The top 50 bestselling musical artists of all time: can you guess who are in the top five?
- Artists are graded by the number of million selling platinum albums they have released
- The figures are based on data from the Recording Industry Association of America
In the decades before streaming-era rules and digital downloads inflated album sales, platinum certification was more difficult for artists to obtain.
When an artist achieved platinum status back then – selling a million or more physical copies of an album – it took a more fervent effort from fans (who had to drive to record stores, find an album, and spend their hard-earned cash on it), but many acts nonetheless reached platinum certification routinely.
Compiling data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) data, we have ranked the bestselling artists of all time by the number of platinum albums they’ve sold in the US. Also included are the number of diamond albums, which sold more than 10 million copies.
Some of the results here are surprising, but the legendary acts at the top of the list are perhaps ones you’d expect to see.
Here are the 50 bestselling artists of all time, ranked by platinum albums sold:
50. Prince