It has been over 2 years since I introduced to you the Commensurate Sales to Popularity Concept, nicknamed CSPC, in March 2016. This revolutionary concept enables to define accurately the most successful artists ever. During this timeframe I, with the precious help of Hernan Lopez and Anthony Blanchard, studied nearly 100 artists, 1,000 albums plus countless singles and stand-alone tracks worth a gigantic 8,5 billion equivalent album sales combined!
Many of you praised the effort and the ongoing results which really makes us feel great about the website. One recurrent negative feedback though has been the difficulty to navigate the blog. One unique, cross-artist source of data was needed. While I can advise you to use the search function at the top-right, which works really well, an article grouping together the main data is definitely a positive improvement. So, here it is, please say hi to the Data Collector!
This article lists various rankings, with more added frequently, please see the summary on page 2. Top selling singles / albums / artists, per format, per year, per artist type, etc… everything is possible!
Thanks to this Data Collector it isn’t necessary anymore to repeat the comprehensive rankings at the end of each article. It will solve an issue by removing some pages and letting you reach always the same final pages for all acts – CSPC totals, the artist’s singles ranking and their records & achievements. This article will be kept updated which will also prevent us from having lists updated at different moments here and there.
Anthony will handle the updates of this thread from now on and try to answer your questions the best he can. We won’t be answering to lists requests on comments though as it will be impossible to maintain them. Instead, when you request something, and if it is relevant for many people, we will add a page to the article with the said list.
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Hey, Rolling in the Deep is not wrong? You wrote here Rolling in the Deep has around 18kk and it was the best female selling single all the time
Hi Nardo!
Those two figures are not inconsistent:
– 17.7m is the figure for digital singles (in units).
– 11.23m is the figure for all sales combined (in equivalent album sales), including digital singles, streaming, a part of the studio album…
Where is Uptown Funk on the “TRACKS RANKING – CSPC – OVERALL SALES” list on Page 5? I’m also surprised to see Rolling in the Deep rank so low considering.
Hi Geoffrey!
The ranking on page 5 refers to top singles in terms of equivalent album sales generated. Uptown Funk sold so well as a stand-alone single because it was big, but also because it was part of a weak album. It has less than 4 million EAS.
Rolling In The Deep is part of a big selling album, but it shares the merit with other big songs like Someone Like You and Set the Fire to the Rain, sales of 21 are spread over several songs.
Hi guys,
Thank you so much for the update!
Hoping for a list of who sold the most Physical singles!
Hi everyone!
A new list is now available in page 3, I hope you will enjoy it!
Hey. I have a great one for you. The Supremes. This website has a list of their US sales, which seems to match their chart performances. https://www.greasylake.org/the-circuit/index.php?/topic/116321-the-supremes-diana-ross-stevie-wonder-and-ray-charlesusa-album-sales/
Are you able to do them? I am pretty sure they have sold 100 million records or more.
Can we get CPSC summations for the Titanic and Dirty Dancing OSTs?
I want to know which position Barbra will.rank
Just a small thing – if Beyonce and Destiny’s Child are combined for a single stat for Beyonce, shouldn’t Michael Jackson’s total then become some 380M+ to include J5/Jacksons stats?
Beyonce and Destiny’s Child’s stats are not combined on the list.
I realised after I posted that, I thought #23 was Bey + DC somehow instead of GM + Wham!
Wonderful work you have done here. As a fan of raw album sales, I was wondering if you would add a page to this of top selling artists in terms of raw albums, including compilations. Would be interesting to see how this list compares to the CSPC list. Thanks.
I second that.
Hi Lance!
You’re right, this kind of list is very interesting, that’s why I’ve just added the list “Raw sales – Studio albums” in page 5!
Thank you very much for the “Raw sales – Studio albums” list! It’s very interesting, really. But I’m surprised Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill isn’t on the top 100 list ?!
Hi Daydreamer!
“Jagged Little Pill” is not in this list because Alanis has not been studied for the moment. Its sales should be between 32-35m.
Other big albums are missing for the same reason, like “Back In Black” (AC/DC), “Brothers In Arms” (Dire Strait) or “Hotel California” (The Eagles), all above 30m.
Oops my bad…:-(
Alanis Morissette has not been studied, of course. It was a momentary lapse of reason(to quote Pimk Floyd) from me.