My energy and stamina are down, but I’m trying…and I’m going to indulge myself with a post that has little or no nexus to ethics. Based on album sales, these are the 50 best-selling music acts of all time.If you can’t guess #1, you are dangerously estranged from history and popular culture, which pings my “life competence” alarm. On other hand, if you guess #2, kudos.
Elvis is third.
Ethics Alarms 
Wow, I did not see #2 coming.
Neither did I. And I’m not a huge country fan, but I’m surprised Johnny Cash wasn’t on the list.
Hah! I missed #1 by a mile (I guessed the artist/group that was ranked #16), but I nailed #2! So I’m both culturally incompetent and kind of smart.
Oh, I think missing #1 but guessing #2 is at least a wash. (To be fair, #16 has never made any pretenses of being primarily a recording band.)
How to lie with statistics…. Surely, #2 did not factor in repeat purchases
Does that also include publishing credits? If so, Brooks does not surprise me considering that he writes tons of songs for ohter artists. I am not country music fan but I watched him work a crowd at Notre Dame and, wow, that guy puts on a show.
jvb
Ist you a Domer, John?
Why isn’t Rush on the list? They have sold over 40 million records:
https://canadianmusichalloffame.ca/inductee/rush/
jvb
The list is only based on units sold in the US… if you trust their description. Since they don’t actually give source data just point you to the RIAA but I don’t have the energy to dig in, I’m accepting it, but I always have doubts.
Then you have to deal with artists who release some albums under different names, and other hard to parse data. How do you count songs sold individually on streaming platfroms? 1/N albums where N is the number of songs on the album?
“How do you count songs sold individually on streaming platfroms?“
I don’t think they did, which is why I think you could probably dip this list in carbonite, because it’s not going to change much. Taylor Swift, Drake and Beyonce are the only artists on the list to be really active in the last 10 years, they’re probably not gonna move up the list any, and future artists will all be working for streaming rights and shows.
What about Slim Whitman? I remember TV commercials in the early 80’s that said he sold more records than Elvis!
Did he play the pan flute? Ha ha I know better but I can’t remember the guy who was hawking his pan flute repertoire.
Proud to see my homies at #13. Was surprised Michael Jackson was not higher.
1 was obvious. I guessed Swift for 2, but then was surprised to see the heading saying she didn’t even crack top twenty.
Spoilers -obviously, but I’m so low on the comment list, I think my comment won’t effect anybody:
I had Beatles #1 – mostly because I know when Jack is speaking tongue in cheek. Any regular commenter here who didn’t see that coming isn’t just culturally unaware, but didn’t have their Jack-radar functioning.
For #2 – I settled on Michael Jackson but was actually considering Garth Brooks. Actually surprised that Michael wasn’t higher – but then again, Michael gave it half a career and checked out early. Garth has given a lifetime and continues on.
Then I wanted to know where a band I would consider myself a fan would fall on the list – Metallica showed up at #18 and Queen at #37. Yes, I know and listen to everyone in between, but these would be my personal top acts that even made the list. Of course, my favorite artists might not even make the Top 1,000. Just goes to show – there’s an artist / act for everybody and what is culturally important for one person may not be for another. It’s the difference between being famous and entering the cultural zeitgiest.
While this is a nice listing for those of us who know and likely owned records (or still own a turntable as I do), it is so hard to compare “things” of different eras. Even the same thing across countries as we see in the comments.
Streams are it for the foreseeable future. Go Drake, The Weeknd, Bieber and of course, Taylor! Dead guys and gals don’t rate.
Lucky for some, Taylor releases a new album soon. Maybe even on vinyl! I wouldn’t care though.