Talk:List of best-selling girl groups/Archive 5

Highest Certified girl groups
what do you think about add a section with all the certified sales of the groups.Elmisterioso1979 (talk) 17:57, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * For a start, this article is a list of the "best-selling girl groups"... as certifications are not equivalent to sales, then a "most certified girl group" section has nothing to do with "best-selling". But there are lots of problems with making a list based on certifications:
 * (1) The list would be overwhelmingly biased towards Little Mix, Fifth Harmony and girl groups from the last ten years, because it's much, much easier to gain certifications now in the era where "sales" are mostly streams, compared with the time before the internet when certifications were gained just on physical sales of records.
 * (2) In many countries certifications are a recent thing, compared with when record charts actually started. For example, in the UK, the singles chart began in 1952, but certifications didn't start until more than twenty years later, in 1973. So all the records from the 1950s and 1960s will not have been certified, even if they sold millions of copies.
 * (3) Certifications are not automatic – firstly, the record company has to be a member of the country's certifying authority (RIAA in the USA, BPI in the UK, ARIA in Australia, etc.), and secondly, they have to pay to have the record sales audited in order to qualify for a certification. Before the internet and electronic sales, this was an expensive process, and sometimes record companies (especially small independent record labels) didn't have the money for this process. So before the 1980s, there are many records that sold enough for a gold or platinum disc, but they have never been certified.
 * (4) Certification levels change all the time in all countries, so two records could sell the same amount, but qualify for different certification levels. For example, in the US a platinum disc for singles was 1 million sales before January 1989, and 500,000 sales afterwards. So a group could have released a single in October 1988 which sold 520,000 copies, but it only has a gold disc. Then they release their next single in February 1989, it sells 500,000 copies – this is 20,000 copies less than their previous single, but now it qualifies for a platinum disc instead of a gold disc.
 * (5) We don't have certifications for all countries. For example, gold and platinum certifications existed in Australia before ARIA began their charts in 1989. But there is no record anywhere of these certifications, so we don't know which records were certified. Richard3120 (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello how are you. I made a model of what the section of how the highest certified girl groups in history would look like. These are only some of them. I will miss several but I will add them over time (the AKB48 certifications only count the albums, if you can help me with the singles certifications, they would help me a lot).Elmisterioso1979 (talk) 03:33, 1 February 2019 (UTC)


 * As I said above, I don't see the point of this list at all, it doesn't give you any useful information. It's also likely to be WP:SYNTH and will be opposed by other Wikipedia editors. Richard3120 (talk) 12:23, 1 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I find the list useful but maybe it's just me.Meddymarl (talk) 04:46, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC on whether the Andrews Sisters should be included in the list of best-selling girl groups

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussions on the talk page about whether the Andrews Sisters should be included in the List of best-selling girl groups have not reached a consensus. Discussion can be seen on the talk page – opinions from other editors would be welcome. Richard3120 (talk) 20:30, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes — of course they should be on this list, the title of the article, and criteria for inclusion, is best-selling girl groups. I also agree with Richard3120 that certified sales shouldn't be the exclusive criteria for inclusion, because if that's your criteria for inclusion, then you are deliberately ignoring the multitude of reliable sources that say The Andrews Sisters are one of the best selling girl groups of all time. We go by what reliable sources say, and there are plenty of sources detailing their successes as a girl group. You would be contradicting our policy on WP:NPOV by not including them, because them being described as a best selling girl group is a significant view that has been published by a multitude of reliable sources on a topic. Isaidnoway (talk)  13:41, 6 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes. They sold 90-million records,, isn't that enough?--KasiaNL (talk) 05:37, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes They should be listed, considering the number of records sold as pointed out by KasiaNL Idealigic (talk) 12:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Criteria of a Girl group
There are many act's on here that I feel don't meet the criteria of a girl group they are described as duo's ie T.A.T..U, Salt & Pepa, Changing Faces, the veronicas etc and on the page here Girl group it mentions on the first sentence it's several female singers as I would never say two members are several why have they been included?. DanTheMusicMan2 (talk) 17:19, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a big problem, and one I've talked about before in the archives on this page. The thing is, what is "the criteria of a girl group"? There is literally no fixed definition of what acts would be classified as a girl group, or how many members it should have as a minimum, so the lead in this article is pure OR. You don't think Salt'n'Pepa are a girl group, but apparently both Nielsen Soundscan and The New York Daily News think they are . Billboard also thinks the Bangles are a girl group, although many would say they are more a rock-pop band and don't usually focus on harmonies in their work. Maybe a girl group should have at least three members, but then how do we classify TLC or Bananarama, who have continued as duos for two decades after losing their third member? Richard3120 (talk) 16:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Girls Generation
Hey everyone I was looking into this and I think the kpop group Girls' Generation should be on this list. They are very successful in East Asia and have tens of millions in sales from both Japanese certifications and sales reported by Gaon and Nielsen Soundscan. I found different sources for their total sales claiming between 30-100 million but I know that their sales numbers need to be updated in wikipedia. I think we should consider adding them to the list. (FanDePopLatino (talk) 04:14, 27 May 2020 (UTC))
 * The inclusion of Girls Generation has been debated many times on this page. I think the problem is that nobody is sure if those sales figures are just for the group, or if they include all the sales of the individual members' solo careers as well. I think claims of 100 million for just the group itself are as unlikely as claims of 100 million for the Supremes. Richard3120 (talk) 13:48, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I do see what you mean about the 100 million that's why I thought maybe the lower amount. Now the sales for just the group are on the discography page and are properly sourced to Gaon (which shows the sales are for each of the group's individual singles and albums). Then the Japanese certifications and sales reported by Nielsen (even though they are minimal) are also properly sourced and the sources also show that they are for the group itself and not the individual members careers. If you add all the sourced sales and certifications they add up to 33,316,749 so with just 30 million record sales we could add them to the list. I wanted to see what other people thought about it first but I think we can surely add them to the list with at least 30 million. (FanDePopLatino (talk) 01:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC))
 * If it's properly sourced I don't have a problem with them being added... it would probably be better sourced than many of the other acts on the list. Richard3120 (talk) 03:11, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok I will add them to the list. Thanks! (FanDePopLatino (talk) 14:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC))


 * When it comes to 21st century South Korean music artists, we have to be careful to distinguish between download sales and CD sales (albums and DVD's). Before 2013 downloads in South Korea cost $0.01-0.10 and therefore sold in huge amounts,1 sometimes even higher than in neighboring Japan which has a population nearly 3 times greater. Other girl groups like 2NE1, SISTAR, and T-ARA have all also sold dozens of millions of downloads before 2013. None of these groups except maybe 2NE1 have sold more than 1 million in physical sales. This is the reason why in early 2014 I detailed physical sales and digital sales for those artists. This split lasted until late 2015 when it was removed after a RfC. Mαuri ’96  ( talk ·  cont ) 02:49, 29 May 2020 (UTC)