The following list of best-selling music artists includes musical artists from the 20th century to the present with claims of 75 million or more record sales worldwide. The sales figures are calculated based on the formula detailed below.
The tables are listed with each artist's claimed sales figure(s) and their total independently certified units and are ranked in descending order by claimed sales. If two or more artists have the same claimed sales, they are then ranked by certified units. The claimed sales figure and the total of certified units (for each country) within the provided sources include sales of albums, singles, compilation-albums, music videos as well as downloads of singles and full-length albums. Sales figures, such as those from SoundScan, which are sometimes published by Billboard magazine, have not been included in the certified units column.
Definitions
The certified units for some artists/bands who have multi-disc albums can be higher than their listed claimed figures due to the RIAA counting each unit within a set as one unit toward certification. The certified units also can be inflated by the redundancy of certifications, because each of tracks downloads and streams contributed to the certifications of both of the single and the respective album. The RIAA counts 10 downloads of individual track as well as 1,500 audio/video streams as an equivalent to one unit of album, including those from singles released prior to the album release. Theoretically, if one song were streamed 1.5 billion times on YouTube, the single would receive Diamond and the whole album could be certified Platinum, thus creating a combined total of 11 million certified units without any sales. Kanye West's album The Life of Pablo achieved Platinum without selling a single copy and was only available for streaming.
Issued certifications for songs which have been recorded by multiple artists including featured artists are added to each artist's total amount of certified units, as all the artists would have played a significant part in a song. For example, "This Is What You Came For" and "Where Them Girls At" include Rihanna and Flo Rida, Nicki Minaj as featured artists respectively, so the certifications issued for these songs are added to the total amount of certified units for all involved artists. However, the certifications issued for songs that have been recorded by four or more artists are not included as the artists involved would have played minor roles, examples of such songs are Kanye West's "Monster" and/or "All Day".
Standards
- The figures of total certified units within the tables below are based on certified units of albums, singles (including digital downloads) and videos.
- Markets' order within the tables is based on Retail Value: each market generates respectively, the largest market at the top and smallest at the bottom.
- The column for certified sales includes markets, the databases of which contain certifications representing figures of 100,000 and more.
Artists by reputed sales
250 million or more records
200 million to 249 million records
120 million to 199 million records
100 million to 119 million records
80 million to 99 million records
75 million to 79 million records
See also
- List of best-selling albums
- List of best-selling albums by country
- List of best-selling singles
- List of best-selling singles by country
- Best-selling artists by nationality
- List of best-selling Belgian music artists
- List of biggest-selling British music artists
- List of estimated best-selling Italian music artists
- List of best-selling Swedish music artists
- Best-selling artists by territory
- List of best-selling music artists in Brazil
- List of best-selling music artists in Finland
- List of highest-certified music artists in Germany
- List of best-selling music artists in Japan
- List of best-selling female music artists in the United Kingdom
- List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
- Best-selling artists by genre
- List of best-selling Latin music artists
- List of best-selling boy groups
- List of best-selling girl groups
- List of best-selling female rappers
- List of best-selling gospel music artists
- IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year
Notes
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