Billboard Hot 100: All Time Top Female Artists: Madonna #1, Rihanna #5

[dabunique]

8 hours ago, eli's_rhythm said:

And has a way less consistent music career than any of them, hence her barely making the top 20 on this list. She’s a legend of entertainment but she wasn’t a pop star blueprint as much as an influential queen.

exactly ... people proppin up Cher to be sumthin she never was

[MingYouToo]

20 hours ago, Klein said:

Single poison Taylor Swift being #6 is certainly a surprise. 

this isnt a dig but it clearly helps that taylor is so powerful she charts non singles on the singles charts even during fearless.

[Planet Mars]

4 minutes ago, dabunique said:

exactly ... people proppin up Cher to be sumthin she never was

Cher has an amazing career, she just lacked consistency. Her career is in periods. She and Sunny were a big deal in the mid 60's but fell off by the end of the decade. Then in the early 70's she had a huge resurgence as a solo artist thanks to the Sunny & Cher Power Hour which was a ratings smash (Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, Half-Breed and Dark Lady were all #1 records). Then she fell off by the mid 70's. She didn't really come into her own musically again until the late 80's.

 

Overall, many of her peers, particularly Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand and Olivia Newton-John were more consistent and overall successful in their day. Cher did manage to outlast them all though in the long run.

 

A big part of Cher's status is her association with the "comeback". She's had alot of those.

[dabunique]

6 minutes ago, Planet Mars said:

Cher has an amazing career, she just lacked consistency. Her career is in periods. She and Sunny were a big deal in the mid 60's but fell off by the end of the decade. Then in the early 70's she had a huge resurgence as a solo artist thanks to the Sunny & Cher Power Hour which was a ratings smash (Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, Half-Breed and Dark Lady were all #1 records). Then she fell off by the mid 70's. She didn't really come into her own musically again until the late 80's.

 

Overall, many of her peers, particularly Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand and Olivia Newton-John were more consistent and overall successful in their day. Cher did manage to outlast them all though in the long run.

 

A big part of Cher's status is her association with the "comeback". She's had alot of those.

a ton of those indeed

 

late 70's disco

late 80's rock and pop

late 90's dance

 

also she benefitted from sumthin bigger legends like Madonna, Janet, & Mariah didn't - no ageism during those comebacks

[banterfly]

Could the Christmas song from the Christmas lady singlehandedly change the ranking eventually?

[Rocket]

2 hours ago, banterfly said:

Could the Christmas song from the Christmas lady singlehandedly change the ranking eventually?

 

[naval23]

Talent ALWAYS wins 

[Jude]

Ariana and Gaga and the top 20. Both are legends.

[Sscorpionn]

21 hours ago, swissman said:

This is an interesting question, as she was not showing any signs of flopping prior to that. 33 consecutive Top 40 hits... NO FLOP (since her success) until 2004 says a lot about her popularity and the consistency with which she was America's pop sweetheart.

 

It's likely her success would have declined into the late 2000s like the rest of the Top 4, but I do think she's far more suited than Mariah to have transitioned into the dance pop era. If she had the right material she could easily have released a big dance album in 2011 or so and gotten more hits. I'm not sure how many hits/to what degree of success is needed for her to step above Mariah in this ranking but it's not out of the question, I don't think.

 

 

Yeah she was the only one out of her peers that didn’t flop until 2004 so she definitely would’ve had at least 3-4 hit eras before ageism eventually caught up with her in the early 2010s as you said.  I think she could’ve definitely snatched the #2 position when all is said and done at the rate she was going. The way she could’ve easily been #1 had she actually released as often as Mariah and Madonna did in the 90s 

[GoodGuyGoneGhetto]

On 3/2/2023 at 2:44 PM, Planet Mars said:

Cher did manage to outlast them all though in the long run.

In what dimension has Cher outlasted Barbra Streisand?

 

 

Culturally, Cher is perhaps a more ‘prominent’ name today because she is more present on social media and in the general tabloid press due to her current associations but Streisand demolishes her in practically every commercial area there is.
 

“Believe” giving Cher the edge in monthly listeners and daily streams won’t help when she releases an album, and a Streisand release will always do infinitely better at any moment in time.

 

Now, Diana Ross hasn’t been a commercial force since the early 1990’s and Olivia Newton-John’s career died in the late 1980’s so it’s expected for them. (RIP Olivia). 
 

Edited March 3, 2023 by GoodGuyGoneGhetto

[GoodGuyGoneGhetto]

On 3/2/2023 at 2:36 PM, dabunique said:

exactly ... people proppin up Cher to be sumthin she never was

Right.

 

The historical revisionism over Cher’s career. 
 

 

She peaked overall, musically, in the early to middle 1970’s and had two, individual, one era, comebacks in the late 1980’s and late 1990’s, but she was never a consistent commercial/chart force. She’s an absolute entertainment legend but certainly had the weakest “musical” career of all her peers. 
 

What I will say is that Cher was one of the very few female Pop stars to transition smoothly into Hollywood and Films however (two acting Oscar nominations + a Best Actress win is amazing) alongside Barbra Streisand, and now Lady Gaga is doing it today, and that is a great credit to her. 

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by GoodGuyGoneGhetto

[Planet Mars]

19 minutes ago, GoodGuyGoneGhetto said:

In what dimension has Cher outlasted Barbra Streisand?

 

 

Culturally, Cher is perhaps a more ‘prominent’ name today because she is more present on social media and in the general tabloid press due to her current associations but Streisand demolishes her in practically every commercial area there is.
 

“Believe” giving Cher the edge in monthly listeners and daily streams won’t help when she releases an album, and a Streisand release will always do infinitely better at any moment in time.

 

Now, Diana Ross hasn’t been a commercial force since the early 1990’s and Olivia Newton-John’s career died in the late 1980’s so it’s expected for them. (RIP Olivia). 
 

Diana's last album actually went Top 10 in the UK. She also demolished the ratings for the legends slot in Glastonbury history. 

 

Look into Diana, with albums like The Force Behind The Power and Take Me Higher she was still a force in Europe and the UK especially into the 90's, her last solo top 10 in the UK was in 1999 lol.

 

Before Madonna she was the most successful woman artist on the UK singles charts. She fell off in the states in the mid-80's, but she was still a viable commercial force internationally. Seriously

[besaid]

Madonna needs to hop on some popular songs and grab points to keep the other M away from the top spot until Taylor takes over and keeps the other M permanently away from #1. 

[besaid]

On 3/2/2023 at 9:22 AM, TheRealGâteau said:

Oh Jesus, so much for "pop royalty". 

Gaga top 20 and way ahead of Britney 

[Lille]

I had no idea Olivia Newton-John was so massive in the US.

[RobynYoBank]

On 3/2/2023 at 8:43 AM, MingYouToo said:

this isnt a dig but it clearly helps that taylor is so powerful she charts non singles on the singles charts even during fearless.

Those one-offs don't really generate that many points in the grand scheme of things.

[dabunique]

4 hours ago, Lille said:

I had no idea Olivia Newton-John was so massive in the US.

Oh yes. Da female artist of da seventies and da biggest hit of da 80’s enough for her to be huge 

[umich]

On 3/1/2023 at 12:36 PM, Timber said:

Wonder if Beyonce can make it to the top 10. My dream is that she continues the Renaissance and succesfully releases America Has a Problem, then Heated, then then Alien Superstar, then Summer Renaissance.

I need this to happen  is it going viral?

[blown away]

All these icons 

And of the course the queen of pop at #1 

[Timber]

2 hours ago, umich said:

I need this to happen  is it going viral?

Yeah on tik tok, but she needs to capitalize on it.

[brianc33710]

I hope Mariah Carey(-Nuñez) will overtake Madonna, sooner than later. 

[Hot Volcano]

On 3/3/2023 at 10:19 PM, GoodGuyGoneGhetto said:

Right.

 

The historical revisionism over Cher’s career. 
 

 

She peaked overall, musically, in the early to middle 1970’s and had two, individual, one era, comebacks in the late 1980’s and late 1990’s, but she was never a consistent commercial/chart force. She’s an absolute entertainment legend but certainly had the weakest “musical” career of all her peers. 
 

What I will say is that Cher was one of the very few female Pop stars to transition smoothly into Hollywood and Films however (two acting Oscar nominations + a Best Actress win is amazing) alongside Barbra Streisand, and now Lady Gaga is doing it today, and that is a great credit to her. 

 

Yea but its still impressive how she managed to have so many comebacks with so many flop eras in between. As we know throughout history, other females were either dropped or quit the industry.

 

It'd quite hard to say which era was Cher's biggest era.

 

 

Was it her duet era with her husband Bono in the 60s? She was THE star back then, having multiple TV shows aswell.

Or was it the early  70s when she had three #1s on the Hot 100 in three different eras? Or was it Heart of Stone, her era in the 80s, reaching 3x Platinum in the US, having four hits? Or was it Believe, her best selling album from the late 90s?

 

As you can see, she kept going strong in all four decades, and in between these eras she managed to have hits in the US and outside of it.

 

Even without her success in the acting field, she certainly had one of the most impressive careers of all time.

 

Her latest album in 2018 - 58 years into her career 

 

Quote

The album was a critical and commercial success, debuting at number three on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 153,000 album-equivalent units, becoming Cher's highest debut sales week for an album in the United States. The album also peaked within the top ten of charts in another 18 countries, with nine of those being top five entries

 

Why would anyone come after Cher?!

 

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Hot Volcano

[Pleighboy]

This list was NOT created by Billboard. It’s from some random Twitter page.  Funny how Beyonce is dubbed the queen who causes commotion, but is never high on any lists when it comes to stats. She is the most decorated awards wise, but irrelevant when it comes to best/greatest lists based on stats. Rihanna out does her. To quote her husband: Men lie, women lie, but that stats don’t lie. 

[Lovett]

2 hours ago, Pleighboy said:

This list was NOT created by Billboard. It’s from some random Twitter page.  Funny how Beyonce is dubbed the queen who causes commotion, but is never high on any lists when it comes to stats. She is the most decorated awards wise, but irrelevant when it comes to best/greatest lists based on stats. Rihanna out does her. To quote her husband: Men lie, women lie, but that stats don’t lie. 

The way you're running from thread to thread, randomly posting lies.  Girl, get a grip. Beyoncé has sold over 300M records in her career. This nonsense take on her stats is embarrassing.