Who Is The Best Selling Artist Of All Time?

The Beatles claim the top spot as the most successful recording artists of all time, with over 600 million claimed sales to date! Other artists like Michael Jackson, Elvis, Madonna and Queen make up the rest of the top five.

1. The Beatles: No surprises here - the Beatles have sold an estimated 420 million total records since their first single “Love Me Do” came out in 1962. 

1. Michael Jackson: The world's best-selling solo artist; the King Of Pop has global estimated sales of just over 330 million, with nearly a quarter of those sales being digital.

    

2. Elvis Presley: Elvis managed to swing in just over 320 million total sales during his  24-year career, with nearly half of those being physical copies sold (which is actually quite impressive given how popular streaming has become in recent years).

    

3. Queen: The only other group in this top-five list outside of the Beatles. Queen got close to breaking the 300 million total units barrier at 280 million sold. Interestingly, though, Queen sold nearly double the amount of studio albums that Elvis did, with approximately 90 million and 50 million respectively. 

    

4. Madonna: The most successful female artist of all time, Madonna has managed to sell over 240 million records worldwide, with an impressive 140 million of those being physical album releases!

The following list is not in any particular order…

1. Elton John: In his nearly 60-year career, Elton John is now just shy of 210 million total record sales, with nearly 90 million of those being physical album releases.

    

2. Frank Sinatra: ‘Old blue-eyes’ has a pretty comfortable spot in the top 10 best-selling artists of all time, with over 230 million records sold to date.

    

3. Eminem: An incredibly interesting entry on this list. Eminem has garnered nearly 210 million global sales, with the vast majority of these sales coming from digital single purchases. He is also the most streamed artist of the top 15 best-selling artists ever with over 52 million combined plays!

    

4. Pink Floyd: Taking the number 7 spot on the best-selling all-time list, Pink Floyd have sold the most studio albums of anyone on this list, second only to Michael Jackson. They managed nearly 170 million album sales during their time, with nearly 240 million total sales.

    

5. The Rolling Stones:  Pretty firmly cemented in 6th position, the Rolling Stones have a collective 244 million sales globally, with nearly exactly half of this number coming from studio album releases.

It is definitely worth mentioning that the order of these lists are of course subject to change at a moment's notice, as some artists that have been featured have sold very similar sorts of numbers. For example, AC/DC and U2 are only about 800,000 sales apart from each other - with the former just about beating the latter to 12th place on the all-time list. 

Was your favourite artist or group featured on this list? Let us know by leaving a comment below the blog!