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Just a suggestion: let at least an update last for one year before appearing on this list again otherwise long overdue artists will never have a chance, while some will be eligible for update every couple of months with not much more to add apart from streaming numbers which are already counted daily
It's weird That Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish had only 3 votes for update with such a big fanbase .
Hi!
With Nicki and Diana posted, Def Leppard win this new round of voting. It was a close call with EXO and Jay-Z!
Indian singers sales can't be easily verified. But i assure u, they might be among best selling artists of all time. The way ar rahman uses to sell cassets was crazy. But there is no official source to verify thnx to lack of music organisation here
Take lata mangeshkar. She has sang about 30000 plus songs. In actual terms, she is best selling female artist of all time but western bias and the way revenue model is used to undermine regional artists.
With 2000s acts getting in the upper region of the charts now they are pushing the limit for the top 50 quite high, 111m as we speak, 113m when we consider that Neil Diamond will occupy one more spot there.
It's a hard call for the others, the 'big 4' behind (Kenny Rogers, Iglesias, Willie Nelson, Chicago) that I had at 85m-ish a decade ago on pure album sales are mostly weak on remaining metrics, but we never know especially with these extensive catalogs. Kenny Rogers is a monster seller in some unexpected places like Eastern Europe or Latin America, then surely these artists have exclusive albums that I overlooked back then because they couldn't chart and there was no discogs. Neil Diamond is the last safe bet for the top 50, but most likely at least 1 or 2 of these would sneak in.
Then there are wild cards for artists I never studied like Luis Miguel, or local legends from Russia, Japan or India. Unlikely but we never when until digging the numbers.
Hi Taylorfan!
I've enough material to accurately gauge sales of Indian artists actually. These would be very interesting, and I'm sure some totals would surprise us. We shouldn't go crazy and claim that Lata outsold Madonna though, that's a bold affirmation.
The Indian market exploded at the very end of the 80s, before that albums weren't selling in the millions so that already reduces the impact of the large majority of Lata's career. Then, their albums aren't formatted the same way as western albums, there are very few 'artist' albums. They are composers albums, almost exclusively soundtracks, with 4-8 singers from one label. Technically, many huge Indian artists never issued an album, they have been part of many instead. We would need to see how to account for these in a CSPC model, most likely dividing totals based on streams coming from tracks off each artists. It would be hard to build totals in the hundreds of millions with this context.
How many among the missing acts you think might join the 100 million club?
Hi Johnny!
To speak only about western artists, we have:
- Neil Diamond way over anyone else missing, 150m+ contender
- Kenny Rogers, Julio Iglesias, Willie Nelson, Chicago, Carpenters which are supposed to be in the 100-120m range
- some kind of a gap until 80m-ish sellers like Lionel Richie, Kiss, Kenny G, George Strait, Bocelli, Linda Ronstadt, Gloria Estefan, The Who, Herb Alpert, Marvin Gaye, and quite a lot more.
Then there are wild cards, mainly local artists and pre-50s stars. Luis Miguel, Lata Mangeshkar, B'z, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, etc.
Also, with boxes counted individually and such, there can be some positive surprises. Iron Maiden or Depeche Mode weren't supposed to be so high for example.
Thanks for the tips. I'll adjust my votes accordingly as I'm kinda obsessed with completing the 100 million club 😃
What would the team say to adding TWICE and SEVENTEEN to the voting lineup? SEVENTEEN in particular has had a monster selling year and their streams are good for a Kpop group. TWICE while they have less sales, have more streams and digital sales in Korea. I'd be very intrigued to see how both of them stack up.
I am no fan of them but they sold 10 million physical albums this year. Definitely they deserve update and twice might be around 25 to 30 million eas.
Another question: How would we be able to request article updates for artists like Imagine Dragons, Gaga, Maroon 5, and Bruno Mars?
All of them have articles that are over 3 years old, but they are still doing well in the streaming era (especially ID and Bruno). But are their physical sales negligible enough to impact the CSPC scores, since the streaming model is automated?
