Since the summer of 2016 dozens of artists have been analyzed using the CSPC method.
Some of them destroyed the competition during a short time thanks to only one album, while others have proven longevity through the years.
In the end though, who has really dominated each of the last six decades? Is it the former or the latter kind of artists? You will find the answer in the list below!
The figures written here are not the equivalent album sales during the decade, but the equivalent album sales up to date from all the material released during that decade by an artist.
Please keep in mind some artists with strong results in several decades haven’t been studied so far, e.g. Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys or Nicki Minaj. All figures reflect the value as collected at the time of the artist’s respective articles. The list of studied artists is available here.
A lot of lists like this one are available inside the Data Collector, so feel free to read them to gauge how your favorite artist charts within it!
Most successful artists by decade (as of May 2021)
1950s
1. Elvis Presley – 127,149,000
1960s
1. The Beatles – 376,924,000
2. Elvis Presley – 131,658,000
3. The Rolling Stones – 110,801,000
4. Simon & Garfunkel – 89,796,000
5. Bob Dylan – 72,934,000
6. The Doors – 72,455,000
7. Led Zeppelin – 57,592,000
8. Creedence Clearwater Revival – 52,246,000
9. Barbra Streisand – 31,384,000
10. Johnny Hallyday – 29,793,000
11. Bee Gees – 27,358,000
12. Pink Floyd – 21,773,000
13. Stevie Wonder – 17,580,000
14. Santana – 16,834,000
15. Cher – 14,854,000
16. Cher – 14,854,000
17. Fleetwood Mac – 14,807,000
18. Jackson 5 & The Jacksons – 13,281,000
19. Buffalo Springfield – 11,061,000
20. David Bowie – 8,481,000
1970s
1. Pink Floyd – 171,695,000
2. Eagles – 163,422,000
3. Led Zeppelin – 138,828,000
4. Queen – 129,623,000
5. Elton John – 129,344,000
6. Abba – 125,972,000
7. Rod Stewart & Faces – 108,674,000
8. Bob Marley – 107,997,000
9. Bee Gees – 104,914,000
10. Fleetwood Mac – 95,398,000
11. Santana – 75,660,000
12. The Rolling Stones – 73,368,000
13. Billy Joel – 72,103,000
14. David Bowie – 68,914,000
15. AC/DC – 67,824,000
16. Paul McCartney – 65,482,000
17. Stevie Wonder – 63,036,000
18. Black Sabbath – 62,946,000
19. Aerosmith – 60,765,000
20. Supertramp – 58,979,000
21. Barbra Streisand – 57,359,000
22. Elvis Presley – 54,499,000
23. Neil Young – 53,662,000
24. John Lennon – 47,679,000
25. Michael Jackson – 46,469,000
1980s
1. Michael Jackson – 181,681,000
2. Madonna – 131,613,000
3. Phil Collins – 119,105,000
4. U2 – 111,861,000
5. Queen – 107,789,000
6. Prince – 93,149,000
7. AC/DC – 84,857,000
8. Bruce Springsteen – 82,382,000
9. Bon Jovi – 79,146,000
10. George Michael & Wham! – 69,617,000
11. Dire Straits – 67,720,000
12. The Police – 64,978,000
13. Metallica – 64,948,000
14. Billy Joel – 62,280,000
15. Journey – 61,102,000
16. Van Halen – 60,076,000
17. Guns N’ Roses – 58,419,000
18. Whitney Houston – 56,494,000
19. Sade – 46,991,000
20. Bryan Adams – 46,495,000
21. Barbra Streisand – 43,186,000
22. The Rolling Stones – 37,912,000
23. Elton John – 37,330,000
24. Stevie Wonder – 36,782,000
25. David Bowie – 35,564,000
1990s
1. Céline Dion – 160,090,000
2. Mariah Carey – 144,462,000
3. Garth Brooks – 108,309,000
4. Whitney Houston – 88,381,000
5. Nirvana – 80,179,000
6. Michael Jackson – 78,755,000
7. Metallica – 75,261,000
8. Backstreet Boys – 74,905,000
9. Madonna – 66,562,000
10. Shania Twain – 65,863,000
11. Guns N’ Roses – 56,524,000
12. Red Hot Chili Peppers – 55,552,000
13. Alanis Morissette – 50,237,000
14. Oasis – 47,347,000
15. Spice Girls – 47,339,000
16. Green Day – 44,616,000
17. The Cranberries – 42,810,000
18. U2 – 42,021,000
19. TLC – 38,447,000
20. Sting – 37,855,000
21. Bon Jovi – 37,185,000
22. Bryan Adams – 36,037,000
23. Aerosmith – 35,248,000
24. Santana – 33,069,000
25. Enya – 31,849,000
2000s
1. Eminem – 123,624,000
2. Linkin Park – 67,608,000
3. Coldplay – 66,326,000
4. Britney Spears – 62,135,000
5. Beyoncé – 50,503,000
6. P!nk – 48,326,000
7. Norah Jones – 48,153,000
8. Robbie Williams – 47,775,000
9. Nickelback – 46,375,000
10. Black Eyed Peas – 45,631,000
11. Alicia Keys – 43,142,000
12. Michael Bublé – 42,346,000
13. Ayumi Hamasaki – 40,263,000
14. U2 – 38,338,000
15. Madonna – 37,931,000
16. Avril Lavigne – 36,931,000
17. Rihanna – 36,818,000
18. Lady Gaga – 35,949,000
19. Usher – 34,775,000
20. Shakira – 34,227,000
21. Justin Timberlake – 33,379,000
22. Green Day – 32,386,000
23. Taylor Swift – 29,445,000
24. Miley Cyrus – 28,856,000
25. Evanescence – 28,339,000
2010s
1. Adele – 73,356,000
2. Justin Bieber – 66,066,000
3. Taylor Swift – 64,282,000
4. Ed Sheeran – 61,066,000
5. Rihanna – 55,886,000
6. BTS – 55,749,000
7. Bruno Mars – 52,339,000
8. Drake – 52,256,000
9. One Direction – 44,466,000
10. Eminem – 38,691,000
11. Maroon 5 – 37,803,000
12. Katy Perry – 35,012,000
13. The Weeknd – 34,942,000
14. Ariana Grande – 33,108,000
15. Lady Gaga – 30,122,000
16. Post Malone – 28,844,000
17. Coldplay – 28,500,000
18. Kendrick Lamar – 26,660,000
19. Imagine Dragons – 24,676,000
20. Selena Gomez – 23,749,000
21. Beyoncé – 23,194,000
22. Michael Bublé – 19,821,000
23. Shawn Mendes – 17,365,000
24. Billie Eilish – 16,709,000
25. Sam Smith – 16,045,000
2020s
1. BTS – 16,701,000
2. Taylor Swift – 7,851,000
3. The Weeknd – 4,070,000
4. Justin Bieber – 3,462,000
5. Dua Lipa – 2,884,000
6. Lady Gaga – 2,249,000
7. Selena Gomez – 1,958,000
Hey MJD , can u update this list please cause BTS have now over 35m physical sales alone and after Dynamite and Butter thier digital sales have increased too. In the best selling artist of all time thier cspc is 74m ,so I guess they might be on top in the 2010s decade now along with 2020s. Thanks
why Britney didn’t appear in the 90s, when the Baby One More Time era sold +32 million as you announced?
Don’t count 2020s, it’s shite!!
Hey MJD
Once the automatic updates are done, would you consider updating this section?
I feel like there’ll be a lot of interesting changes.
Drake number one, seeing how Ed, Taylor, Bruno and Rihanna perform would also be interesting. I think all are gaining on Adele.
BTS might also be closing in on Rihanna.
It would be the first time all the big 2010s artists were all updated on the same date so it would definitely be interesting.
Hey MJD
Do you think now that most of the automatic updates are done it might be possible to update this?
Or would it be better to wait for more legacy artists first to update the other decades?
Well, we added 134 new albums (those between 1m to 2m CSPC) to the automatic updates today so we aren’t completely done 🙂 And yes! There are several all-time that I’ll update once everything makes it possible. This artist list may be tricky as all songs haven’t come out at the same time as the album, and because of the absence of orphan songs, I’ll see what can be done. In the meantime the all-time albums’ list has been updated smoothly yesterday, the load time went from 9 seconds to 1.7 seconds! Also the bug leading to albums randomly missing… Read more »
Where does Britney stand in the 2010s? She has been getting huge streams this past year, and re-released her album Glory, as well as Vinyl versions.
Just by comparing the 1960s-70s…lists with the 2010s-2020s up until now, you can see that the world is going through a cultural crisis with just a few exceptions…
i read the list first and the first thing that stood out was no Beach Boys on the list, then i read where they hadn’t been studied by this group
BTS must be over 20 million now and gonna end year at 25 million plus. At same time , their 2010s catalog jumped to 55 million from 43 million in 20 months. They can enter top 5 for 2010s decade, but top 5 has added too. Anyways still amazing for a group who got big in 2016 and world domination started in 2017 and 2018 was the one where they fully came in power.
This is not updated right!?
Some of the artists are outdated mostly the older gen ones because they don’t sell much anymore
WHERES SHAUN MENDAZ
if you referring to shawn mendes:
https://chartmasters.org/2019/10/shawn-mendes-albums-and-songs-sales/
his sales as of october 2019