Talk:List of best-selling music artists/Archive 45

Fundamental Article Issues
So, I've been extensively digging into the archived discussions regarding the standards used on this list, specifically the standards of percentage and the verifiability of sales from artists before 1958.

The entire "Definitions" and "Standards" sections on this article probably shouldn't exist. It strikes me as both inelegant and obtuse to clutter the body of the article with information that really ought to be kept to talk pages. Really, I can't help but feel that the section's existence is representative of a broader problem with this article's clarity and readability.

I'm also extremely concerned because of the initial caveat in this section - that 15 artists who would otherwise be eligible for this list are excluded on a technicality.

Surely there is some methodology we can use that attempts to list a range of possible sales numbers for artists whose records are difficult to verify by modern standards. In particular, I cannot understand how one justifies the exclusions of Crosby (whose potential range of 200-300 million records could put him at the top of this list) and Sinatra, who has an estimated 150 million records sold according to the header of his article.

What is the argument for accepting only music recording certification system numbers? Of course these systems are incredibly useful, reliable sources, but outright refusing to accept sources other than these that meet WP:RS standards sets a different standard than agreed upon wiki guidelines. For artists who were active before the advent of these certification systems, it is not only acceptable, but necessary to use other reliable sources that attest to sales numbers.
 * I was incorrect about this being the only type of citation being accepted. However, the percentage threshold mentioned elsewhere seems to be a recurring issue and I still would like to have a discussion on it. --Pacack (talk) 02:16, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

To use Crosby as an example, his 1960 "First Citizen of Record Industry" award for selling 200 million units establishes an absolute minimum range for how many records he had sold 60 years ago. Here's a newspaper article we can use as a source. What reason is there not to accept a reliable source from the Desert Sun Newspaper for sales data like this?

To top this off, these issues were brought up by users User:ChrisTheDude and User:Bencherlite a full decade ago when this article failed to become a featured list candidate. It seems like certain issues haven't been fixed, and I'm concerned about these necessary changes not being made after all this time. Pacack (talk) 08:54, 11 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The list has many issues and it has been discussed multiple times in the past. The main concerns are as follows:
 * 1) This list has a WP:OWNERSHIP issues.
 * 2) The requirements and the methodology are user-generated without having any supporting sources
 * 3) The list has a systematic bias against black artists. Multiple editors have raised all of these concerns multiple times as you can see here 1, 2, 3 If this discussion gathers more attention, I can explain more. Thanks in advance. TheWikiholic (talk) 02:07, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you elaborate specifically on point 2? I've read the links you've given and am inclined to agree that the current percentage thresholds are unworkable and need to be revisited or removed entirely. What reason is there for having a threshold to begin with? Why not simply list the claimed and certified sales and allow the discrepancies to speak for themselves? Pacack (talk) 01:57, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

There are certainly other issues on top of everything mentioned here like WP:NOR. However, I think it may be best just to ping admins that have in the past have been involved with this article or some or these complaints in the last. Perhaps they may also like to comment or have some input on how to reach a resolution. TruthGuardians (talk) 03:17, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not overly tuned in on music pages. Best to let others figure this out. GoodDay (talk) 03:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Minor comment: I think WP:NOR wouldn't apply as a whole starting from the sense that list shows two figures for some artists. At the end all figures, per se aren't of the opinion/synthesis of users: They came from media. Also there is not a truth: nor even yours, nor even from them. Your truth could be also WP:NOR. Simply: music sales are a complex thing, with varying degrees in each individual in so many regards. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:27, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The methodology for record sales on Wikipedia is 100% WP:NOR. If it wasn’t then show me the source that I have been looking for for years that proves the methodology… I’ll continue to wait. TruthGuardians (talk) 02:36, 13 August 2022 (UTC)


 * It isn't per se. Brings light and figures are attached to media reports. As far as I remember, doesn't exist a methodology outside or accurate, nor even Chartmasters is. Streaming-era makes things harder as ever. Perhaps, grouping artists by era could help, lumping those from 20th and 21st centuries. Or in the current version but having pre-1950s artists, like Crosby. Take in consideration media reports could vary enormously, Crosby for example, has sales reported from 150/200/250/300/400/500/ to 1 billion + as far as I remember. And in terms of certifications at the end, suggests that Drake or Rihanna are the highest-selling individuals ever. Then, there are others artists as well, with huge claimed sales figures (literally, hundres of millions) and without a justified piece of certifications amount to support it, nor even retroactively. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand the complexities of the matter at hand here, really, but I still don't think we can be the ones to decide what claims are or are not supported by the evidence. That's the entire purpose of using outside reliable sources. We should simply report A. what artists themselves claim their sales to be, and B. what sales are certified. No threshold tying one to the other for inclusion on the list other than the 75 million+ units sold baseline that we use as a cutoff.


 * Regarding Crosby in particular, he's particularly difficult to get an accurate number on, but my understanding from the reading and research I've done is that the 200m number comes from 1960, and the 500 billion number comes from his son's memoir, I believe. (Sourcing potentially from some original source that we need to find and use instead, if we can.) This is further complicated by the fact that he's not just an early artist, but one that was popular in literally every music market on the planet, so records from the US alone do not capture his full numbers. (There are references on his page to his popularity from the Americas to Africa and India.)


 * Again, while I am sympathetic to the inclination to want to verify that the claimed sales aren't totally ridiculous, I think the best course of action is to let the sources speak for themselves. If the claimed and certified sales have a significant discrepancy, we can list that clearly in a separate column and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions about that discrepancy. --Pacack (talk) 12:07, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you all for the help here. Hopefully by getting admins to look at the page we can find a resolution. (Frankly, I'm stumped how to go about restructuring it effectively, as I've never taken on anything but fairly minor edits in the past, and the issues seem bad enough that something systematic has to be changed.) Pacack (talk) 04:27, 12 August 2022 (UTC)


 * No problem. But I could say don't center your view in just one point, as there is other truths and boomerang effects in regards the above view. At the end, every point could be biased, and every point could have WP:NOR. At this is because music sales are a complex thing. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 04:40, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand what are you guys talking about, but for sure this list using the world's greatest news organization and Newspaper of record. They are BBC News, Irish Independent, Reuters, ABC News, The Daily Telegraph, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, CNN, Bloomberg News, many of the world's greatest newspaper. So you guys better put some respect to this list. Thanks. Politsi (talk) 07:19, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Just responding to the ping above. Most of the people pinged there aren't actually admins, but that doesn't really matter because admins don't have a particular role in resolving content disputes - editors of this page will need to determine how this page should work, in-line with the relevant policies and guidelines. I don't know how the entries on this list have been selected, but one approach you might want to consider is deciding upon a single metric, and then making it clear in the lead (and potentially renaming to make it clear in the title) that that is what has been done. Girth Summit  (blether)  08:30, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Entries on this list have been screened based on a minimum percentage threshold of certified units that was determined several years ago.
 * Before 1973 requires 30% in certified units, 1973–1990 requires 30-70% in certified units, 1990–2000 requires 70-77% in certified units, and 2000–present requires 77-80% in certified units.
 * My perspective is that these thresholds are arbitrary and constitute original research in violation of WP:NOS, and that they are particularly unworkable for older artists that were active before sales certification systems were established. The counterargument (if I understand correctly) is that these thresholds are necessary to prevent artificial inflation of sales numbers by artists. Pacack (talk) 01:45, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * You get it. It’s such a relief to see other admins who understand how the page is, versus what the page should be. TruthGuardians (talk) 02:39, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * To be very clear, I'm not an admin by any stretch of the imagination. I've only done minor edits, which was part of my reason for trying to get this conversation started. I want to get more experienced editors involved that can help us resolve this. Pacack (talk) 02:42, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The main points being brought up are
 * A. The methodology by which artists are added to this list (percentage of certified sales) is based on user-generated standards (30% for early artists and 75% for later) and as such probably violates WP:NOR. We should simplify the process enough that there is no need for a "definitions" section. (My recommendation would be to remove the percentage threshold for inclusion and simply allow the discrepancy between claimed and certified sales to speak for itself. Alternatively, we could remove this requirement specifically for artists that were first active before a given year.)
 * B. The sources used currently are, of course, very high quality sources, and I don't dispute that. However, the certification systems used extensively in this article didn't exist yet for several old artists that are notable enough to be on this list. We shouldn't expect to have sources that can verify 30% of sales for an artist like Crosby (I'm just using him because he's the easiest example, ) when much of his career was before certification systems themselves existed. If the best available sources for the time indicate a number of records sold, we should use that number. This is especially true if editors elsewhere on Wikipedia have relied on these sources in other articles. If they're reliable sources for those articles, they should be reliable enough for our purposes here too. Pacack (talk) 01:33, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The current requirements does not allow artists from Motown like Diana Ross/Supremes and The Jackson 5. Currently there is far give too much consideration given to the Beatles and Elvis on the basis of the lack certification system in a time when the consumer market worldwide was a lot less diverse and a lot smaller in markets like today. It also completely ignore an artist like Frank Sinatra who began charting in 1939. Certifications as we know are not automatic. The feud between Motown and RIAA is the reason why Motown artists are missing millions of certifications. They should be included. TruthGuardians (talk) 03:45, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I think all of these are important points. If I'm understanding you correctly, there was some sort of feud (legal?) between motown artists and certification organizations? Could you elaborate/source that so I can read about it? I'm admittedly not aware of the issue there.
 * Would a removal of the threshold standard solve these issues? Whether for artists before a certain year where records are sparse or just broadly? --Pacack (talk) 12:07, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * in the days before streaming, records were certified based on record company shipments rather than sales (as no country in the world was monitoring total sales before 1991). To gain a certification, the label had to ask for it, the certifying body had to audit the record label, and the label also had to be registered. Motown didn't register with RIAA until 1977, which is why they don't have any certifications before this date (obviously well after the label's heyday and the majority of their artists' sales), and in addition, label boss Berry Gordy didn't bother to get many of his records certified... allegedly, the Supremes' biggest-selling single in the USA was "Love Child" with over three million sales, which should be enough for a triple platinum certification, yet it doesn't even have a gold certification. This is why it is especially difficult to get any reliable sales figures for Motown artists. Richard3120 (talk) 17:58, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Removal of the threshold standard will solve most of these problems. I would also suggest having a separate column Total Available Sales next to the Total certified units for each and every artist on the list. Furthermore, The total claimed sales should be in line with the Total available sales, rather than the total certified sales. In the Supreme’s case, their song "Love Child" is not certified in the US due to the issue mentioned above, so this list doesn't consider it even though we have a source for the song selling over 2M copies in the US. So using the 2M in the total available sales column will be very useful and a lot less confusing and problematic. Another instance is the Bee Gees which have 74.7m total certified units. This includes the 22.1M certified sales of Saturday Night Fever. We have sources for another 7m units of sales in various other countries that went uncertified for many reasons. So using the figure of 29.1M in the column Total Available Sales will help to reduce the gap between the claimed sales and help to give the readers a more accurate figure. TheWikiholic (talk) 03:13, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you elaborate on this idea? I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Do you mean we should have three columns for sales, being Total Claimed Sales (what the artist claims their number is), Total Certified Sales (sales certified by Record Certification Organizations), and Total Available Sales (sales verified by reliable sources, whether certification organizations, newspapers, or something else?)
 * If that is what you mean, then I can see both pros and cons for the idea. The biggest pro is that we can include reliable sources that are not necessarily certification systems, which helps to inform the reader of whether the claimed sales are backed up by reputable sources or not. The biggest con is that the sheer amount of information this requires us to keep track of increases by 50%, which makes it difficult to keep up with everything. We would also have to determine if the minimum 75 million records sold number should be based on claimed sales, certified sales, total available sales, or some combination thereof. If someone claims 75 million records sold, but no sources back that up, do we include the artist on the list or not?
 * In my mind, maybe the best way to approach this would be to exclude artists that do not meet the 75 million threshold by either the certification or total available sales standard, which would admittedly limit the number of artists covered on this page. Artists that currently claim 75 million sales but don't have that amount in certified sales include Christina Aguilera, Usher, The Black Eyed Peas, Shakira, Tupac, Alabama, R. Kelly, Nirvana, Robbie Williams, Bob Seger, Kenny G, Enya, Bryan Adams, Bob Marley, The Police, Barry Manilow, Kiss, and Aretha Franklin. We would have to either find a reliable source that supports the 75 million claim or remove them from the list. I would consider this an acceptable limitation of this article's scope, but such a change has to have support before we proceed.
 * Should we start a formal vote on Approval/Disapproval to change the standards here, or should we iron out the details of the Total Available Sales idea a bit more first? Either way, I think we should vote first on whether to remove the certification threshold standard, then depending on the results of that vote move to vote on the addition of a "total available sales data" standard. Pacack (talk) 19:52, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. That makes sense. I agree with @TheWikiholic that removal of the threshold standard would probably resolve this issue as well. Pacack (talk) 19:29, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

@Pacack, first of all, I want to thank you for starting this discussion, and I also want to thank all the users for the good atmosphere of debate that is going on here right now. I believe that, together, we will reach positive results that will help to improve this list.

Let's see.. establishing as a requirement that a percentage of claimed sales be supported by estimated sales may seem positive (and in part it is), but it is certainly not perfect, considering that "certified sales" is a sum composed of figures from multiple markets/countries, which have established their certification systems in different years (even several decades apart). This benefits the most US-oriented artists such as Presley, since the United States was the first country/market to establish its certification system) while this is not the case for other artists with a more global reach, such as Madonna or Michael Jackson, who have many sales that have not been certified due to the inexistence of certification systems in some countries/markets during part of their careers. The requirements based on certified sales have allowed this list not to have a lot of highly inflated claimed sales figures that have been appearing in music literature for a long time (1 billion for The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, similar figures for Bing Crosby, 400M for ABBA...), but it has resulted in inaccurate positions and figures due to the certification threshold standard. Apart from that, I don't find fair that Sinatra is out of this list due to the fact that when he sold more records there were no certification systems, and that at the same time that is the reason why Presley keeps his 500M figure and is above Jackson in this list (and better not to talk about the origin of such claimed sales figures of Presley). I think it should at least be possible to include Sinatra in a separate section. Salvabl (talk) 02:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * A RfC could help, but only previously if ideas are condensed and concise. At the end, I honestly think that any possible way of elaborate the list, could carries its own problems. If list keep the 75M figures for example, they're many other artists unlisted with those claims and higher. As a reader for a long-time of Portuguese/French/Spanish Wikipedia, I've seen how other artists have their sales increased because of circular reporting (by Wikipedia vandalism) and even now have English-source backing those sales. Many of these artists could fit for an inclusion, mainly if the system of certified units is deleted, eg. Perhaps, those issues like Motown certifications or Crosby era (pre-1950s) could be mentioned in this current version, as deserve a more explanatory reason to some readers why these artists aren't included. Or initiate a RfC for their inclusion in another sub-section. The problem with certifications figures will be perpetual, as aren't automatic for some artists, for example: Britney Spears as many of her works have uncertified millions of copies in the States alone, Celine Dion as well, or for example Michael Buble's Christmas album, that took almost one decade to be certified by RIAA, and Nielsen previously confirmed those kind of sales attributed by RIAA. Also, other cases as Salvabl mentioned which includes Madonna or Michael Jackson and so on. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:13, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Drafting an RfC

 * In the interest of moving this forward, an RfC should be started. I’m not super familiar with the topic but I’m putting forward the following as a draft for discussion:
 * Should this article list artists by:
 * A the total number of claimed sales.
 * B the total number of certified sales.
 * C both the number of claimed sales and certified sales (without a requirement for inclusion based on figures being supported by a percentage of certified units).
 * D number of "available sales" (ie any sales number given in reliable sources).
 * E the methodology currently used.
 * I know this doesn’t account for all issues but it will provide a start. Let me know of any amendments to improve this with a view to launching the RfC in the coming days. And please try to be brief. Vladimir.copic (talk) 12:53, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * C: btw E option is literally the same as C but yeah, there reason why I choose this option is just simply because it's the better combination, it's seems people have forgot why certifications exist on the 1st place, they exist so that the majority of the artists' sales can be tracked continuously, in this way we can avoid using any sales figures that are inflated. Currently, we have 24 markets that have a certification systems in the list, but keep in mind those 24 countries make up the overwhelming majority of global music sales, so at least we can make sure that we have most of the artists' confirmed sales. My only suggestion is if there's a lot of sources that have claimed sales for certain artists who debuted prior the 1950s, but they don't have enough certs to back up their claimed sales, we can at least make an exception for those artists since they debuted in a time when certifications weren't a thing. Moh8213 (talk) 14:43, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The article currently lists claimed sales based on the total number of certified sales. That is simply A based on B. I oppose this method. Because certifications are not automatic. For example, in the USA, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the official authority for certifying records. RIAA certifies Gold when an album/single has shipped 500k units and platinum when it shipped 1M units. Keep in mind that even if the album/Single meets the record threshold, it's not necessary that the record get certified. To get certified the record label of the album/single need to officially send a request to the RIAA by providing documents showing that the record meets new certification levels. The record label also needs to pay a certain amount as a certification fee to the RIAA for the certification process. Once RIAA gets a formal request from the record label they forward it to an independent agency to research it. Once they confirm it, RIAA awards it Gold and platinum to the respective records. This is usually a time-consuming process. Record labels often never try re-certifying records after the albums/singles promotional periods. Artists also often get royalties based on the certifications units. In other cases like with Madonna, she was never re-certified after she left warner bros and joined Interscope in 2012. Many of her records are under-certified as of today, even though we have multiple reliable sources reporting it. Record labels may intentionally avoid the certification of records since the artist is no longer with them as they do not benefit from their old artists’ certifications. So I oppose this method and suggest we better use the claimed sales (A) based on the total available sales D.—TheWikiholic (talk) 16:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Every system have pro and cons. By the moment I'm 50% and 50% with C and D (Vladimir.copic). C is literally the same of E as Moh8213 pointed out. Updating list and every artist, is a time-consuming. It might will no other editor keep updating cert-figures for all artists, daily/weekly after Harout. D will require perhaps, having a Talk:List of best-selling music artists/The Beatles (or whatever artist listed here) to have a better "control" of each artist' summaries, instead of just putting references that might be difficult in having a quickly summary/verifiability and/or inaccurate summaries. Another point, do you guys think that tracks featuring various artists in a single, should be re-evaluate? this is a common practice nowadays in music industry. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 17:26, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * With the upmost respect, I think that most of the questions are redundant. Instead, should be presented as I have it down below:
 * Should this article list of claimed sales based on
 * A) the total number of claimed sales
 * B) the total number of certifies sales
 * C) both the number of claimed sales and certified side by side
 * D) number of available sales (ie any sales number given in reliable sources like Billboard or Official Chart Company )
 * If the above is the list of questions like I think it should be, my answer would also be option "D." My rationale is because as of today only 24 countries have a certified system. Thre was only one in the 1950s and started to increase gradually since the  1970s. However, many artists have lost millions of unit certification because of this since the early 90’s. Furthermore, certifications are not automatic and record labels need to apply for it and also pay a certification fee in the process which create process delays or scenarios where the album is never updated like D'eux by Celine Dion, which was certified diamond in the France, which is equal to 1M units since 1994. As per latest report, the album has sold 4.5M units. | However, due to the current method, we are only permitted to use the 1m units, instead of 4.5m units, essentially robbing Dion of 3.5 million sales. TruthGuardians (talk) 17:06, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * This RfC will go nowhere, the same people will argue and give the same points as always. And worse, there is still that problem of having a single person with multiple accounts that was not clarified in the last Rfc made here.--Markus WikiEditor (talk) 16:28, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The sock puppet investigation actually concluded months ago. It was discovered that there was no sock puppets or single editor with multiple accounts. RFC will resolve this issue. Doing nothing won’t resolve this issue. TruthGuardians (talk) 17:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. Just to be clear I am looking for feedback on how to frame the RfC and the options to give (I don’t care about your preferences on the outcome at the moment). My understanding is that the current methodology requires claimed sales to be backed up by a certain % of certified sales for an artist to be listed. Option C is intended to just allow both certified and claimed sales to be listed regardless of whether claimed sales are backed up. I’ve amended C above - does this make it clearer? Any better phrasing? Any additional options? Vladimir.copic (talk) 20:50, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your efforts to get an RfC started. Pacack (talk) 21:04, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

My vote is on a combination of D and A. I think we should have columns for both "claimed" and "available" sales data, not just one or the other. Instead of relying exclusively on certifications as C would do, we should expand the scope slightly to allow other reliable sources as well. This way, we can add pre-1950s artists and artists which haven't applied for certification.

Some sources will claim numbers that are beyond what any third party can verify, so we do need to include both claimed and available sales.

That said, I should note that D should be used for determining the cutoff point for inclusion on this list, or we'll end up with artists claiming 75 million records sold simply to be included here. This also limits the scope of the article slightly to make it manageable enough to maintain. Pacack (talk) 21:03, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * My vote is E. So that the page doesn't become a mess like it was before the current methodology, full of absurd sales that make any article look (and be) unreliable. The problems of not giving importance to the verifiability that the certifications provide is that it gives a green card to inflated and unrealistic sales. And what source would be reliable for sales estimates if, outside of IFPI, no one counts worldwide sales? The sources either copy from what the record companies said or from Wikipedia itself. If certifications are not to be considered, better delete the article.--Markus WikiEditor (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand the concern, but I worry you may be misunderstanding what the suggestions here are. No one is suggesting that we don't source from certifications data. It's, frankly, probably always going to be the gold standard of reliable sourcing. Rather, option C is suggesting to remove the current percentage thresholds that determine if an artist meets the qualifications to be on the list, but to still use only certification data for verification. This allows the discrepancies between claimed and certified sales to speak for themselves.
 * The big advantage of going even further than that, as D suggests, is to allow for either certifications data or other reliably sourced data to be used. This is most useful in the case of artists that were active before the certifications systems we use were established, but also allows us to include artists that haven't applied for certification for whatever reason.
 * I want to be explicitly clear that no one is suggesting we do away with certifications. That would frankly not make any sense. Pacack (talk) 04:48, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear THIS IS NOT AN RFC. I am just trying to get people’s opinions on the framing and options for a future RfC. Vladimir.copic (talk) 02:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's how it works, starting in concreting the ideas. Another extreme point, as music editors such as JSFarman addressed in the past (Archive 41) is "have delete the article entirely". It makes sense in many aspects, including the non-static figures with streaming figures/certifications, for example, which is a time-consuming process; judging by the edit history that's almost daily. I'm not seeing another user rather that Harout updating those numbers, and if he is blocked/sanctioned, or being inactive in the sense of the current ANI-thread, it seems will be another "big" problem having outdated figures. I'm just trying to see all sides and shadows about changes, seeing other ideas etc. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:55, 17 August 2022 (UTC)


 * About Harout, that's what I'm predicting. He has every right not to continue updating the certificates on this list, if that RfC elect for claim sales instead of using the current methodology. Who's going to bother updating certificates? I don't think anyone will and in the end the list will turn into what it was in the past: a bunch of inflated sales created by fans and labels.--Markus WikiEditor (talk) 05:44, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * One thing is that there is a user, in this case Harout72, who contributes daily to update the certified sales figures, although there are also other users like @Politsi who make frequent contributions to the List; and another thing is to claim that without Harout72 this list would cease to be what it is, and would change completely. Since, if that is so, it confirms that WP:OWNERSHIP exists. Salvabl (talk) 12:25, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure, I agree with many of your points and from the other users here. I know we don't have a crystal ball, I'm just seeing the possible cons that would exists. With ownership in a certain amount or totally, I'm not defending Harout, just saying that its also true that (streaming) certifications are a daily thing. This is a corollary, as these figures are more dynamic than a specific album that's time-to-time. Politsi is relatively active in the sense of finding urls, but not sure if he/she will in charge to update those figures daily. Or one of y'll, or whatever other user. I would be happy to assist, but I know my time. The other option would be as TruthGuardians proposed: A) the total number of claimed sales. Certainly also carriers possible circular reporting for some artists. At least, from my point that I know certain artists in Italian/Portuguese/French/Spanish areas, that have these kind of sales report and they would have an automatic inclusion. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 15:46, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps in the near future we will have systems providing hourly updated streaming certifications data, and then even with a daily activity of a user like Harout72 it will not be possible to keep the List updated. We also have to keep in mind that it is always possible to add a note indicating the dynamic character of this list (I think it could be necessary in the future). Apart from that, there are several users active in music-related content, who probably until now have hardly contributed to this List, possibly due to Harout72's attitude. I believe that, with the participation of various users, this list can be active and its Talk page can have enriching discussions among the different users, which will increase the available information. Salvabl (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * So, the list will change completely, or won't be updated, if Harout isn't invovled? That confirms ownership of this article to me. If losing one editor would completely change the page, that editor owns the page. FrederalBacon (talk) 00:11, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, respectfully. Have you read the whole point? Is not about an user per se, its about the time-consuming process of keeping figures (certifications) updated, as judging by edit history, seems that's a daily task. Something so dynamic at the end. I'm aware of the other users' concerns addressed in this thread, and all views have valid points. The point here is discuss this drafted RfC to have perhaps, a solid RfC/arguments. In other words, see all shadows and all sides; comment, provide ideas, give solutions so on. Like Salvabl did. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 02:51, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The link provided below by Moh8213 and Levivich (Special:Permalink/85712560) about an earlier version of this page, seems works to solve many issues. Regards, --Apoxyomenus (talk) 02:51, 18 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I like the wording, however, I think the phrase under D should specifically say "reliably sourced by the official charting organization for the country listed". FrederalBacon (talk) 02:25, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, I misunderstood. In that case, I actually would prefer if D were an option more like C. That is, including claimed sales and sourced available sales data, rather than just the latter. Pacack (talk) 04:32, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the most important thing is that the claimed sales be supported by a new column of total available sales, which could bring more figures and valuable information from reliable sources, and could allow artists such as Frank Sinatra to be added to the list. Because, honestly, I don't think it's accurate that a list titled "List of best-selling music artists" includes Barry Manilow or Luke Bryan and not Frank Sinatra. Salvabl (talk) 13:06, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

After checking the link Pacack provided above about this list being nominated as a featured list, and the points brought by TheWikiholic, TruthGardians and Salvabl, I completely change my mind as I no longer support the current methodology that's being used on this list, while admittedly it was a "great" methodology, it clearly violates WP:NOR, and so it seems that we should abandon this methodology. But if such changes should be made, then it should be made regardless, I assume if the current methodology is removed the list will look something like this. (Btw I'm not being on anyone's sides, I'm just trying to get the point, and the people above brought some pretty valid points). Moh8213 (talk) 17:10, 17 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Wow, yes, this is much closer to what the page should look like, the revision from 2006(!), with the lead sentence . I appreciate Vlad's effort to get an RFC started, but I think the proposed RFC format makes assumptions we should not make, such as that there even can be a WP:V-compliant (i.e., not WP:SYNTH) list of world-wide all-time best-selling music artists. My request to anyone: show me three existing WP:RS lists of world-wide all-time best-selling music artists. Does such a thing even exist? If not, perhaps that's a cue that the world's best-selling music artists cannot be listed officially... probably because of the incredible variation in and unreliability of sales data. Levivich 00:09, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree with Levivich. If the list must exist (which I can't endorse, given that this is Wikipedia and there are no reliable, independent sources for worldwide sales),  it should begin with a big fat disclaimer.  JSFarman (talk) 18:18, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * While I could still be convinced to at least attempt tracking sales, I actually find this concept really appealing as well. It should at least be one of the options for the RfC. Pacack (talk) 01:06, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I recognize now that I re-read everything that this is likely what option A looks like. Pacack (talk) 02:35, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for the feedback. I've made some edits to the RfC options above based on this. Some of the requests are slightly too specific for this RfC to be useful and I think broader options will encourage more participation. Thankfully Wikipedia decision making works on a consensus-based model and outcomes are not decided by a bare vote. Editor are welcome to make their more nuanced suggestions in the RfC survey and these will be accounted for.

An option for deletion would be well outside of the scope of this discussion and needs to be raised at WP:AfD although I would suggest that editors hold off on that for now.

Thanks again and I will launch the RfC shortly. Vladimir.copic (talk) 02:07, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Can you add a 6th option? Nominate for AfD. I think that was discussed enough above to be included. FrederalBacon (talk) 19:58, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Taylor Swift
Harout. Based on Beyonce's discussion above. Let's put Taylor Swift with 170m claim. https://abc.com/shows/new-years-rockin-eve/news/performers/taylor-swift-world-premiere-music-video-out-of-the-woods-on-new-years-rockin-eve-with-ryan-seacreast-2016-151222 she can get back her 200m claim sales when she reach 350m in her certified Sales. Thanks. Politsi (talk) 05:12, 11 August 2022 (UTC)


 * You can add that next to the 200 million, just like we had the 175 million and 200 million listed together before. I also provided explanation above, in case you want to read it. Harout72 (talk) 09:01, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Politsi, The source that you are proposing is not valid. It's advertorial for New Year's Rockin' Eve, which aired on the ABC network. (References via ABC News would be at abcnews.go.com.) JSFarman (talk) 18:26, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Beyoncé
Her RIAA certifications have been updated so an estimated 77 million sales should be added to her current tally to make it 143 million. That would drive her to 189 million sales. I believe there are credible papers that have listed her career sales between 170-200 million records. 190.80.50.79 (talk) 22:30, 8 August 2022 (UTC)


 * This list is related in someway to artist' articles. Beyoncé discography has now the figure of 200 million with one source supporting it. Should be effective? A huge part of her catalogue was re-certified by RIAA in recent days, which includes her works in the streaming era; pretty sure part of her retroactively certs for 2000s works have it in large quantities as well. Idk it brought my attention that jump. Cheers, --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:15, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The 200 million was also added here by someone, which is an unreliable source, therefore, I reverted it. Some of her RIAA's certs are retroactive but also helped by streaming. Her records sales are most likely now around 150 million based on the amount of the current certified sales, but definitely not 200 million.--Harout72 (talk) 04:09, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I think 200 million claimed sales is still too high for her. Loibird90 (talk) 04:09, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Harout, there is 160m claims sales for Beyonce https://www.independent.ie/life/how-beyonce-conquered-sportswear-34625172.html can we use it?. Thanks Politsi (talk) 06:35, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yup, we sure can use that source as her certified sales clearly suggest that her record sales is in that neighborhood. I upgraded her claimed figure. Thanks for that source. Harout72 (talk) 12:15, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * If anything, the 200 million figure is actually still too low, and to suggest she has only sold 160 million records worldwide would just be inaccurate given the recent update to her certifications in Canada and the US doubling her previous total in both. And while streaming units may play apart in these new certifications, majority of them have not been updated since the early to mid 2000s, so it isn't unrealistic to assume pure sales attribute to majority of those amounts. Her record sales were reported as 118 million back in 2010. StatsFreak (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2022 (UTC)


 * It's because of streaming that her certified sales in the US and even in Canada went up that much. Her true sales should be right around the 160 million mark.--Harout72 (talk) 14:54, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * If you have any sources for Beyonce’s claimed sales being between 160M to 200M, please provide them here. A figure like 180M I would personally prefer, considering the 200M claimed sales of Taylor Swift who have 238 M total available certifications.— TheWikiholic (talk) 16:22, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * If Beyoncé's current certified sales do not support a 200 million claim based some of her recent certifications are streaming supported, then Taylor Swift should be dropped for consistency of rules. Taylor first charted in 2006 (9 years after Beyoncé) and a majority of her sales are heavily supported by streaming. She should be in the 150-180 million sales claim since her certs are higher than Beyoncé's updated numbers by only 15.4 million. TJ 21:14, 10 August 2022 (UTC) TJ 21:14, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Streaming figures make things harder than ever. In varying degrees, affects artists of past generations as well; others more than others. Some of her albums sales seems are closer to Adele, which dominated physical sales in almost all markets; but seems is not bad idea reconsidering lowering Taylor's sales, like Beyoncé. Much like Drake, Rihanna, or nearly all acts since 2000s, have heavily streaming figures in large scales, when actual copies sold are lower as suggests third-party measurement firms like OCC or Nielsen (both markets who makes the different of millions in this game). --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:29, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * True, but Taylor is much stronger in streams than Beyoncé. Her claimed sales should be listed as 175 million as referenced by this previously used source (https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/taylor-made-%E2%80%9880s-sounds).
 * In 2021, according to Power 99 Radio, Taylor was reportedly the second most streamed artist in the US with only 1.9 billion streams less than Drake’s 8.6 billion streams.
 * https://www.power991fm.com/2022/01/13/taylor-swift-accounts-for-1-of-every-50-u-s-album-sales-how-she-drake-bts-more-dominate-music/
 * Variety reported Taylor’s 1989 album was supported by 220 million streams its first-week of release in the US.
 * https://variety.com/2020/music/news/taylor-swift-evermore-sells-million-first-week-1234867490/
 * The first-week sales for Red (Taylor’s Version) were supported by 303 million streams as reported by the NY Times.
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/arts/music/taylor-swift-red-taylors-version-billboard-chart.html
 * By comparison, the NY Times reported Beyoncé’s Lemonade’s first-week sales were supported by 115 million streams in the US.
 * - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/arts/music/beyonce-lemonade-chart-sales.html
 * The NY Times also reported her Renaissance album’s first-week sales were supported by 179 million streams.
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/arts/music/beyonce-renaissance-billboard-chart.html#:~:text=The%20Charts-,Beyonc%C3%A9's%20'Renaissance'%20Dominates%20the%20Album%20and%20Singles%20Charts,top%20of%20the%20Hot%20100
 * Let’s be consistent with our definitions for listed claimed sales based on certified units supported by streaming. If Beyoncé’s 222.7 million units supports 160 million in claimed sales, then Taylor’s 238.1 million units should support 175 million in claimed sales.
 * TJ 04:10, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree to lower down Swift's position. And if there is no any other opinion. Let's lower Taylor Swift's position to 175m Sales. I'm the one who found that source also. Thanks. Politsi (talk) 05:03, 11 August 2022 (UTC)


 * It was on Feb 8, 2019 the article began using the 200m figure for Taylor Swift. Back then, Taylor's total available certifications were only 201.1M. I'm astonished to see that some artists enjoy such privilege. We have Kanye West, another artist with 160m claimed sales, who charted three years before Taylor Swift but is yet to have 14.1M more than she. What are we going to do with his claims? TheWikiholic (talk) 05:14, 11 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I see it. That was kind of hasty upgrade/inclusion. Judging third-party reports, seems there is a slightly difference of artists in the streaming era. Some of them actually sold large physical units (actual copies sold) compared to others but only in terms of the era. Taylor seems to be in the middle, as some of her format albums actually sold millions in the States but many of them lesser compared to the certifications. West seems to be part of the more oriented streaming-certs rather than physical; looking at his albums discography, for example Ye was certified Gold in Sep-2021 by the RIAA, when it actually sold 85,000 units in its first-week (June) and kept descending in the format. The same pattern is present in Drake, Rihanna and many others. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 05:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Politsi I support your lowering Swift to 175 million sales claim. @TheWikiholic In response to your question for Kanye West, at 251.2 million in certified units I would recommend claimed sales of 175 million for him too. TJ 05:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @TheWikiholic I can't believe it, you're still remember when I raise her claim. If you feel disagree with my action regarding with Swift's 200m, why don't you tell something?. So far, only Harout and me who consistently handle the list. I'm surprise that you guys watching this list in silent. I still waiting for Harout response, but I supposed putting Swift with only 170m. Is the best idea. Politsi (talk) 07:40, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Certifications issued after 2016 are in some cases more than 75% streaming generated. However, those certifications issued before 2016 are more than 75% Download generated. The year 2016 was a major transitory year, certifications switching from being Download generated to Streaming generated. Taylor Swift has 99 million certified units for her singles issued by the RIAA until end of 2015, those are heavily Download generated. Her album 1989 was certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA in November 2014, just a month after its release, and had sold 3.6 million units by the end of 2014. That's not an album that reached 3x Platinum that year based on Streaming. Her 2014 single "Shake It Off", was certified in November of 2014 by the RIAA at 4x Platinum, had sold 3.4 million units by end of 2014. That is also not a certified sales generated by Streaming. Those are just two examples. Also, when Politsi added the 200 million claimed figure for Swift, her certified sales was only 201 million, the 175 million was also kept. Now her certified sales are 238 million. I would support adding the 175 million back next to the 200 million. As for Beyonce, her recent certifications are heavily Streaming generated, she has only 35 million units certified for singles before 2016. Yes some of her certifications are retroactively certified, but mainly helped by Streaming to reach the current certification levels.--Harout72 (talk) 08:49, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The above statement is making generalizations about Beyoncé's updated sales records without providing any real assessment on which of her 70+ new certifications are retroactive or what percentage is actually based on streaming. For example, 26% of Lemonade's first-week sales were streaming generated. Her sales were 653,000 with 485,000 pure sales supported by 115 million streams. For her latest album Renaissance only 31% were streaming generated. Her sales were 275,000 with 190,000 pure sales supported by 179 million streams. It was over 10 years many of her records to be re-certified retroactively, and if her streaming numbers have barely increased from 2016 to 2022 it is clear Beyoncé is not an artist where over 75% of her sales are streaming generated. We need a fair and detailed assessment for Beyoncé's updated sales. We can at least be collaborative and provide access to resources or links to tools so that other users willing to do so can conduct a fair assessment and verification of Beyoncé's updated records. TJ 13:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

@TJ What's your poin? I think, Harout's explanation already good enough to show the reason why we let Taylor Swift hang out with Mariah, Whitney, and Celine in the same table. She deserve it. As for Beyonce. The new claim of 160m is good enough for her at this moment. Politsi (talk) 14:07, 11 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The point is the same argument for Taylor applies for Beyoncé in that Taylor's physical sales offset her streaming. Harout is suggesting that Beyoncé's new sales numbers are heavily streaming supported and they are not. Therefore, if they are not, then Beyoncé has more than enough certified units to support sales much higher than 160 million sales claim. TJ 14:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Beyonce's record company actively certified her records up to 2016. Had they completely not certified anything up to this point, it would be understandable that these recent certs could be over 50% Download based. The only way to know if these recent certs are mainly Download based, is to find corresponding digital sales figures for those that have recently been re-certified or certified for the first time.--Harout72 (talk) 14:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * For example Single Ladies had 6.1 digital downloads in 2010, but was certified 4x platinum. TJ 15:22, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * They actively certified newer releases such as her 2013 and 2016 releases. For example, her older releases prior to the Beyoncé (album) were not re-certified despite continued sales increases such as with Single Ladies and Halo. Many of her older records make up the bulk of her re-certification. TJ 15:06, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Can't open your source above, but that's the same as this. That 6.1 million for "Single Ladies" is a Worldwide sales figure, not for the US only.--Harout72 (talk) 15:46, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Another example Irreplaceable had 3.1 million sales in 2012, but was 2x platinum certified. This was all 10 years ago. TJ 16:04, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * You're right, but Single Ladies had 5 million US sales 10 years ago in 2012, but still had not been re-certified past 4x platinum. TJ 15:59, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand, but it's now certified 9x Platinum, surely Streaming played a major factor in getting it to 9x Plat.--Harout72 (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not arguing against streaming's influence, but doesn't make up 75% of the new certifications. As discussed, Beyoncé is not a strong streaming artist like Taylor, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, or Drake. Based on the sample analysis, she hardly cracks the 30% margin for streaming influence. Her records are historically under certified and she is a consistent, but slow seller. TJ 16:40, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Taylor Swift most definitely cannot be placed in the same category as Drake or Ariana Grande. If Taylor Swift's sales were streaming generated, she wouldn't have been able to shift over 1 million units of her 2019 album "Lover" in pure sales within a period of 4 months. Or her 2020 album "Folklore", which sold over 1.2 million copies in just 5 months.--Harout72 (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Taylor Swift's record label has certified albums equal to 14.5m units since 2016. And it doesn't include the album that was released since in 2016. A vast majority of these are the result of the RIAA's album equivalent sales policy. It means these certifications include the streaming and downloads of tracks that are already covered on Taylor's 99M single certifications. We have discussed that a few months ago. So it would be better to remove Taylor Swift's 200M claims. If you guys have any issues to remove that I can do it. TheWikiholic (talk) 02:00, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The intention of my statement was that Taylor is a strong streaming artist like Rihanna, Ariana, and Drake. This is a fact as she is the second most streamed artist in the US for 2021. The statement had no synthesis to her sales claims as I had moved on from that discussion. My statement focused solely Taylor being a strong streaming artist. Circling back to my other, and separate, statements. Based on the sample analysis, Beyoncé hardly cracks the 30% margin for streaming influence. Her records are historically under certified and she is a consistent, but slow seller. She is deserving of claimed sales higher than 160 million. TJ 02:12, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Taylor Swift doesn't even make it in the top 10 of the most streamed artists of 2021. But she definitely is the 2nd best artists in Physical sales, after Adele for 2021.--Harout72 (talk) 03:30, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Taylor was the top female streamed artist on Spotify in 2021. She was second to Drake in the US and second globally in 2021.
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * For the third time, I am circling back to my main point. Based on the sample analysis, Beyoncé hardly cracks the 30% margin for streaming influence. Her records are historically under certified and she is a consistent, but slow seller. She is deserving of claimed sales higher than 160 million. TJ 06:45, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Taylor Swift also remains very strong artist in selling physical copies according to Nielsen Soundscan. The number of her Downloads are also higher than many others. As for the 30% margin you're referring to, if Beyonce's total certified sales (222 million) is at that level because it contains 30% streaming, then deducting 30% from 222 million, brings the total certified sales to 155 million. That's in line with the 160 million claimed figure Beyonce is listed with.--Harout72 (talk) 12:47, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It's already been discussed and established that as an artist charted in 2002, Beyoncé requires 75.7% of certified units to support her claimed sales.
 * [ Talk:List of best-selling music artists/Archive 30] TJ 14:16, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Per the article's definition, artists of Beyoncé's generation require their claimed sales to be supported by over 75% of certified units. Based on the 30% streaming deduction, 155 million certified sales supports 77.5% of 200 million sales claims. Beyoncé meets the requirement for claimed sales higher than 160 million and is deserving. TJ 13:52, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I think putting Taylor around 180m-190m would be more likely. It's still too early to assume she sold 200 million pure records (her certified and claimed sales being just close to each other), considering how streaming really boosted her sales in the past few years. Loibird90 (talk) 02:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I tend to support Loibird90. The favorable thing for Taylor, as its assumed by the data available of 3rd party measurement firms, she has amassed millions of physical units, in the States eg. But this is mostly speaking above the average of the streaming-era, nor compared to a record from the album era, eg. This seems to apply to her fast-selling records, as after few months/weeks in the market, a platinum-equivalent album doesn't seem to double it sales, or keep selling like a record in the album era. For example, the most closest to be actual Diamond-seller albums in the states of the past decade, was Adele's record, as shows the decade-report of Nielsen. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 03:10, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Stumbled across this, so I might give my take on it, It's crazy how Taylor Swift being compared to other artists such as Drake, Ariana Grande etc..., it's obvious that Taylor Swift is much popular (at least in terms of sales) than Beyonce in the US, Canada, Australia, NZ and even Japan. In fact, out of all the artists who debuted in the past 16 years, she's the only one who sold the highest amount of albums in the US, Knowles is definitely a much better seller in Europe than Swift, but in terms of single sales I'd say both of 'em are almost similar, though Swift edges out Knowles in singles sales (especially in digital). But I gotta say Swift also has significant streaming generated singles. In fact, she has more streaming generated singles than Knowles. Chartmasters did an analysis on both artists and here's link for both artists: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé. Ik the excuse train will come regarding the reliability of Chartmasters but I gotta say the numbers they brought are pretty interesting.

With that being said I guess there's only two options left:
 * 1) reduce Taylor Swift to 175 million records (so that it'd match Beyoncé's sales) or
 * 2) increase Beyoncé to 200 million (so that it'd match Taylor's sales). I think an Rfc would really help in this situation. Moh8213 (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Taylor Swift has 133M Digital singles in the US. Even if we take 80% of these certifications as the argument here, she would be only around 106.4M certifications. We should also keep in mind that 1M song download will never equal 1M physical unit.— TheWikiholic (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It appears Harout is adamant about Taylor Swift retaining her 200 million sales claim. Beyoncé has enough certified sales after the discussed 30% streaming reduction. She has 155 million of 222 million certified units to support 77.5% of 200 million. This meets her requirement of 75.7% support of certified units. The below source from CBS will support her 200 million sales claim.
 * https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/protester-follows-beyonce-on-tour-claims-shes-possessed-by-demons/ TJ 01:52, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

We're not using the source with word "nearly". It's not clear enough to justify the Sales. I support Harout's explanation and let Swift's position in 200m club. Politsi (talk) 02:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)


 * So are we saying that 80% of Taylor Swift's digital certifications are download generated and that one song download is equivalent to one physical sale? TheWikiholic (talk) 01:49, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Why not just add a range to Beyoncé's figure until a 200 million sales source is indentified? 160-199 million.... Marksman9528 (talk) 10:41, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Lady gaga missing certification
Hold my hand has three certification. Canada, Australia and France. Why they don't appears? 93.66.127.119 (talk) 11:34, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

And the Born this way single double Platinum uk? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.66.127.119 (talk) 14:19, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Clarifying that the list is not representative of music from world cultures
Needless to say that the charts cited are primarily derived from western cultures, which does disservice to wikipedia and its readers in providing an accurate representation of the most influential musics that feed the tastes of the people of the world. How do we clarify this? 160.94.65.104 (talk) 01:05, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Which is why I am against the use of certifications only, as it discriminates against these artists. And in answer to your question, the list is not meant to represent music tastes, it's meant to list the best-selling artists. And the only way to do that is to find reliable sources with claims of sales figures. Richard3120 (talk) 14:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Totally agree. A list based on the use of certifications only would be a nonsense, just as it is a nonsense that certified sales figures (from a limited number of countries/markets, with certification systems established decades apart) are a percentage-based fabricated requirement to support worldwide claimed sales figures (that's the methodology that has been in use until now). I, in my case, have decided to support option C in the RfC. It allows to keep the certified sales figures, but under such methodology the artists will be sorted by their claimed sales figures (in fact, this has been the case so far as well), just removing the fabricated requirements based on percentages, allowing to add claimed sales figures supported by reliable sources, which will make possible the addition of artists like Frank Sinatra or Mr. Children. It will be more coherent for a list titled "List of best-selling music artists" and will reduce the lack of representation of non-Western artists at the same time. Salvabl (talk) 16:54, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Cliff richards
So where is cliff richards? I hear he has sold 250million records to date. 90.255.72.188 (talk) 06:59, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Queen
With their recently updated US certified sales, I think it's time to move Queen to the 250 million club. The only problem is I couldn't find any source that explicitly states that they've sold 250 million records, as most of the reliable sources use the 300 million sales claim, I don't mind adding them with 300 million sales claim, but I think it'd be much more preferable to use the 250 million sales claim (if there's any). Any thoughts? Moh8213 (talk) 13:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I have added Queen to the 250 million clubs by using this source provided by Politsi here. And I think there is a rough consensus to raise Queen's claimed sales to 300M once they have reached 180 million certified sales. TheWikiholic (talk) 17:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for updating the certs. Although now that they've reached 180 million certified sales, it would seem appropriate to use one of the 300 million sources. Here's a list I put together awhile back: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14mUYBFbnm2W2jJyLl7JpTKLIECx8d3pValQYoUiW0u0/edit?usp=sharing
 * If needed, we can also just wait until 190 million certified sales for that. ChimChamIt'sAScam05 (talk) 21:29, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

That's great! It took me days to find a 250 million sales claim to the point I lost hope lol, but yeah thanks for adding it, as I said earlier, I wouldn't oppose to include the 300 million, but since they have a strong streaming generated certifications, I would've waited till they reach 200 million with their certified sales. But if there are no objections, we could add the 300 million sales claim. (as long as we keep the 250 million sales claim) Moh8213 (talk) 18:27, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's okay to raise Queen's sales to 300m claim since their certified sales already reach 183m. Even Harout72 agree with me to raise their position to 300m sales. I've found the 250m claim for Queen but since that source not a type of source like BBC News or LA Times, we're holding it. I hope you guys able to help maintaining and updating certified sales of those artists in the list, because I'm not good at it. I just better in the sense of finding reliable source. Thanks Politsi (talk) 07:39, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * First of all, thanks to @Politsi and @ChimChamIt'sAScam05 for providing these sources. They will undoubtedly be very useful for the future of the List, because once the new methodology is implemented these claimed sales figures will be included for Queen. Either way, if you prefer to perform the update of Queen's figures before the methodology transition occurs; even under the current methodology, the claimed sales figure of 300M can already be added for the band. Salvabl (talk) 20:30, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Spice girls
Why aren’t the Spice Girls on this list ?

They have more certified copies than many artists on this list. They have sold over 100million records. Also they were popular in a lot of countries that didn’t and still don’t certify records sales.

The article says they must be supported by at least 30% certified sales they have nearly 50% of the 100million certified. Can you please get them added on. 2A02:C7E:2CAA:D500:4D40:1460:DB4D:377E (talk) 09:48, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

There's curently an on going discussion at the methodology of the list of the best-selling artists, if we gonna reach a consensus about changing the methodology, then SG, along with other notable artists might get included into the list. Moh8213 (talk) 11:58, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

It is exactly as Moh8213 has explained. Once the new methodology is implemented, Spice Girls will be added to this list. This would be another example of getting more uniformity, in this case with the "List of best-selling girl groups" article. I just did a quick search and it's easy to find reliable sources like this one (LA Times) that claims Spice Girls sales were 75 million records before splitting up in 2000. And there are probably other news sources stating higher claimed sales figures. Salvabl (talk) 17:06, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Please remember, this is the BEST selling music-artists list. It means only the BEST seller included on the list. Do not put too much artists inside while their real certified sales actually LOW. It will reduce the quality of the list. However, I think the Spice Girls deserved to be in the list since their certified sales already pass 45 million. Anyone can help? Politsi (talk) 07:57, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand your concerns. That is why I proposed that the minimum claimed sales figure should be 100M instead of 75M. However, after several days researching, I see there are not many artists that will be added to the List; mainly "classic" artists such as Frank Sinatra or others like Roberto Carlos. As for girls groups, in addition to Spice Girls, and although there have been many groups during periods without certification systems, only The Supremes and The Andrews Sisters can be added to the List. Beyond those cases, there are not many more artists with low certified sales and with specific (high enough) claimed sales figures supported by reliable sources at the same time. Salvabl (talk) 20:36, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've always thought that the claim of 100 million sales for the Supremes is nonsense. They've certainly had more sales than their certifications indicate, as they've almost certainly sold more than 20 million in singles alone in the US (14 of their singles have sold over a million copies there). But they were never a big-selling albums group apart from the occasional compilation, and their only other consistently good markets were the UK and Canada, and they've never had anything close to a million-seller in either country. I suspect Diana Ross's solo work might have been added to the Supremes' figure, because I doubt they sold more than 50 million worldwide. Richard3120 (talk) 21:03, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Hong Kong
Harout refused to use the official IFPI Hong Kong certifications, as far I remember, because it was unknown if a Platinum eg, was for 15,000 or 20,000 units before the 2000s, thus this could affect the "credibility" of the list if someone with "knowledge" noted this. Also, as far I remember, because Hong Kong is a tiny market that doesn't add a value information/data. Thoughts? Some artists like ABBA or Madonna seems fits for an inclusion following the figures used in our template for the country. Database (excluding the Top-Sellers post-2000s as seems are an "award" and not a certification). Thanks, --Apoxyomenus (talk) 16:43, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's use all official certification from every country. As long it's official, legal, and reliable. Let's use it. There is no reason not to use it, no matter how low the calculation. Let's use it, it was those artist achievement and we must respect on it. Politsi (talk) 04:01, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes IFPI Hong Kong was the official certification provider in that country. It was Harout that refused to use them. Let's wait a little bit, if somebody else give another opinion. Otherwise, the inclusion must be the following based in the current minimum requirement of 100,000 units and with the amount used in our template (10/20K for Gold/Platinum): Rod Stewart (120K), ABBA (130K) and Madonna (160K). There is another one with 100K, Boney M but they are not included in this list. Some artists were close with that figure: Eagles (90K), Bee Gees (80K), Michael Jackson (70K) or Barbra Streisand (60K) unless in future, figures below 100K can be added. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 04:25, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It was in Billboard March 22, 1980 page 68 (via worldradiohistory), that in that year IFPI Hong Kong raised its levels for international artists from previous ones 7,500 for gold and 15,000 for platinum to 10,000 for gold and 20,000 for platinum. It does not change the list that much and even if it had multi platinum levels probably it wouldn’t make so much that difference as well, but it could be used and showcase inclusion of some Asian countries and to also show how big/small market was. Dhoffryn (talk) 06:37, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

According to Apoxyomenus, Harout refused to add it because the certification thresholds for HK was unknown, which tbh is a resonable doubt, as it would make no sense to include any country without knowing its certification levels, but now since we have the certification thresholds, I guess it's okay to include it, my only concern is whether it's worthful to include this market, as out of the 100 or so artists on this list, only 3 artists passed the 100k, so I don't know tbh. Moh8213 (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * With the latter point, depends of the view. The Irish Recorded Music Association certifications are used here in a notable amount of only 4 artists against the +100 artists listed here. This happens because the availability of database in certain cases, like Ireland with only available data from 2005 to 2010 (5 years). Personally, I'm not against in having a "selected" examples of artists in some official databases as long the 100K figure is supported. For future reference, "C" option seems will triumph in the final results of the above RfC, so I guess other non-included artists like Boney M would fit for an inclusion in this list (and with their 100K in HK). They seems have 100M record sold, at least industry-related sources like OCC proves that, and perhaps there exists other sources supporting it. Also regarding the Irish certs, will be no longer that 2 artists listed if list is trimmed to 100M figures; unlike Hong Kong. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 22:27, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Idk how you counted it, but there actually are 12 artists (regardless of how notable they are) with certified sales of 100,000 units or more from Ireland, that's pretty impressive considering that IRMA certifications only lasted from 2005-2013, I'm sure if IRMA would post certs pre-2005, there'd be few more who would've been included into the list. Meanwhile IFPI Hong Kong lasted from 1977-2008 and yet only 4 artists have passed the 100k units. So as I said before, idk tbh. Moh8213 (talk) 23:06, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * True, my mistake that I didn't include the internal search result with the hyperlink of IRMA and only with "IRE:"; 10 artists within the +100M club and 2 below the club. Although my point remains the same, as long a 100K figure came from an official certification database would fits for an inclusion, regardless the amount of artists. Not only with HK, but with other similar scenarios if there exists. Not the big deal if we include it or not, but in comparison, I think this would be very minimal and not even close to be WP:TOOMUCH/WP:INDISCRIMINATE like having 100+ artists listed here. In this latter point, list will increase after the probably RfC result, with many examples backed by reliable sources along with certifications from official databases regardless the amount the artists attained. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 23:44, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding the total number of artists; I think that there are going to be very few artists with claimed sales figures around 75M that will be included consequence of the new methodology; rather there will be cases like Sinatra or Aznavour, who will be added in higher positions. For that reason, I still think it might be a good idea to reduce the total number of artists on this List by excluding those with claimed sales figures below 100M. I think this is something we can address in the near future, and maybe the right time will be after the implementation of the new methodology.
 * Important matters are being addressed here. These discussions will result in improvements to the List. I also support the addition of those officially certified sales figures. In Madonna's case, 160K Hong Kong certified sales is a figure that should be included. It is possible that we may not see HK certified sales figures for many artists included on this list, but not all artists have the global reach of Madonna. This matter needs to be addressed by putting the focus on each artist, not each market. By example, why does this list contain the figure of 140K certified sales in Portugal for Imagine Dragons and not the figure of 160K certified sales in Hong Kong for Madonna? This is an unfair situation (like others on the List) and should be corrected. Salvabl (talk) 23:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Updating record sales for Madonna and stop using older sources
Change the claimed sales of Madonna from 300 million to 335 million. Reasons being are the sources used in the current article are outdated in comparison to the sources used supporting the sales of the other artists/bands. Guinness World Records, offers a more recent total and is a more reliable source as it is recognised as a verified source for record certifications. Furthermore, the source uses the term “records” instead of “albums” or “singles”, which expresses the clarity of the reference, while the claimed figures referenced meet the required certified units amount and are not unrealistically high.

After examining the criteria Wikipedia provides for the editing of sales figures, it is apparent that the change of the claimed sales total for Madonna from 300 million to 335 million is a valid change and is necessary in order to maintain the reliability of the article and for the article to remain contemporary.

Source URL

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-selling-female-recording-artist Hughie2000 (talk) 13:52, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree that there should be higher claimed sales figures for Madonna. And that will be the case after the implementation of the new methodology for the List. But those figures should be supported by reliable sources, preferably WP:NEWSORG. That is not the case of Guinness World Records. However, in the case of Madonna's claimed sales figures, we can find other references like this one supporting the 335M figure; and probably other news sources support higher figures for the artist. Salvabl (talk) 16:53, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Elton John has 207m in certified sales and he start his music hit since 1970 but still his sales only around 250m-300m. While Madonna only has 181m in certified sales. Please stop making the list to be fans base Playground. This list must be reliable not to satisfied your ego for your favorite artists. Politsi (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * There is a new reliable source for Madonna's only 250m https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-08-17/madonna-has-been-scandalizing-people-for-40-years-and-nobodys-going-to-stop-her.html Politsi (talk) 09:18, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the reference, Politsi. I have already stated in previous messages that Elton John should have higher claimed sales figures, so I agree with you on that. I was talking about Madonna and her claimed sales figures, but that doesn't mean I think other artists' figures are correct. However, after the implementation of the new methodology there will be a range for these artists, which will cover figures like that 250M and also higher ones, both for Madonna and Elton John or others. Salvabl (talk) 12:02, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Politsi to a certain extent. But to be quite fair, most of Madonna's record sales are physical/digital, and compared to other artists on the 250m+ club, she perhaps has the lowest streaming figures out of the bunch. So I wouldn't oppose the 335m to be included (as long as it's citated by a highly reputable third-party source), but we should definitely not use the 400m sales claim that was suggested by another user not so long ago. Moh8213 (talk) 18:27, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Aaron Liu (talk) 12:11, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Beyoncé 200 million source
Per the previous discussion on Beyoncé's record sales being listed as 200 million, here is a recent article from Daily Mirror that can be used.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/beyonc-create-alter-ego-sasha-27894824 TJ 23:28, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's wait until she has at least 250m in her certified sales. By the way. Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Daily Star are Banned from Wikipedia. Politsi (talk) 02:40, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * This source from Billbaord:
 * “Beyoncé is referred to as the queen for many reasons. Off the top of our heads, she has put out six No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, scored seven No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, picked up 28 Grammy Awards, headlined five massively successful concert tours and has sold a couple hundred million records in her two-decade-plus career.”
 * https://www.billboard.com/photos/beyonces-style-evolution-see-photos-1235105288/ ~ TJ 04:51, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * It's already been discussed and established that as an artist charted in 2002, Beyoncé requires 75.7% of certified units to support her claimed sales. Per the article's definition, artists of Beyoncé's generation require their claimed sales to be supported by over 75% of certified units. Based on the 30% streaming deduction previously discussed, 155 million certified sales supports 77.5% of 200 million sales claims. Beyoncé meets the requirement for claimed sales of 200 million and is deserving. I will continue to search for a reliable source to facilitate the update to 200 million in sales claim. ~
 * TJ 04:29, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Those percentage-based requirements will be removed after the implementation of the new methodology. Anyway, this reference, though strange in its content, is from a reliable source (CBS News), and may be added as a secondary reference to support the 200M claimed sales figure. Salvabl (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for sharing that information. Good to know. I also added in the suggested secondary source. TJ 16:53, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree and support Beyonce to 200m club. But please make sure the source is CLEAR. The source from CBS news was saying "Nearly" which not good enough to justify the Sales. And source from Billboard is'nt clear either. Politsi (talk) 03:52, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @TJ and @Salvabl please keep searching for Beyonce's 200m reliable source. The statement of "nearly" is not good enough for the list. We're using that source from CBS News only for temporary. Thanks. Politsi (talk) 09:09, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. We have to keep searching for more references to support that figure. Salvabl (talk) 12:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I will keep searching for more references as well. TJ 16:58, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Do we had a consensus to raise Beyonce to 200m clubs?. Beyonce currently has 114 M certification for her digital single sales. By equating that to 200m claimed sales  we are indirectly accepting that 114M digital singles certification are equivalent to 100m units of physical sales. If that is the case it will open the door for many artist like Drake, Rihanna, Eminem, Kanye West, Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran to have a bigger claimed sales.— TheWikiholic (talk) 15:17, 14 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The 114 million RIAA Single Certification Awards are not all digital. Some are mastertone. For example, Irreplaceable is certified 6x platinum digital and 3x platinum mastertone. Also, when including features she has over 171 RIAA certifications. We’ve also discussed a reduction of her total certifications based streaming. There was a discussion based on sample analyses of Beyoncé’s pure sales vs streaming numbers a little over a month ago. The same analysis can be done for other artists like Drake, Rihanna, Eminem, Kanye West, Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran if there is concern on digital vs streaming vs physical units. TJ 03:39, 15 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I understand your points of view. The source supporting the 200M claimed sales figure is reliable (although the content is a bit strange). I think that the existence of different music formats is something that can easily lead to conflicts. These kinds of discussions will cease with the new methodology, because, although claimed total sales are always unknown territory, I have not seen any reliable source claiming that Drake has sold 300M or 400M records as of today; it should be considered that success reached Drake since 2009. However, while Beyoncé's 200M claimed sales figure is already included in the List even under the current methodology, and will remain so under the new methodology, what we can do is to add the 160M claimed sales figure as well. Salvabl (talk) 18:35, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The same condition happens to Taylor Swift. I will add her 170m claim. Politsi (talk) 07:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

This record is false... Beyonce has not yet reached up to 200million record sold. This is a biased printing.. The last I check on April 20th, 2022, she was on 160m records sold. Now, she automatically reached 200... Please, stop this falsification. Esom2k (talk) 13:50, 18 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Please do not post opinions, Wikipedia is not a forum. All claims need to be based on reliable sources. >> Lil-unique1  (  talk  ) — 15:21, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

New methodology
Following the RfC, which was ended yesterday by Legobot after 30 days since its start, since no editor has considered necessary to extend its duration, and taking into account the consensus reached to remove the methodology based on fabricated percentages, I have proceeded to implement the new methodology based on the option C, which was the most supported in the RfC. All the texts have already been adapted to the new methodology, as well as the Talk page's mbox, keeping as much of the previous content as possible. Also, a request has already been made for the modification of the Page notice template.

I want to thank all the editors for the positive atmosphere we are having in these last weeks. Now it is time to keep working to improve the list.

I have updated the claimed sales figures of some artists that were already included in the List. It is still necessary to continue updating or adding more claimed sales figures for other artists.

In addition, I have already added Frank Sinatra, The Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby and Wei Wei to the List. All of them have been added without the certified sales figures, which will be easier to add later. In the same way, it is also still necessary to add the missing certified sales of other artists, such as Madonna's Hong Kong certified sales figures (160K).

I think the best thing to do now is to add more available claimed sales figures supported by reliable sources, as some editors such as Politsi had already started to do, and to continue adding artists that had not been possible to add to the List until now. Salvabl (talk) 18:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * New artists: With a minimum of 75 million records, here is a mini list of artists that could be added. Most of them have certifications in one or more databases. There exists other artists, but I've only added those I remember by the moment. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Per the rfc, we did agree to include artists who have low certs into the list, though, I don't recall any agreement of increasing the claimed sales of artists who are currently on the list, especially to the big ones like the Beatles, Elvis Presley or MJ, I think we got too quick to include the billion records sales claim to those artists, therefore I'd suggest to make a consensus/rfc before making these type of changes to those artists. Moh8213 (talk) 19:40, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Apoxyomenus Thank you very much for the link to your list. That information is going to be very useful in this new stage of the list. I have been researching intensely these last few weeks and I think your list covers practically all the possible artists that could be added to the list. I contacted a Japanese friend and perhaps the only "classic" Japanese artist that could be added is Hibari Misora.
 * There are others. But I'll take a look of them once I've time. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 20:59, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Moh8213 Claimed sales are not objective data, so it is difficult to establish an upper limit. Who can decide if a figure is inflated or not? Something like that is what can produce a biased list. That is why it has been decided that the only requirement is that the claimed sales figures be supported by reliable sources. This has been widely discussed in the RfC. However, please, if you find any invalid/non-reliable source, do not hesitate to expose it. But I think another RfC would be redundant. I don't see it necessary, since there has been good participation and consensus has been reached on eliminating the percentage requirements. Such requirements had to be met for an artist to be added to the List, and they also had to be met in order to increase the artists' claimed sales figures. In fact, there has been more discussions about the percentages requirements caused by increases in the claimed sales figures of artists who were already included, than by the inclusion of artists who were not on the List before. Salvabl (talk) 20:43, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with you no one was informed that all sales would be placed on the table, only taking into account claim sales. Those 1 billion are completely insane. Bing Crosby also has claim sales of 1 billion, and Elvis of 1.8 billion, which confirms the Guinness that places him as the best selling artist in the history. If any and all information is to be considered, even those that seem inflated to someone, the entire list has to be redone. There are higher claim sales for many of the artists on the list. Madonna already has claim sales of 400 million records sold. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with those 1 billion on the list. But anyway, I have warned you, this can become a mess, the list has lost credibility, anything goes.--Markus WikiEditor (talk) 21:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think this list has lost any credibility, since it now includes artists such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Wei Wei or The Andrews Sisters, who until now were not included in a list titled "List of best-selling music artists", while we could find artists such as Kenny G included in the list since years ago. Guinness World Records is not a reliable source. The claimed sales figures should be supported by reliable sources from WP:NEWSORG. For example, Elvis Presley has a claimed sales figure of 1 billion records because it is supported by a source from CNN (see here), not Guinness World Records. In addition, from a long time ago, if we go to the Elvis Presley article, we will read "with sales estimated by various sources up to 500 million - 1 billion.", so the recent changes on this list are consistent with the articles of the artists listed. Nothing out of place is being added, in fact some artists such as Frank Sinatra were already included years ago and later dropped. Let me be clear.. probably none of the methodologies are perfect, but several users have stated their support for the current one and it should be respected. Salvabl (talk) 00:31, 20 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Note I've requested that Salvabl revert his close and wait for an uninvolved editor to close the RfC instead. I've explained why here.Vladimir.copic (talk) 22:48, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I have just reverted the closing. See here for further explanation. Salvabl (talk) 01:31, 20 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Do you realise that even the most reliable sources aren't 100% correct all the time? Just because artists like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Wei Wei or The Andrew Sisters were included into the list doesn't mean the list didn't lose its credibility, you still erratically increased the claimed of the artists I mentioned above, while they were still utterly fine with their previously listed claimed sales. Not to mention, the main purpose of that rfc was to include artists who couldn't be included because of the prev. methodology, not to suddenly increase the claimed sales of the already listed artists on the list. This move definitely made the list to lose its credibility and I gotta say I'm disappointed by it. This article published by The New Yorker gives you every reason as to why those high claimed sales are nothing but exaggerated sales fabricated by record labels and reliable sources for promotional purposes. And out of all the "reliable" sources out there they're the only one who took a stand on this issue. Moh8213 (talk) 08:52, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree with Moh8213 I really shock seeing the list with so many OVER inflated sales figure which is really unrelated with the previous discussion. to Salvabl What are you doing? this list is not a fan base playground. Why you suddenly adding 1 billion, 750 million, 500 million, 400 million, 370 million. What are you doing?. This list was created to prevent such over inflated sales for promotional purpose. And now you're doing it. Politsi (talk) 09:29, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I will bring the previous claim sales where it belong. Beatles/600m, Elvis/500m, Jackson/400m, Madonna/300m, Elton John/300m, ABBA/150m. Politsi (talk) 09:35, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * But for Frank Sinatra. We should let him stay since he was on the list previously. Politsi (talk) 10:04, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I remove New Kids on the Block because their 30m certified sales is too low to have 80m claim. But we should bring Green Day back to the list and also Miley Cyrus. They're deserved to be on the list. Politsi (talk) 10:13, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

General credibility of this article
The claims of the sales figures listed here are based on inaccurate and non-verifiable pseudo-sources. How can it be that when it comes to "record sales", albums, singles and downloads of individual tracks are lumped together? How can it be possible that an artist like Rihanna, whose alleged figures of 250 million listed here mainly refer to the downloads of individual tracks, is rated higher here than an artist like the Bee Gees, whose sales figures of 120 million listed here have been primarily albums? An album has more tracks, more music, costs more money, etc. and therefore, is worthier in terms of music selling than a single and of course a single download.

Again: Formats with different values must not be added up and listed one to one, because different formats have different values and don't belong together at all! Therefore, I recommend the following source:

CSPC: The best selling artists of all-time as of 2021 - ChartMasters

There, the different formats (physical, download albums, singles, streams) are rated appropriately and an equivalent album sales figure is determined. This also invalidates utopian legends, such as that Elvis Presley allegedly sold 1 or even 1.8 billion (Of what actually?). Hence, Rihanna has sold 33 million studio albums, 1 million other albums, 4 million physical singles, 258 million digital singles and 33 million streams, totaling 103 million equivalent album sales, making her the 47th best-selling artist at the moment, while the Bee Gees with 161 million equivalent album sales are ranked on the 19th at the moment. Please consider this source instead of falling for any newspaper ads or management ducks.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schorsch.landmann (talk • contribs) 07:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)


 * A very questionable pseudo-site with mistakes made by amateurs
 * How strange to see that here too, on the English Wikipedia, some are trying to integrate the "pseudo-site" chartmaster as best they can. This happened a few days ago on the Spanish wikipedia as well. While it's true that chartmaster uses official sources, that doesn't make it any more official. For good reason, although the site may use information from the IFPI, or Nielsen among others, it uses it as a basis for making estimates. Show me a single source that reveals such numbers (to the nearest unit) among the references used by chartmaster. You won't find any.
 * They also make many mistakes. For example :
 * The site makes sales equivalents using the number of reproductions made on different platforms (spotify, youtube, etc.), while these can already be counted in the equivalent digital sales made by official bodies. Currently, the RIAA already counts the number of views on YouTube to generate its sales equivalents. All these official associations already account for streaming. Moreover, we do not know if these flows were counted by the official organizations in the equivalent sales of albums or singles. Chartmaster actually creates a very random duplicate.
 * If the site makes the difference between the sale of physical and digital singles, it does not do the same with the albums which, according to the artists and their period of activity, constitute for them mainly physical sales (I am thinking of the old generations). . These are mixed with equivalent album sales (weighted again by the site itself next). This lack of differentiation means that a different weighting is not performed. There is therefore already an imbalance in the management of sales of singles and albums.
 * These are just a few of many comments. Nothing is really successful, and we can see the flaws of this site (even if the founders want to do things right). It is therefore cruelly regrettable that this work is not carried out by the competent authorities who have access to all the information. Although Chartmaster wants to be a site, it does not have all the mandatory legal notices, in particular the contact of its host (which is necessary in case of a particular legal problem), not to mention the absence of mentions of the laws that govern the privacy policy. cookies (EU laws, for example). All these beautiful people seem to be enthusiasts who have developed a system of their own, reinforcing a way of doing things that is strongly related to the notion of blogging. Wikipedia is not the showcase of a site, or its name or its ideology, and less of an unpublished work that should come in this case from an official source. --Elenora.C (talk) 19:03, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * the reliability of Chartmasters has been discussed at least twice in the past on Wikipedia, and editors have come to the same consensus – it is not a reliable source, we have no idea who the person is that runs it, where he obtains his information from, and no way of verifying its accuracy, so it is not used on Wikipedia. Richard3120 (talk) 19:32, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this info. Do you have a link to those past threads? I would like to see if I find some users there. Because I think that some of them (but this remains a hypothesis) are the same people who are at the head of this site. Elenora.C (talk) 19:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We discussed it at WP:CHARTS: Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Archive 14. But most of the anonymous voices suggesting its use were on this very article – type "chartmasters" into the "Search archives" box at the top of this page, and you will get a list of the threads where it has been mentioned. Richard3120 (talk) 20:17, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. Elenora.C (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * the reliability of Chartmasters has been discussed at least twice in the past on Wikipedia, and editors have come to the same consensus – it is not a reliable source, we have no idea who the person is that runs it, where he obtains his information from, and no way of verifying its accuracy, so it is not used on Wikipedia. Richard3120 (talk) 19:32, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this info. Do you have a link to those past threads? I would like to see if I find some users there. Because I think that some of them (but this remains a hypothesis) are the same people who are at the head of this site. Elenora.C (talk) 19:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We discussed it at WP:CHARTS: Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Archive 14. But most of the anonymous voices suggesting its use were on this very article – type "chartmasters" into the "Search archives" box at the top of this page, and you will get a list of the threads where it has been mentioned. Richard3120 (talk) 20:17, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. Elenora.C (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't be surprised if chartmasters would want their website to appear on some of Wikipedia's articles, hell even one user attempted to add chartmasters version of the list of the best-selling music artists. Also gotta say that list is unbelievably bias towards newer artists, what's the point of using "album-equivalent" sales in an age where album sales are literally dead. I also agree about the unreliability of that website, while admittedly the figures they brought on that list are rather interesting, still we have no clue from where those figures are coming from, and it clearly seems it's a one-man hobbyist website. After checking artists' album sales on that list, there's one that got me suspicious, he did an analysis on Tupac's album sales, and in one of the albums he listed All Eyez on Me to have sold 630,000 units in Germany, despite the fact that the album never received a Gold (250,000) nor a Platinum (500,000) certification. I left a comment on that post, asked him from where he brought those figures, obviously he didn't reply to me, and I guess this says it all. Moh8213 (talk) 09:55, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Mariah Carey
Hello, what level of certifications should Mariah Carey have under the new guidelines for her to be under the 250 million club? fidelovkurt 17:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * She must have at least 230m in her certified sales. Her recent certified sales mostly digital download and streaming. Politsi (talk) 03:57, 30 September 2022 (UTC)