List of best-selling music artists is a former featured list candidate. Please view the link under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. Once the objections have been addressed you may resubmit the article for featured list status.

Article milestones Date Process Result October 27, 2005 Articles for deletion No consensus November 13, 2005 Articles for deletion Kept June 4, 2006 Articles for deletion Speedily kept September 2, 2006 Peer review Reviewed June 23, 2011 Featured list candidate Not promoted January 4, 2012 Peer review Reviewed May 28, 2012 Featured list candidate Not promoted Current status: Former featured list candidate

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: Talk:List of best-selling music artists/Artists

this article as written has Eminem selling more records in the USA than anyone else. Ever. More than Michael, more than Elvis, more than the Beatles. I suspect three are plenty more errors. Xraygun (talk) 04:53, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an error – those are the total certified sales worldwide (not just in the USA). The switch from physical records to streaming has made it far easier to gain certifications than for artists from the pre-digital era. If you think Eminem's figures are not believable, you should take a look at Drake's certified sales further down the page... Richard3120 (talk) 15:32, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Korean band BTS have sold well over 100 millions units and are currently the 41st highest selling musical act ever, but they're not even included in this article.

https://chartmasters.org/best-selling-artists-of-all-time/ Snidoodle (talk) 19:52, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chartmasters is not considered a reliable source. Richard3120 (talk) 21:19, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I want to help with this topic, have references from reputable media on music business and have reliable statistics on the lists that we can trust.

• What is the criteria for sorting sales lists by claimed sales instead of certified units?

Certified units come from reputable companies that can ensure that those units were sold according to their control methods.

• Do we have a list of specific websites and media that we accept as reputable media about total artist sales?

If we have that list, why we are not adhering to that websites and are using any website as a reference?

Another questions is: Why we have outdated references to websites in the lists?
Are we allowed to delete outdated references from the page as part of editing the article?

Examples of outdated references we should prune:

• Beyoncé Claimed sales 160 million [141] "How Beyonce conquered sportswear". Irish Independent. August 15, 2016.
• Taylor Swift Claimed sales 170 million [134] "5 most popular Instagram accounts". The New Zealand Herald. September 25, 2015.

The references quoted are a decade old and pertain to media unrelated to music. Moreover, these artists have achieved significant album sales in the years spanning from the article's publication to the present year. Paladium (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only official source we've had was the IFPI list from 2006, which is nearly 20 years old

>2006 - Eurovision - Best selling artists (IFPI list)

The Beatles - 400 Million

Michael Jackson - 350 Million

Elvis Presley - 300 Million

Madonna - 250 Million

[Edit]

However this was a long time ago, and is no longer accurate. The only other thing resembling a source is Chartmasters but it's wholly unreliable.

Generally media outlets will report sales given by the record companies or piggyback off of what's listed here in Wikipedia.

Occasionally publications will provide their own figures, but again those are just estimates from a single editor. We don't know who the best selling artists are, the only thing we know for certain is that Madonna is the 4th best selling artist, and Jackson, Elvis and the Beatles sold 500 million

(Never17 (talk) 22:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi All: I am a bit confused about the claimed RIAA Sales for Madonna and what they are saying. The article cites a 86.5 number but the numbers from the organization are only at 65 million. The attached list also leaves out Garth Brooks, which according to their count is in the top grouping even without international numbers. DesertVulture (talk) 00:48, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley#CITEREFReuters2022 161.11.160.60 (talk) 16:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid any controversy regarding claimed sales, we should determine a minimum threshold for what certified sales need to be in relative to claimed sales. Originally in 2009, the threshold was "Certified sales must be within 15% of claimed sales". That's too low however, if we set a benchmark of around 50%, then whenever a certain act is certified close to half of the highest claimed figure for them, editors would add that and swap out the lowest claimed figure.

This is currently being used for the albums page, and editors will freely make adjustments to albums whenever they meet the required number of certifications. That would work very well here, and could be noted at the top of the page.

Never17 (talk) 03:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Our whole discussion has been deleted for some reason my friend, perhaps by mistake on my part or not. I have no idea. However, I do share your sentiments in making this Wikipedia's best-selling list a truthful and factual one. It was quite delightful in having a fruitful discussion with you on this matter. Victor0327 (talk) 03:47, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was unhappy with my comments so i deleted it. If we establish a benchmark of "claimed sales must be within 49-50% of certified sales" then it would make it far more easier for editors to monitor the page.

For example

800 million claimed - Certified sales of at least 395 million

750 Million claimed - Certified sales of at least 350 million

600 million claimed - Certified sales of at least 295 million

500 million claimed - Certified sales of at least 245 million

400 million claimed - Certified sales of at least 200 million

Something like this, would be far more manageable and keeps this page unbiased.

The Beatles are basically at 295 million which is roughly 49% of 600 million, it's close enough that they'd be eligible for what's been claimed. We can apply this same logic to any past musical act like MJ who has claims of 750 million or Elvis who has claims of 600 million, Madonna for example who has 400 million claimed. When their certified sales reach this then they'd be upped to that figure.

Since Thriller is at 100 million with 50 million certified, it's also reasonable that one of the three artists could be placed at 1 billion claimed sales if they were to reach 500 million certified.

Never17 (talk) 04:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. We can work on this. We can make Wikipedia's best-selling a truthful benchmark for all other websites. Victor0327 (talk) 04:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your help, it's very much appreciated :) Never17 (talk) 04:28, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are very welcome my friend. Victor0327 (talk) 04:29, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

numerous articles and sony records have CLAIMED elvis

is the highest selling solo artist

sold over a billion records

A quick google search can verify this and see that the Riaa greatly discounts elvis sales due to there rules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley#CITEREFReuters2022 161.11.160.60 (talk) 12:58, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, attempts to establish a threshold for certified sales is exactly what got this page into trouble with admins in the first place – it's original research and should not be attempted. The last discussion about possibly inflated sales for the Beatles and Elvis Presley (Talk:List of best-selling music artists/Archive 44#Beatles's 600m (inflated)) resulted in concerns about arbitrary thresholds being used – see Talk:List of best-selling music artists/Archive 45#Fundamental Article Issues and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1107#Constant disruptions by User:TheWikiholic, User:TruthGuardians and User:Salvabl at the Talk:List of best-selling music artists. The result of that was that a consensus was established as to what should be presented on this page – see Talk:List of best-selling music artists/Archive 46#RfC on listing method of best-selling music artists. As a result, you should NOT be making any changes to this consensus, and you will have to set up another RfC if you want to change anything. Richard3120 (talk) 14:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]