Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of best-charting U.S. music artists


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. At this point, after 2 weeks, there seems to be consensus the article is improvable & that improvement has already begun DGG (talk) 00:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

List of best-charting U.S. music artists

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This looks like a lot of work went into this, so I would say to come up with this falls under both WP:IINFO and WP:OR. It's just a list of artists charting on miscellaneous Billboard charts. Wolfer68 (talk) 23:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Also included in the nomination:


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 00:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 00:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 00:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete both Indiscriminate information, overly long list, no real criteria for inclusion. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's not remove the entire article. It's not some random or indiscriminate listing of artists' charting hits. I don't see it any more trivial than information presented in these other listings:


 * List of best-selling music artists in the United States
 * List of Hot 100 (U.S.) chart achievements and trivia
 * List of artists who reached number one in the United States
 * List of artists by total number of U.S. number-one singles
 * List of (U.S.) Billboard country chart chart achievements

We can trim the 300+ artist list to 200 or so and make it more manageable.--Don1962 (talk) 00:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I don't think these lists are indiscriminate information. The charts are widely recognized and cited in many articles, and the information is of considerable interst to readers who follow popular music. On the other hand, I am quite concerned about the lack of sourcing.  The authors must be able to point the reader to reliable sources for the information contained in the lists, or else they are original research and inappropriate for Wikipedia. If verifiability can't be demonstrated, I can't support keeping them. BRMo (talk) 03:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Of those articles listed, I would support the deletion of the second and last ones (though for slightly different reasons than for this article. As for the rest of them, there is a difference between them and these 2- those articles merely take one element (#of sales, chart position etc.) and rank the top artists; this article fuses several of these together for an arbitrary ranking. The DominatorTalkEdits 07:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the article just needs better organization. It's obvious time was spent and is very resourceful for modern music. The other list shows artist with many who stop making music. This list shows artist who are currently recording and are the most successful modern artist. I don't think it should be deleted at all; just better organized.Forever Kenny (talk)
 * Weak Keep list items are notable, could serve as a user navigational aid. I don't like the amount of overlap with other articles, however. Gigs (talk) 15:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete all. No one has demonstrated yet that the information on these lists can be verified, so—interesting though they may be—I can't support keeping them. BRMo (talk) 19:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This information can certainly be better verified. It's from Billboard publications and All Music Guide.--Don1962 (talk) 03:17, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've looked at the Billboard Webpages that are listed as external links (the nearest thing to references shown in the article) and I don't see the information listed in the table. If the information can be verified, please demonstrate it by adding citations to the specific sources of the information (including dates and page numbers if you're using the offline magazine). BRMo (talk) 10:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 04:24, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Regrettable Delete- Seems to be a somewhat interesting, well-formatted list that took a lot of work, but it fails WP:IINFO and the cut-off for the two articles seems to be somewhat arbitrary and strange, and as the nominator pointed out original research primarily in violation of WP:SYNTH. The DominatorTalkEdits 07:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. The concept of the article(s) is good but I'm a bit concerned about lack of sourcing also.  At the very least, some of the Billboard/Joel Whitburn books would help to confirm some of the totals, at least for the U.S. columns.  If these are kept I would suggest renaming (current article titles seem to indicate that the artists are from the U.S.).  Not sure why CAN or AUS columns would be included and I don't know what "CCM" or "Other" mean either.  I'd also suggest merging the two - why separate out "modern" artists? - eo (talk) 16:35, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I've started adding references and cleaned up columns.--Don1962 (talk) 16:47, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Pledge to improve Per suggestions, I plan to source all the statistics via Joel Whitburn books and All Music Guide entries. I plan to clean-up some of the columns and change the last column to REFERENCES.

Keep. I can see how this information isn't found in one place online, as serves as a listing of chart achievements. I note how Michael Jackson is called "the King of Pop." Yet, his sister has had more charting hits. And in terms of number of hits (not sales, which is dealt with in numerous other Wiki pages) MJ is nowhere near the top of the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.149.3.181 (talk) 18:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Presumptive keep-- Almost all of the information can be sourced, which makes it an editing issue rather than a deletion issue.
 * The article needs a prose introduction, along the lines of U.S. Presidents or Best Picture.
 * I would totally lose the Canadian and Australian columns, which are sparsely annotated and thus non-encyclopedic.
 * The complete UK chart history is far easier to come by-- for instance, Perry Como had 26 charting singles (Complete UK Hit Singles, 1952-2004, pg. 166), James Brown had 24, Frank Sinatra had 40, and Ray Charles had 17. However, the UK and US charts differ in many fundamental respects, so pairing them in this sort of format is problematic.
 * The subsidiary Billboard chart data (AC/Adult/Rock/R&B/Country) needs to have much less white space in their columns. This means a full historic accounting for those charts, including some indication when an artist's entry is blank.  For instance, Perry Como has never appeared on the R&B chart, but the blank space suggests incomplete information.  Some symbol such as a hyphen or a zero should be there instead.
 * I'd also get rid of the RIAA column, which is neither chart-related nor comprehensive (the RIAA only calculates sales figures when paid to do so by the calculate-ee, thus making various artists' totals over- or underrepresented).
 * There's nothing wrong with this page that future improvements and a streamlined premise can't solve.One Sweet Edit (talk) 07:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Given the comments above about the potential for sourcing improvements, and the improvements that Don1962 has already made since this AfD began, it appears that the need here is for regular editing/cleanup rather than deletion. I'd lean towards keep. Paul Erik  (talk) (contribs) 16:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment What should we do with the cut-off for the two articles, though? Unless I'm mistaken, the cut-off for what goes in the first article and what goes in the "Modern" article is arbitrary and Original research. I suggest we either merge them or find a better system for what goes in each (or at the very least define it better eg. First charted before/after 1990). The DominatorTalkEdits</tt> 18:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment I realize this is still a work in progress (and maybe it should be taken off line until it is ready), but the references that have been added do not confirm the numbers in the list (the numbers are off or aren't even discussed). If this is going to be kept and based primarily on the Hot 100, it should only be for artists with at least ten Hot 100 chart appearances or this is going to be a bear to continually maintain and keep up to date. Definitely merge the two lists and remove the UK, Canada, and AUS columns because their inclusion seems to contradict what this list is supposed to be showing. And why should an artists' "greatest hits" compilations and "live" albums be excluded from the Billboard 200 list - many of these have had productive chart runs as well and should be reflected for those artists. If the source in which these are being obtained doesn't count them, then that has to be referenced as well; otherwise, I would consider the decision to exclude them original research. --Wolfer68 (talk) 06:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.