATISTICS link,  which you'll find in the left hand side under TRACKS, once you've clicked on  STATISTICS make sure to click on ARTIST SECTION link so it'll list every  single artist that has made it to the top ten in the United World Chart with a  list of their respective songs that made it to the top ten or you can also go  to this link http://www.mediatraffic.de/track-artists.htm to check that out as  well.
If you are just looking for a statistically correct "Most Successful Artist of  All Time Countdown", this website will offer it to you in three different  approaches, which have been created directly from correct factual information.  It is the closest to the "Most Successful Artist of All Time Countdown" and I  can support that since all their sources are legitimate. To also contribute to  the fact that Michael Jackson is not the best charts act you can check out The  Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, although keep in mind it's ONLY U.S.A.  statistics, NOT World statistics, and it's only from 1958 to present, so it's  not even near to this website countdowns that offer chart historical  information since the 1900's, but if you want to check out The Billboard Hot  100 All-Time Top Artists go to the following link  http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/specials/hot100/charts/top100-artists-20.shtml
Going back to the United World Chart subject, once you get to the United World  Chart's STATISTICS link and click on the ARTIST SECTION link it's easy to tell  that Madonna outnumbers everyone else having the most hits so far in the  United World Chart, but there are still years that have not been put out of  the archives so she's still not officially the best or most successful artist  of all time, although there is a big possibility for her to be, since in the  U.S. she's the second best act, just after the Beatles. But please remember,  that does not mean she is the most talented, nor the most loved, nor the most  creative, nor the most impacting artist of all time, it just emphasizes her  success in the charts around the world. It is up to every single one of us to  decide who is our favorite artist, and no one can take that away from us, but  let's not try to implement our fanatic beliefs in this statistically correct  website, this is all about numbers, not favoritism nor opinion. Also Madonna  has been around for almost 30 years, whereas the Beatles were around for about  a decade. Since the last single from Michael Jackson's Thriller, Michael  Jackson was absent from the music scene in 1985, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 1999,  2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009 until his death, which contributes  to the fact that he has not have as much chart success as Madonna, Prince, U2  or Mariah. Since her debut in 1982, Madonna has only been absent from the  music scene in 2010 so far. Since his 1978 debut, Prince has only been absent  from the music scene in 2000, 2003, 2008 and 2010 so far. Since their debut in  1980, U2 has been absent from the music scene in 1986, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1999,  2003 and 2010 so far. And last, since her debut in 1990, Mariah has only been  absent from the music scene in 2007. So all of those aforementioned acts  certainly have less years of absence from the music scene than the late  Michael Jackson.
As a last thought, PLEASE do not "attack" these people that are doing us a  favor by really representing the world wide factual music charts information.  They go as far back as the 1900's, what other website or book has been able to  put all this information for everyone to see free of charge. So be grateful  and appreciate all the facts and success of the music history that this  website has to offer.
19 Sep 2010
Michael Jackson and Madonna
It seems to me that people checking out this website expect to see a "Most  Famous or Well Known Artist Countdown" instead of a statistically correct  chart success countdowns, even if in your country people know more one artist,  which makes you think he/she should be more successful than other artists  don't forget there are almost 200 more countries in the world that may have a  different favorite artist, which that doesn't matter anyways because what  counts is how high the artists charted in all those countries.
Most of the time people don't even recognize the artist when he/she has a big  hit in their country because they only listen to them on the radio, they may  not have TV, even if they have TV is hard to recognize an artist more if they  tremendously change their appearance, for example, Madonna tends to do so a  lot.
Everyone who visits this website, please realize it is not "Sales Countdowns", "Popularity Countdowns" nor "Quantity of Awards Won by Artist Countdowns", it  is "Singles and Albums Charting Success Countdowns" that are presented to you  here. It is not this website's fault that Michael Jackson charted more poorly  than other artists like Madonna, not only in the world, but even in the U.S.A.  alone Madonna is more successful than Michael Jackson when it comes to chart  success, although that doesn't take away the fact that Michael Jackson is in  more tabloids, newspapers and articles because of his media invaded life.
For all of those non-believers for this website's credibility please check out  The United World Chart website, which is a statistically correct(without  public vote) world chart countdown website since the creation of music charts,  but they are still compiling all their charts to fill in the gaps, if you go  to http://unitedworldchart.de/ you'll see what I'm talking about. If you do go  to the United World Chart website make sure to click on the STATISTICS link,  which you'll find in the left hand side under TRACKS, once you've clicked on  STATISTICS make sure to click on ARTIST SECTION link so it'll list every  single artist that has made it to the top ten in the United World Chart with a  list of their respective songs that made it to the top ten or you can also go  to this link http://www.mediatraffic.de/track-artists.htm to check that out as  well.
If you are just looking for a statistically correct "Most Successful Artist of  All Time Countdown", you will not find it here, but you will only find the "Most Successful Artist of Each Decade Countdown". For right now the closest  thing to a "Most Successful Artist of All Time Countdown" would be The  Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, although it's ONLY U.S. statistics,  NOT World statistics, but you can check it out at  http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/specials/hot100/charts/top100-artists-20.shtml
Going back to the United World Chart subject, once you get to the United World  Chart's STATISTICS link and click on the ARTIST SECTION link it's easy to tell  that Madonna outnumbers everyone else having the most hits so far in the  United World Chart, but there are still years that have not been put out of  the archives so she's still not officially the best or most successful artist  of all time, although there is a big possibility for her to be, since in the  U.S. she's the second best act, just after the Beatles. But please remember,  that does not mean she is the most talented, nor the most loved, nor the most  creative, nor the most impacting artist of all time, it just emphasizes her  success in the charts around the world. It is up to every single one of us to  decide who is our favorite artist, and no one can take that away from us, but  let's not try to implement our fanatic beliefs in this statistically correct  website, this is all about numbers, not favoritism nor opinion. Also Madonna  has been around for almost 30 years, whereas the Beatles were around for about  a decade. Since the last single from Michael Jackson's Thriller, Michael  Jackson was absent from the music scene in 1985, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 1999,  2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009 until his death, which contributes  to the fact that he has not have as much chart success as Madonna, Prince, U2  or Mariah. Since her debut in 1982, Madonna has only been absent from the  music scene in 2010 so far. Since his 1978 debut, Prince has only been absent  from the music scene in 2000, 2003, 2008 and 2010 so far. Since their debut in  1980, U2 has been absent from the music scene in 1986, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1999,  2003 and 2010 so far. And last, since her debut in 1990, Mariah has only been  absent from the music scene in 2007. So all of those aforementioned acts  certainly have less years of absence from the music scene than the late  Michael Jackson.
As a last thought, PLEASE do not "attack" these people that are doing us a  favor by really representing the world wide factual music charts information.  They go as far back as the 1900's, what other website or book has been able to  put all this information for everyone to see free of charge. So be grateful  and appreciate all the facts and success of the music history that this  website has to offer.
Thanks for the support.
One minor correction, we have not one but three different "Most Successful Artist of All Time Countdowns".  Each using a slightly   different approach and, of course, coming to slightly different conclusions.   We don't emphasise those pages (which is why you didn't see them), because  the CSV data allows each reader to do their own version of  this calculation.
15 Sep 2010
michael jackson
It seems according to you ,michael jackson achieved nothing in his life...  (followed by 50 more lines of justification for why Michael Jackson's  entries should be ranked higher)
I think that being classified as one of the 20 greatest artists of all  time is hardly claiming that he achieved nothing.
Quoting Michael Jackson fan sites, and sites that rely on the unsupported  opinions of users with such fan based names as "MJDangerous" is hardly  helping your case.
However none of that matters anyway, we have an automatic process for  calculating worldwide success.  That says that an artist with 43 hit songs  in the 1980s had more success than one with 26.  It doesn't matter  how much you write to say differently (or indeed what anyone's opinion  including our own says) 43 is larger than 26, by any reasonable metric  Madonna had more worldwide success in the 1980s than Michael Jackson.
27 Aug 2010
michael jackson
okay,i want to give a rebuttal to the mj rebuttal.first of all, over his entire career, michael jackson has sold more than prince,madonna,mariah carey,and u2.according to all records,the lowest estimate of sales of mj is 300 million,and the highest is 750 million.i think the figure of 750 million is not the correct one,because its impoosible.but taking his lowest estimated career sale of over 300 million indicates one thing only,poeple loved mj while he was there ,more than they have loved prince,madonna,u2 or mariah carey.then how come,for christs he has sold more than this list of musical legends.how come a man who has sold this many albums be degraded in this way.prince havent reached the 100 million mark in terms of album sales whie madonna,mariahand u2 have estimates ranging from 200 to 250 million albums.also he has 372 major music awards,where is prince in the picture now.i am from the indian sub continent and from a third world country.here people +make less than 50 dollars a month,but still if you have a chance,come to this region and tell them"do you know michael jackson"and they would say yes.and followed by praises and applauses.do you think princes music could get the attention of this poor people.the people in this region cant even get food for a meal,leave alone hear music.my question to you is that,can you give a reason why this millions of poor people try to buy a mj cd instead of the listed artists i have mentioned.i am a local so you cant question the verification of the question.just answer it.also,ther arent any sources in the whole world which would say mj has sold less than madona,or prince or u2 or mariah carey.insted the RIAA itself puts mj in 11th position in the list of highest selling artists in the usa with a toal sales of 69 million in his whole career.this number is more than u2,madonna,prince or mariah carey.in terms of awards mj have won 372 major awards.among them he has 23 american music awrards and 13 grammys.only u2 has got more grammys than michael jackom from that list.michael jackson has 28 top ten hits,only madonna .beatles and elvis has more.michael jackson has 13 number one hits only mariah carey has more from that list.what do you think know,where is prince and the other artists.prince is not even in the list of the singers with most top ten hits.wow i wonder how can aperson who cranked out hits everyyear throughout 1980s and the 1990s could give 28 top ten hits.madonna i believe placed with 37 top ten hits and jusstifies the statement made in the mj rebuttle,marih carey record also signifies everything said in the mj rebuttls 21 july 2010,but u2 and prince.come on mj beats them hands down.let me tell you u2 and prince is not even on thelist of artist with most hundered entries and most top forty hits,so how come if they had a hit every year in the two decades of the 80s and 90s and they still dont make the list.i am saying again madonna and mariah both have more than 25 top ten hits and more than 12 no1 singles,so taking these two in consideration its justified.also mj had 13 number ones and 28 top ten hits right,so howcome according to you he was a jerk whos album output as low and didnt give enough hits.in the early 200s mj record saales were estimated to be more than 200 to 250 million albums,he got a world music award in the year 2000 for being artist of the millineum,in addition him getting this award was facilatated by the fact that estimates aroung that time pionetd that mj sold over 250 million records.look even madonna havent reched that mark in 2010,prince is miles away,while u2 and mariah linger in the 200 million mark in 2010.even if you consider 20 years in the music business,from 1979 to 2000,mj sold 200 to 250 million albums,which is more than what maiah,or u2 or prince has ever achieved.even more mj is the most downloaded artist in the internet according to nokia novi music store.i can just go on and on and tell you i how many ways mj is atlesat better than prince mariah carey and u2.madonna is parallel to him.another thing is that,i aam good in maths and i understand how complex calculations of these record sales can show a totally diiferent picture.please RIAA,do not consider just hits,consider sales and effect and everything that makes music so wonderful.in addition,dangerous sold over 32 million,pirince has very few albums whuch sold over 20 million,and the doudle disc cd sold 20 million.prince selling 20 million +copies of his album is the most rare thing in the whole world.prince accordinr to all estimates tough i am qouting wikipedia has sold over only"88 million albums" from the 1980s +till 2010.u2 has sold over 150 million and mariah over 175 million albums.evaluate on everything and then make alist.you can use math and do anything with it to show the false,but facts are facts deal with it.leave with it.oh,however didnt michael jackson sell over hundred million albums from 1990 to 2000.since his death he has sold over 30 million and counting.please evaluate on that and think.especially the RIAA
We get it, you prefer Michael Jackson to Prince, U2 and  Madonna.
This site lists success in the charts, that's all it  is based on.  We employ a simple calculation  to combine individual chart entries that is described in  detail.  There are no numbers to adjust, there  are no factors to estimate, everything is driven by the  chart data we have.  Here no one gets to vote.
Doing that calculation leads to the results shown.  If  you can explain how the current calculation is unfair, or  you can tell us which source charts discriminate against  a particular artist we will listen to what you say.
However until you do that we have to continue to conclude that  Michael Jackson did not have the largest number of chart  hits in the 1980s.
We are not claiming in any way that U2 is better than  Michael Jackson, that has to be a personal viewpoint.  We  don't believe claimed sales figures, and you acknowledge  that claims for Jackson's sales range from 300 to an "imposible" 750 million.  We don't even believe our own  rough estimates of album sales.
You ask us to "do not consider just hits", well we don't know  how to measure "sales and effect and everything that makes  music so wonderful".
If you think that measuring an artist's success requires  a consideration of things other than entries in the music  charts then set up your own site.  We happen to think that  our metric comes closer to reflecting real historical  trends, rather than being a subjective view dictated by more  recent events.
22 Aug 2010
List is incorrect in so many ways
There are artists missing and invalid sources.  Please recheck your facts esp. in the year 2000
What an incredibly unhelpful message.  Which  artists do you think are missing?  Which sources  would you prefer?  What facts should be checked?
21 Jul 2010
MJ rebuttal
I'm surprised at how many people have been so defensive about Michael Jackson,  saying that he should have been the number 1 artist of the 80s.   However, people forget that MJ only released two, yes, only two, albums in the 80s, while the other four artists, Prince, Madonna, U2 and Queen released several throughout the decade.  I think Prince even released an album during every year of the 80s. so, while those other four artists were all cranking out hits for almost every year of the 80s, Michael only really had hits in '83 and '88, due to his low album output.  Of course he was going to be outnumbered in the hit song department.  For those who think he should have been on the 90s list, news flash, MJ released only one hit album in the early 90s before fading off the pop music map.  And I remember no one cared about the double album he released in the mid or late 90s.
21 Jul 2010
Wrong
michael jackson is the most sucessful artist of the 80s thriller has sold 100 million copies was the best selling album in the world two years in a row bad sold 30 million  he should also be included in the 90s for 31 million copies for dangerous and fourty  million for history correct your list
You provide no source for these assertions, every one of which is at least  questionable.  For example Thriller sold more like 65 million copies, the  claim of 100 million is completely unbelievable and not supported by any  credible source.
Where we have sources we have included them, that is why "Thriller" does top our list of albums, however the fact is that  Jackson had 2 major hit albums in the 1980s, while Prince had 7.  Under the  criteria used to assemble this list that puts Prince above Jackson.
This is a list of success in charts, and Jackson didn't have as much  real success as you clearly think he did.  We won't change the  data to suit your opinion, indeed we won't change it to support  anyone's opinion, even our own.
If you want to suggest sources that support your viewpoint we'd be  happy to consider them, unsupported assertions will always be ignored.
17 May 2010
MJ was #1
By the End of the 1980's Michael Jackson had the two biggest tours of the decade (Victory Tour with the Jacksons, and The Bad Tour solo), the two biggest selling albums of the decade (Thriller sold 50 million by the end of the decade, Bad sold about 25 million by the end of the decade) (and it dosn't hurt to mention that Thriller ALONE was #1 in the US for 37 weeks), more #1 hits than any other artist for the decade (according to billboard he had 9 #1's that decade, 10 if you include We Are The World). Plus, even if Madonna had 3 albums in the Top 100, MJ's Thriller outsold ALL of Madonnas albums combined. It was MJ's decision to release fewer albums overall. And was the biggest selling artist of the 80's, with an unprecedented sale of over 110 million records during the 80's. And he was also named many times over as the Artist and Entertainer of the decade as well.
So yes, MJ was defiantly the top artist of the decade. No one has come close  to his success. Just becuase other artists have more chart entries, doesn't  mean they were more successful.
A number of your individual claims are either clearly wrong or, at best,  questionable.  However that doesn't matter, the clue is in your last  sentence, the rankings at this site are a measure of chart success.  Its  not just that chart entries count, they are the only thing that counts,  nothing else matters at all.
You may claim that this is not a good measure of an artist's greatness,  that's certainly a viable viewpoint.  However if you are measuring "chart success" (which is what we are measuring) then chart entries are  the only thing that indicates who comes out top.
If you had a reliable set of sources for tour success, album sales  and artist of the decade nominations you could set up a web site  that lists how different artists measured up and do your own ranking,  but you don't and you haven't (Michael Jackson fan  sites don't count)
You claim that, for you, Michael Jackson is the greatest artist,  we would have to agree that is clearly your opinion.  If someone  else thought that Rick Astley was the greatest artist of the 1980s  we would have to agree that was their opinion.  However, if you were  to claim Michael Jackson had the most worldwide chart success of the  1980s we would disagree, and have numbers to back us up.  It is up to  the reader to decide how much chart success should be considered when  comparing different acts against each other.
25 Apr 2010
1980
not being funny but michael jackson would be no.1 in 1980s. r u seriously saying u2 r higher than michael jackson.  fuck the statitics
It seems to us that you have a choice:
Use objective metrics to measure worldwide success, in which  case Michael Jackson is beaten by U2's more consistent  and sustained list of hits.
Alternately express a personal opinion, in which  case you are free to believe Michael Jackson was the  best artist of the decade, and your opinion is just  as valid as someone else who prefers Hall & Oates.
We believe in basing conclusions on actual evidence,  and the evidence demonstrates that Michael Jackson was  not the most successful artist of the 1980s, whatever  you or any other fans claim.
If you want to be constructive you could suggest  alternate ways to measure success or you could  point out any of our data sources that are  systematically biased against your favourite  artist in some way.  An unsupported, obscenity  rich rant from a biased fan is not constructive  and makes us less liable to take your comment  seriously.
22 Apr 2010
Hi there...
Is there any possiblity for you to extend the tables by decade?
Mainly since the 60's... As it is (100) don't you feel like some  other hits are missing? I Know they aren't but i just miss them  in the chart! :) Thanks for your great Work!
We could extend the number of entries in the decade  charts, but that would make the pages always take  longer to load and most users are, we think, only  interested in the top few songs anyway.
However, you can, of course, work out the decade  positions from our CSV file with any spreadsheet  program.  For example in Excel load the file, add  a decade column by setting cell N2 as "=INT(D2/10)*10" then copy that cell for all the N column and sort by  type, decade and score (high to low).
This is why we supply the CSV file, not only can  you work out which song was number 200 of the sixties  but you can try out all sorts of different ways to analyse  the data.  If you find anything interesting tell  us about it.
21 Apr 2010
Most Successful
Thanks for your hard work, I just wonder how huge Billy Murray would have been if he lived in more recent times. According to Joel Whitburn he had 169 indivdual hits, from 1903 - 1927. Finished first on your list in 1900s as a solo artist and 3rd as a member of the Haydn Barbershop Quartet (total 62 hits). Finished 2nd in the 1910s, as part of the American Barbershop Quartet (66 hits) and 5th as a solo artist. As well as being a duet with Ada Jones (the Sonny & Cher of the 1910s) (44 hits). The official interpreter of George M.Cohan e.g. Yankee Doodle Dandy etc. and this is not his complete hit list.
His hit's featured in movies from Doris Day's On Moonlight Bay - The Titanic. So its great to see him rewarded on a list, and we can now download his hits all over again. thank you for going back to the 1900s.  Just for the record, including all, he had 48 N0.1 hits, 18 as a solo, 24 with the duets and 5 with Ada Jones. Where is he on your all time list, if you add the Quartets, his duets and solo hits all together?
Thanks again from Adelaide, South Australia sixtiesdj Johnny K.
You seem to have a pretty good set of numbers about his impact yourself.
Of course there are many different ways to compare artists from the early 20th  century with those of more recent times, unfortunately they all suffer from  different shortcomings. As you will have seen our all time artists list he  was between David Bowie and Queen, and that is without taking into account  his duets and group contributions.
Given the shortage of suitable charts, especially for locations outside North  America, it has to be acknowledged that the potential margin of error for any  entries from before 1920 is rather large.
As you say the joy of these early lists is their potential to give us  songs and artists to check out.  If that leads to some great  finds then fantastic.  When we discover huge hits that don't match  today's tastes, well I'm sure the success of "Crazy Frog" will  baffle our descendants just as much.
Thank you for the encouragement
10 Apr 2010
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson was undeniably the biggest and most successful artist of the 80s!  Why is he at #4?? His album Thriller sold 100 million copies and become the biggest selling album of all time! He also won 8 Grammy awards in a single night. Also he released Bad in '87 which was very successful. And I think he should have been mentioned in the 90s section. This is the most ridiculously stupid list I've ever seen. It was made by someone that knows nothing about this.
No, despite your outburst, by our metrics Michael Jackson was not the most  successful artist of the 1980s.  While he had  some years of enormous success he failed to sustain it, for  example he had no solo hits in 1985.
In our lists Michael Jackson is the 9th placed artist of the 1990s,  we feel that qualifies as "being mentioned".
Thriller may have been the biggest selling album of all time, however  quoting the widely discredited 100 million sales claim just  confirms that are not being objective in your comments.
On this site actual facts are more important than mere opinion, and  by that we mean anyone's opinion including our own.
The decade rankings were calculated with data from external sources  that can be easily verified and the metrics used are clearly  described.  The calculation is automated and cannot be "adjusted" for any reason.
If you disagree with the result you either feel that the data is in  some way invalid or that the metrics are unfairly  emphasising particular acts.  Tell us which data is wrong  or which alternate metric should be used, then we'll take your  comments seriously.
Saying this is the "most ridiculously stupid list I've ever seen" just makes you sound like a petulant teenager (except of course  few modern teenagers are Michael Jackson fans)
6 Mar 2010
michael jackson
see the problem is your looking at it from a points stnadard. We all knowMichael Jackson is the biggest artist of the last three decades. In a span of eight years 82-90 the man literaly became the third most popular face on earth after jesus and ronald mcdonald. He literaly holds the guiness record for having the most records! the only reason he doesnt have any more albums in the top 100 is cus he only released 2!. which at the time of 88 were the top two selling albums of all timeeee. prince literaly till this day releases an album every year. He never misses a beat. Yes Prince is a genius i am a hugeeee fan believe me. but when mike walks into a room the cameras rush to him more then prince and madona. Madonas affect in the 80s lasted but not like michael jacksons. madona invented sex in music. michael invented everythign else.
Clearly your opinion of Michael Jackson is not going to be moderated  by anything as inconvenient as actual facts.
1 Jan 2010
Mariah vs. Madonna
Up to this point Madonna is still more successful around the world than she isin the  U.S., and Mariah is still somewhat more successful in the U.S. than she is around the world.
Madonna continuously keeps making top ten hits even number 1's around Europe, Latin America, Canada, Australia and Asia. It's easy to prove that Madonna has had at least 2 top tens from each one of her albums in the UK, Canada, Australia and many more countries.
She also has scored at least 1 top ten from every of her albums in the U.S. except for her Celebration (2009), You Can Dance (1987), Remixed and Revisited (2004) and GHV2 (2001) albums, all of them are compilation albums and the last three didn't even had new world wide single releases made. Even her three soundtracks were able to spawn at least 1 top 10 each one. Madonna also has the most number ones and top ten's in the United World Chart, 29 top ten's and out of those 15 are number 1's and there is still more number ones and top tens to come, because United World Chart week by week keeps posting past charts.
On the other hand Mariah only has 18 top tens and out of those only 2 are number 1's in the United World Chart. Madonna managed to make her latest single Celebration to peak at No. 6 in the United World Chart where Mariah's not latest single but latest moderate successful single Obsessed peaked at No. 14. This shows how much of an impact charting in the U.S. and in the rest of the world does. This is why I respect and honor the methodologies that they used for these "countdowns".
18 Dec 2009
lol, you dont know mariah carey? words from an idiot are not taken into consideration
You know I think that user comment was maybe not quite serious.  Your life would be easier if you moderated  your responses a bit.
I'm surprised, most people I have met in Malaysia  have a sense of humour.
14 Dec 2009
Totally true! Madonna is the most successful artist of the 90`s. I love  Celine Dion, REM, and Prince, Who is Mariah Carey?
24 Nov 2009
Michael Jackson
Am I seeing something wrong? I count 4 Jackson albums in  your top 100. I don't see that many from any other artist,  of course I just tabbed thru quickly.
You raise an interesting point.  We feel that the "standard" list is too heavily dependant on the  input charts that are available.  There are about  4 times as many entries for the 1980s as there  are for the 1960s, so more recent music is  scored too highly.
So when contrasting acts and releases across the years  we feel that it is better to compensate for this modern  bias.  The "real list" of top albums adjusts the scores  to give what we feel is a better comparison across the years.  In this list Michael Jackson has  an entry at number 2, his next album is at  number 47.
There are some good reasons for not adopting this  approach for the standard lists. The way this adjustment is made works well for acts  and releases that are at the top of the list.  But  it is not clear that it works so well for later, less  widely supported, entries. In addition the simplicity of the standard score makes the  standard list more transparent.  Also it could be  argued that the larger number of entries after 1980  reflect the fact that more people are interested in  that era, hence music from then should be over emphasised.
In the standard list Michael Jackson does have four  albums in the top 100, however The Beatles, Madonna  and U2 all have six.  If we were to believe that this  list was a good measure of success then "REM" (with  two entries) would have to rate better than  The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Radiohead, Dire Straits and Guns & Roses (who all have just one).  We suspect  there are few people that would be prepared to  argue for that view.
Of course you are free to disagree with our analysis,  that is why we make the standard data available in CSV form. If you have a different way to summarise the data  that illustrates an alternate view we would be interested  to hear from you.
11 Nov 2009
RE: mariah vs madonna
ok.. so with ur computation.. u actually weighed north america and europe equally... and in fact according to your reply they are not equal and also aside from europe and north america, there are also other large markets like Japan where 7 of mariah's 90s album amassed million/s of sales each... and all other female intl artist that follows sell less than half of Mariah's... mariah's singles are also very successful in Japan...
so i kinda doubt the quoted statement below..
"So no, sorry even if the scores are adjusted according to the size of themarket Mariah doesn't beat Madonna. We've tried a variety of different ways to look at the data and they all result in Madonna being above Mariah. Your intuition was just plain wrong. Of course this tells us that Madonna was more successful round the world in the 1990s, it does not prove that her music was in any way better."
No you're wrong we didn't weigh them equally, Europe got a weight of 9.01 and North America got 15.14 (based on the sales numbers).
So lets look at Japan.  In Japan Madonna had 28 hit songs in the 1990s and  Mariah had 25. Mariah's hits were slightly higher in the charts so her total  score was 22.47 while Madonna's was 21.67. In other words Madonna scored 96%  of Mariah's score.  Now, in fact the sales of "International" music in Japan  is only about 10% of the market, so Japan's factor should be 0.643, but lets  be generous to Mariah and pretend that all $6.43B was "International" music.
If we add these results into the mix we get:
Madonna: 0.94*15.14 + 1*9.01 + 0.96*6.43 = 29.41     Mariah: 1*15.14 + 0.53*9.01 + 1*6.43 = 26.34
...and Madonna *still* beats Mariah.
It is possible that Mariah's albums outsold Madonna's in Japan in the 1990s. We have no reliable data that supports that, but it is possible.  If the low  percentage of "International" music is taken into account then Madonna could  have sold absolutly nothing in Japan in the 1990s and her global total would  still beat Mariah.
It doesn't matter how much you "doubt the quoted statement", it remains true  even with the scores weighed by sales and with Japan included.  Mariah  was beaten by Madonna in the 1990s.  As we said, we tried a variety of  ways of looking at the data and Madonna wins every time.
The problem is that you clearly don't appreciate just how much more popular  Madonna was in Europe in the 1990s.
Speaking personally (SH) I don't understand *why* she was so popular, her 1990s  material doesn't sound good to me.  But that's exactly the point, on this site no-one  gets to vote the data determines the outcome, personal opinion doesn't have  any influence.  If the data didn't sometimes tell us something that is  against initial expectation then we wouldn't have created the site.
16 Oct 2009
Mariah v Madonna in the 1990s
This site treats all the charts in the world equally... thats why,  they comeup with Madonna no.1 and Mariah no.2.. if they would give  higher regard to bigger markets like USA... Mariah wud take the top spot easily...
Your first comment is exactly right, all the charts are weighed equally in  the standard calculation.  If only the North American charts were counted  Mariah would be the number 1, but of course that would hardly give us a  reasonable view of the world's music.
You are also correct that the number of chart entries does over emphasise the  European nations since each one of them contributes more entries than can  be justified by their share of the world music market.  This is a side  effect of the fact that each European country has people who want to  publish their particular national chart, while there is less incentive for  the inhabitants of, for example, Wyoming to publish their own weekly  state chart for the 1990s.
However those two facts don't necessarily mean that Mariah would  take the top slot in any properly weighed summary, and certainly not "easily".
Since we have data immediately available for the success of songs in North America and Europe let's try a quick test with that. In North America Mariah Carey's total score for the 1990s was 84.75, Madonna's was 79.97 of course the absolute values are meaningless, but the relative difference gives us a measure of their performance, Madonna has 94% of Mariah's score.
In Europe Mariah Carey's total score for the 1990s was 90.35, Madonna's was 169.88 Mariah has 53% of Madonna's score.
According to the IFPI the biggest 10 music markets in 1999 were: USA $14.25B,  Japan $6.43B, UK $2.91B, Germany $2.83B, France $1.98B, Canada $0.88B, Brazil $0.67B,  Australia $0.66B, Spain $0.64B, Italy $0.64B   Which gives North America $15.14B  and Europe $9.01B (we'll ignore the smaller countries that would bring the  Europe total to more than $14B).
If we give the top artist 1 and the lower one a proportional score and then  scale by the number of billion dollars in each region Mariah gets 1*15.14 + 0.53*9.01 => 19.93  and Madonna gets 0.94*15.14 + 1*9.01 => 23.29
So no, sorry even if the scores are adjusted according to the size of the market  Mariah doesn't beat Madonna.  We've tried a variety  of different ways to look at the data and they all result in Madonna being  above Mariah.  Your intuition was just plain wrong.
Of course this tells us that Madonna was more successful round the world in the  1990s, it does not prove that her music was in any way better.
5 Sep 2009
Artist of 1980.
Michael Jackson should be the most successful artist of the 1980s  having produced the most successful albums of all time. He also  holds a record in the Guinness Book of World Records as The Most  Successful of All Time.
First of all by any reasonable criteria Michael Jackson certainly  didn't produce more than one album in the all time top 10, so the  when you say "albums" you should rather use the word "album".
Secondly having the most successful album of an era is just  one of the measures that are used here.  Michael Jackson had 2  songs in the "1980s 100 songs" list, against Madonna's 5.  He had  2 albums in the "1980s 100 albums" list, against Madonna's 3.
Finally even if we agreed that Michael Jackson's position  in the "top artists of the 1980s" was too low we couldn't  directly do anything about it within the rules of the  website.  The way that "success" is measured here is clearly  defined and strictly follows a mechanical process, no-one  gets to "adjust" the values later whatever their opinions.   Even if one of the administrators wanted to boost his  rating they couldn't, the best they could do would be to  change the scoring mechanism. Prince, Madonna and U2 all had more number 1s in more countries  than Michael Jackson in the 1980s, that is why they end up higher.
31 Jul 2009
mariah carey is the most successful artist
i totally agreed with RIA subsmition that m c is the most successful  artist of 90's. she has most highest number of sales so she deserve s to be the most successful
There are a number of issues with your assertion.  First we still don't  know who (or what "RIA" is).  Secondly we have no evidence that she has  the highest number of worldwide sales in the 1990s, we don't even know  where we would find trustworthy numbers for that.  Next even if she had the highest  number of total sales in the 1990s that wouldn't place her top of the list, this  list reflects chart success, not sales.
Finally the fact that you think she "deserves" to be top of the list is unimportant.  Your opinion about  a particular act has no influence, indeed our opinion  about the merits of any act are also irrelevant.  The final  results are generated directly and automatically from the chart  positions, no-one, not even the administrators get to "adjust" them.
13 Apr 2009