Quiz question: best-selling recording artists

rihanna

lets go with someone like barry manilow or the mighty bee gees

Wd Donny.

You must have actually known that ie not an educated guess?

I would never have said Rihanna.

I could have had a thousand guesses and never come up with that.

I believe there was a year in the 1970's (75 I think) when Elton John accounted for 2% of all LP records sold. That is all
records of all genres and record sales were massive so while 2% doesn't sound huge it's actually an extraordinary
figure. I think he had 2 albums & a greatest hits out, plus his back catalogue.

we got asked the top 10 at a quiz just a few weeks back




i thought beyonce might have been top of the new bunch but not to be


it seems to have been some attempt to collate sales of recording artists
but i doubt it can be very accurate

i think when i checked it that there was about 280million sales for beatles and
they claim over 500 million, so quite a lot of room for them to have missed a
few sales elsewhere, rolling stones ?...outsold by rihanna, really ?

easy (easier)  i suppose to count sales in digital age

Same here, northanlite.

The top five wouldn't surprise many.  Most people with an interest in music would have got LZ and PF also but they're not what you'd call "mainstream" (not known for their singles.)

But Rihanna next on the list?  Looking at wiki, by some measures she's 6th

Donny - according to wiki:

Rihanna
Mariah Carey
Celine Dion
AC/DC
Whitney Houston
Queen
Rolling Stones
ABBA

To me the biggest surprise is the Rolling Stones not being in the top 5.

Does that include "downloads" I presume?

I genuinely could not name or hum or quote a singly lyric from any Rihanna song.
And the only Justin Bieber one I know is "baby oh" as some BBC 3 show used to take the mic.

Don't know anything by JB.

The only Rihanna song I'm familiar with is 'Umbrella' (covered by Manic Street Preachers)

oh that ella ella ella one was her? Well I know one :P

Just in case you were thinking this was straightforward....He are the rules under which the above list was put together.

Definitions
All artists included on this list, which have begun charting on official albums or singles charts have their available claimed figures supported by at least 20% in certified units. That is why Cliff Richard, Diana Ross, Scorpions, Charles Aznavour, Bing Crosby, Gloria Estefan, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Tom Jones, The Jackson 5, Dionne Warwick, the Spice Girls, Luciano Pavarotti, Dolly Parton, Ozzy Osbourne, Andrea Bocelli and others have not been included on this list. The more recent the artist, the higher the required percentage of certified units, so artists such as Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Flo Rida, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Adele, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and Nicki Minaj are expected to have their claimed figures supported by over 75% in certified units. The certified units are sourced from available online databases of local music industry associations. All certified units are converted from Gold/Platinum/Diamond certification awards based on criteria provided by certifying bodies. The certified sales percentage varies according to the first year that an artist appeared in the charts.[a]

The requirements of certified sales are designed to avoid inflated sales figures, which are frequently practiced by record companies for promotional purposes.[1][2] The claimed figures are referenced from online articles created by highly reliable sources. For clarity, the sources used, say the term "records" (singles, albums, videos) and not "albums". However, if all available sources for an artist or band say "albums", such sources are only used if the certified album units of the said artist meet the required percentage amount. This list uses claimed figures that are closest to artists' available certified units: inflated claimed figures that meet the required certified units amount but are unrealistically high, are not used.

The claimed figures are upgraded only when there is a significant progress in artists' certified sales. In other words, the available certified sales for each artist should get relatively closer to already listed claimed figure in order for higher figures to replace the listed ones.

The certified sales of the newer artists may sometimes be higher than their listed claimed figures. This is because Recording Industry Association of America and almost all other certifying bodies count streaming towards Gold and Platinum thresholds required for Digital Single Award certification.[3][4][5] For this reason, some singles and even albums get over certified by hundreds of thousands of units. The over certified figures, however, are often in millions of units for RIAA certifications, one such example is Rihanna's single "We Found Love", which is certified at nine times Platinum by the RIAA, yet during the time of the certification, it had sold 5.4 million downloads.[6][7]

The certified sales for some artists/bands who have multi-disc albums can be higher than their listed claimed figures due to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) counting each unit within set as one unit toward certification.

Garth Brooks outsold Elvis by 12 million and counting.

this is posted at 20.04, lets see how long it takes to show.

Sods law Foxy