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Best-selling artists of all time


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Posted
10 minutes ago, Arrows said:

There’s never gonna be a perfect way to compare all-time artist sales. Say what you want, but Chartmasters is the closest thing we have. Also, it’s just fun to discuss and not that deep.

Right, let us have some enjoyment, no one is dying over this lol

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Posted
12 hours ago, narid said:

Queen of Pop :clap3:

What’s with the thumbs down @Rogue? Do facts upset you? :lmao:

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Posted

Taylor had 139 Million on the first day of 2023 and 187 on the last day of the year. So she has grown 48 Million album units according to the Chartmaster‘s calculation. This year will be similar big so she sits than at 230+ Million units at the age of 35.

Posted
13 hours ago, Samsara said:

Rihanna and Beyoncé

Interesting how these women were singled out. I wonder if they have anything in common/there could be a particular reason for this.

 

OT: This thread is a joke. Singles being too inaccurate but apparently streams are more credible :dies:

Posted

I honeslty feel like some of these are inflated as heck. 

Posted
13 hours ago, Sheep said:

This is why comparing album sales cross-era is stupid. Music consumption is at its all time peak but only one artist from this era is on the list. Equivalent units are a great idea when comparing artists from the SAME era but falls apart when you realize the only way to consume The Beatles was by buying their multiple times a year album releases vs Beyonce who puts out an album every few years and at every point in her solo career has had other ways to listen that were more popular than going out and buying an album.:rip: 

There is only one artist from the 21sr century on this list but somehow music consumption is at an all time high? Make it make sense. 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, UnusualBoy said:

I honeslty feel like some of these are inflated as heck. 

well..yes. it’s a reason why most of the artists on the list are pre-1990s. it’s because we didn’t have a reliable way to track sales prior to Nielsen which was created in 1991. Before that, we really only have Billboard (which is relative) and RIAA (which is about milestones more than pure numbers and also can change its thresholds based on the music environment. Both which are US based and focused.
 

It’s why there is always an argument whenever Mariah Carey was introduced as “the best selling female artist” because according to Nielsen she is. However, Madonna’s peak is not properly reported according to Nielsen (our most reliable metric really but it’s only US sales). According to press releases prior, she was the best selling female artist.
 

Global sales are also pretty hard to track pre-00s. Only record labels or at least their estimates could tell us. It’s why Thriller can be claimed to sell like 100M albums by various sources globally, but realistically we’ve settled to around 60-70M. It’s also interesting to note that a lot of countries did not have music charts like Billboard before. So even a song having the most #1s is arbitrary. 
 

Arguing about this stuff is obsolete. We all have a general idea of the best selling artists because of their reputation and longevity.

Edited by FSXP
Posted
2 hours ago, lonnie said:

Singles being too inaccurate but apparently streams are more credible

They are not claiming that single sales lack credibility in the same way, but rather that comparing a single sale to an album sale is deceptive. Many charts employ a method where a single sale is divided by 10 to calculate an album unit. Given that streams are commonly divided by anything from 1500 to 2500 to determine an album unit, it seems reasonable to apply a similar approach to single sales. Anybody would agree that is ridiculous to say someone sold 50 billion records, if they have 50 billion streams, so I don't know why some people keep referring to single sales like they're the same as album sales. 

Posted

Chartmasters? A big mj stan? It's not reliable. I skipped him

BrandNewBrandon
Posted (edited)

So this list counts album sales from artists pre-streaming but then for Taylor Swift it counts how many times her songs have been streamed into her album sales. She hasn't sold 190 million albums so if those 190 million is with her SPS which consists of streams of her singles it's incredibly moronic.

Edited by BrandNewBrandon
BrandNewBrandon
Posted
8 hours ago, Taylena said:

They are not claiming that single sales lack credibility in the same way, but rather that comparing a single sale to an album sale is deceptive. Many charts employ a method where a single sale is divided by 10 to calculate an album unit. Given that streams are commonly divided by anything from 1500 to 2500 to determine an album unit, it seems reasonable to apply a similar approach to single sales. Anybody would agree that is ridiculous to say someone sold 50 billion records, if they have 50 billion streams, so I don't know why some people keep referring to single sales like they're the same as album sales. 

Why is it wrong to count someone's single sales into their overall records sold but okay to count how many times someone streamed Blank Space or Cruel Summer (without purchasing or even listening to the parent albums at all) into Taylor's overall records sold? 

 

Like, it's completely unfair. 

Posted

Eminem coming for Madonna oh wow

Posted
6 minutes ago, BrandNewBrandon said:

So this list counts album sales from artists pre-streaming but then for Taylor Swift it counts how many times her songs have been streamed into her album sales. She hasn't sold 190 million albums so if those 190 million is with her SPS which consists of streams of her singles it's incredibly moronic.

It’s album equivalent units for every artist on the list.

BrandNewBrandon
Posted
1 minute ago, Cruel Summer said:

It’s album equivalent units for every artist on the list.

Most of these peaked when there was no streaming. 

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Posted
Just now, BrandNewBrandon said:

Most of these peaked when there was no streaming. 

Correct. Their singles sales and the streams they do have are still counted. All the ways that music generates revenue are counted for all the artists there. It’s as fair as any method of making an all-time list is realistically ever going to be.

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Posted
9 hours ago, Taylena said:

They are not claiming that single sales lack credibility in the same way, but rather that comparing a single sale to an album sale is deceptive. Many charts employ a method where a single sale is divided by 10 to calculate an album unit. Given that streams are commonly divided by anything from 1500 to 2500 to determine an album unit, it seems reasonable to apply a similar approach to single sales. Anybody would agree that is ridiculous to say someone sold 50 billion records, if they have 50 billion streams, so I don't know why some people keep referring to single sales like they're the same as album sales. 

Singles are sold, streams are not. The whole comparison with streams tries to find an equivalent, it's not that streams actually mean a sale. Record sales (which is what swifties disagree with) is a measure of showing everything that an artist sold and was in use before any of our faves were even born. SPS/EAS is a measure that was born to gauge equivalent units since sales are mostly dead at this point. It's laughable to target some women as the OP does for one methodology and then post Chartmasters as a source in the same breath.

Posted

Celine being the second female singer on the list without any major release since the 00's is kinda impressive

Posted

So, Mariah gained 0 units from Xmas 2023? Her total was at 179 before December. The woman gained 500 million streams in December. 

Posted
7 hours ago, MP3 said:

Celine being the second female singer on the list without any major release since the 00's is kinda impressive

?

 

2012 - Sans Attendre

2013 - Loved Me Back to Life

2016 - Encore Un Soir

2019 - Courage

2023 - Love Again

 

Posted

Mariah's albums certifications: 111,379,500

Mariah's singles certifications: 103,066,000

 

Albums + singles certifications: 214,445,500 recordings certified

 

ONLY Madonna, Mariah and Whitney have crossed those thresholds. (among female artists). 

 

 

 

 

Posted
1 hour ago, stevyy said:

?

 

2012 - Sans Attendre

2013 - Loved Me Back to Life

2016 - Encore Un Soir

2019 - Courage

2023 - Love Again

 

I meant that Celine managed to put herself in the second place amongst best selling female artist mostly with her albums from 1990 to 2008 while most of the others artists are there with careers spending multiple decades. Celine sales before 1990 were only French albums sold in Quebec but after that it literally exploded from Unison til Taking Chances. It's fascinating how in such a short period of time she put herself in the second place

Posted

crazy that Taylor is coming to dethrone Madonna later this year + possibly MJ by 2030 :rip:

Posted

yeah sure and the beatles by 2031

madonna-madonna-interview.gif

Posted

Tbh, i wish some legit institution would support and fund Chartmasters, but no one wants to. Until then, it's just really a fan made blog site.

Posted

They've been around for yrs and yet not one industry insider or even tabloid anywhere in the world uses it. Sad.

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