Top 100 Best-Selling Music Artists

[Mayayu]

woo~hoo! Ayu will conquer the world \('_')/
I'm surprised that there are so many recent artists here, with present day illegal download and everything it's a bigger achievement to sell over 50 millions

i was looking for Madonna, MJ and BEP but they probably sold more than 50 million...

[Andrenekoi]

^Michael sold either 750, 350 or 300 million,
Madonna sold 200 million
BEP sold +- 35million and they are not on the list at all =)

[LiveInBlue]

Originally Posted by Nackar_91

Such a shame people in Japan adore Oricon XD. I'm not saying it's not handy, but they tend to consider it to be the conclusive factor in an album's succes.
Although I DO believe avex, and all record companies, exaggerate numbers for promotion, I do think that they're somewhere in between.

Plus people shouldn't underestimate the strength of the Asian market. Korea and Singapore, I think, are one of the few countries that publish actual numbers, and those aren't very high, but there are a lot of other countries and even though individual numbers may be low, combined they can match the Japan numbers.

Take Lady Gaga. She recently said she has sold over 5 million in Asia. Probably a bit exaggerated, but when you considered probably only one of those millions is from Japan ...

Did Gaga surpass the million sales in Japan? O_o

[..:Hot:Like:Wow:..]

I highly doubt the accuracy of this list especially when not all of them are worldwide sales and I believe some of them are just total album sales not both album and singles.

[auss246]

I haven't seen this before.. it's nice to see that she's internationally recognised for her great work.

[tetsuo69]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

^Michael sold either 750, 350 or 300 million,
Madonna sold 200 million
BEP sold +- 35million and they are not on the list at all =)

thats why i have my doubts with western artist, one day its 300 the next 400 the next 700 XD whats next a billion its as if they get their info from wikipedia where just anyone can edit the numbers

Originally Posted by LiveInBlue

Did Gaga surpass the million sales in Japan? O_o

dont think so, i think it was more of an example ,seeing as how japan the second biggest music market in the world, most of her asian sales would have to come from japan.

[Nackar_91]

Originally Posted by tetsuo69

dont think so, it think it was more of an example ,seeing as how japan the second biggest music market in the world, most of her asian sales would have to come from japan.

Yeah, that was the point. ^^

According to Oricon all of her albums combined (The Fame, The Fame Monster, Remixes) sold approximately 600.000 copies, but that's just Oricon.

[Mirrorcle Monster]

Oricon is corrupted jaja!!!

[erika_ayu]

WOW OMEDETTO!!~
what does that 174 means anyway??

[teamMessAge]

This is just a list of artists who have sold 50-74 million albums and singles.

There are different lists on the same website, and the more globally-known artists everyone else has mentioned are in different (higher-up) sections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._music_artists

[ayumi_Queen]

AWESOME

[jimex289]

Should post the 75 million and beyond list so as to not forget B'z.

[IYFreak]

Originally Posted by kotora

the source is 2008, and after 2 years, I believe it has reached 60 million.

Uhhhh Idk if Ayu has sold 10 million more, in the last 2 years o_O

[gothicayu]

thanks for this explaination i was looking for madonna too . ayu and hikki number are impressive

[hpg23]

Originally Posted by Nackar_91

Yeah, that was the point. ^^

According to Oricon all of her albums combined (The Fame, The Fame Monster, Remixes) sold approximately 600.000 copies, but that's just Oricon.

And that is an excellent number for a western artist.

South Korea is also a economic powerhouse in terms of CD sales, so nowadays Asian sales are mostly equal to Japan and Korea + China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The rest of Asia makes a smaller percentage.
The Asian market is difficult to conquer from outside (not so hard if you are a Japanese/Korean/Chinese artist) but when you do it, the revenue is huge.

[Yumsushi]

Originally Posted by hpg23

South Korea is also a economic powerhouse in terms of CD sales, so nowadays

I was always under the impression that piracy was very high in S. Korea since the best selling album of the year sells about 300K copies.

[gothicayu]

Originally Posted by Yumsushi

I was always under the impression that piracy was very high in S. Korea since the best selling album of the year sells about 300K copies.

people tend to forgot the artist and the music change and sometimes when artist dont sell much might also be because music wise it doesnt sounds as good or interresting . look at gaga she is a great exemple she sold millions of copy even though we have mp3 and people dl illegally her tour was so packed tickets sold out in a few hours for the staple center ....

i think that if artists makes good music it doesnt stop people from buying even though illegal dl are strong they often promote the artist .

i just think korean music in south korea those past few years isnt as good as before , also i notice compare to japan artist dont have much extra " gifts " its always a poster that come with the first press nothing extraordinary . i think if korean company start copying avex and do lucky do , small concert or interview in the street or shop and start giving better gift albums would sell way better people always love good freebies

i also notice korean artist tend to do a lot of repackaging of their album months later with extra tracks or new cover or adding postal card but people already bought the cds it doesnt really help pushing the sale higher

an other things some atist produce mini albums ( cf bi rain and lee jung hyun for exemple ) and than put all those song in a full album ...i dont think its very smart sell wise because fans tend to expect full new albums not only a new mini album combine with the old one to make a full album

( dont missunderstand i m the first to rush as soon as first press albums come out )

[Andali]

yay!!

[Nackar_91]

Originally Posted by Yumsushi

I was always under the impression that piracy was very high in S. Korea since the best selling album of the year sells about 300K copies.

Actually, I think I read somewhere that the Koreans love to download and that legal downloads for both singles and albums is relatively high, but don't quote me on that.

[rakeru]

Originally Posted by tetsuo69

dont think so, i think it was more of an example ,seeing as how japan the second biggest music market in the world, most of her asian sales would have to come from japan.

I recently read in Billboard that Japan has surpassed the US in physical sales, though the US is naturally ahead of Japan in digital sales. That's hard to measure though, since actual sales aren't as readily available in the US as they are in Japan, and may be skewed because the release patterns are very different.