Beatles, Presley, Jackson sales are heavily incorrect
First of all, peope should know that EMI executive said in 2001 (sorry, no link) that USA were about half of all Beatles catalogue sales. Lets do the math: USA's RIAA wholesales are: 168 million albums + 22 million singles = 190 million * 2 ~= 380 million. Even taking into consideration the developments of market in the last 10-20 years, when third country markets (after USA and UK) grew considerably, there is no way how sales figures could be about billion. More rational estimation of
sales of Beatles are 400 million records worldwide.
Elvis' half billion worldwide estimation looks more reliable, at the first sight, but more than 2/3 of his sales are said to be domestic, and from the rest quantity considerable part is UK. He sold about 121 million albums in the USA (certified 116m and prior to RIAA's certifications 5m) and about 60 million singles. This means that
globally Elvis sold like 300 million records (singles are like 100 million of that quantity).
Also, when we estimate market's volume in 50s-60s-70s, we should remember that prior to Jackson's "Thriller" album (1982) the highest worldwide seller was Beatles' "Sergent Pepper..." with 14 million copies (globally).
"Thriller" did 32 million to the 1984 and 40 million to the end of 1985 (Now "Thriller" sales are 59 million worldwide). Jackson sold 20 million copies of his album outside of USA.
Additionally, to see rational sales figures for Beatles and Elvis people should know that SoundScan counted for Beatles in the USA in 1991-2004 years about 19 million copies of all of their albums, and global sales for that period are estimated in quantity of about 50 million copies, including 27 million copies of Beatles' "#1s" album. Notice that without super promoted and successful #1s albums sales for 14 years would be about 23 million copies worldwide. This calculation is the answer for those people who worry that RIAA does not certify albums before 0,5 million copies sold, hence cumulative RIAA sales could not include many records that did not reach that volume of sales. SoundScan does not depend on this, it counts everything, each unit possible, and it showed that the volume of uncertified by RIAA albums can not be significant.
Well, this sales rate SoundScan showed makes Beatles/Elvis sales are no more than 15-30 million a decade. For comparison, Michael Jackson sells like 25-35 million a decade extrapolated -- if calculated on the basis of "silent years" (no promotion, no releases, no nothing: like 1990, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, et cetera, when Jackson's pace is about 2.5-3.5 million albums a year).
This means that
there is technically no way how Beatles could sell billion records or Elvis sell half billion records worldwide. To answer Tony Galvin's doubts about how RIAA counts albums with different ID#s, I can say they add-up everything to one unit. Galvin estimates that domestic
cumulative sales of Elvis' albums are about 160 million, he adds 45 million to RIAA figure because there were a lot of albums that sold below 0.5 million copies, hence uncertified, as well as albums with different ID#s.
(Galvin's article:
http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/500_million_elvis_fans_cant_be_wrong_or_can_they.shtml)
However, as I said above, all the facually same albums, though with different colours, covers, ID#s, et cetera, are always
united/grouped/counted as one. So RIAA's 116 million figure can be actually expanded to about than like 130 million for Elvis' USA album sales.
Estimation of US/World ratios that listed in the article this discussion created for is not applicable towards Michael Jackson. His USA sales are about 27% of global ones, he is the most international USA artist/group. In Iraq and China children did not knew who Bush or the Pope was, but they knew how to Moonwalk. 2200 journalists from 34 countries from five continents were covering Jackson's trial -- thrice bigger than any other act like OJ
Simpson or Scott Peterson or whoever else before in the world. In fact, this was huger or equal than any biggest international event ever happened in history. Jackson had the biggest international tour worldwide, visiting like, in his tours, 40 countries with up to 15 million tickets sold abroad.
In 2000s, Jackson sold about 25 million records worldwide, and only like 5 million of those sales were in the USA.
(In 1991, Jackson released album "Dangerous", which wholesold 14 million copies in 14 days, the records that was not beaten ever since. Guinness book is incorrect here again, claiming that sale of 13 million copies of Beatles' #1s is record).
Jackson's Epic Records (ER) worldwide solo albums wholesales are about 210 million (grows 3 million each year without new releases or promotion). For the USA market, RIAA certifies wholesales, and USA is 27% of world sales, and ratio is 3.7. Plus about 70 million ER solo singles ~= 285 million ER solo records. In 1990, Motown said they sold to that date about 30 million solo records of Michael Jackson. To this date, the quantity can be estimated
to be like 45 million. This makes about
Jackson's sales about 330 million solo records worldwide.
In 1984 Motown said they sold 110 million records of "Jackson 5" group. In 1990, ER said they sold 30 million records of "The Jacksons" group. To this day, estimation gives that those two groups' cumulative sales are abuot 170 million records. Thus, there are about 500 million records with Jackson's voice and name, of which about 330 million are solo records.
That is why Jackson was the "Artist of Millennium" by World Music Awards, official IFPI partner (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), in 2000, as well as the biggest selling artist of all time in 1996 and 1993. It was not Elvis Presley, Iglesias, Elton John or whoever else.
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To answer my own question, yes, Michael Jackson is the biggest selling solo artist of all-time.
MICHAEL JACKSON
Solo Motown Albums: 20 Million
Solo Motown Singles: 14 Million
Solo Epic Albums: 230 Million
Solo Epic Singles: 70 Million
TOTAL = 330 Million
ELVIS PRESLEY
US Albums: 116.5 Million
US Singles: 50 Million
US Total: 166.5 Million
According to his offical website...
QUOTE
It is estimated that 60% of these sales have been in the United States and 40% in other countries.
So if 166.5 Million is 60% of his worldwide sales, than his worldwide sales must be approximately 280 Million.
Worldwide total = 280 Million
So, as you can see, Michael Jackson is the biggest selling solo artist of all-time. I'm pretty sure the Beatles might have the upper hand on him, but they aren't solo, they're a group.
Reading the wikipedia chart, it's also worth considering that if the figures were closer i.e. a tie, then MJ would win hands down as compared to Elvis' 150+ number of albums, MJ's is just across 14 releases which is quite incredible...
Sources for Jackson's current wholesales figure estimation*:
1) Motown Records press-releases, announcements, conferences for Jackson Five and Michael Jackson sales;
2) Epic Records/CBS Records press-releases, announcements, conferences for The Jackson's sales;
3) Epic Records/Sony Music Entertainment press-releases, announcements, conferences for Michael Jackson's sales;
4) Michael Jackson and Rodney Jerkins announcements;
5) SoundScan statistics for USA data;
6) RIAA certifications volume and timing statistics for USA data;
7) Internal source from ER/SME, published by Captain Eo Productions (such as single's sales).
For other mentioned sellers industry news media reports are used, and IFPI.
* -- sales are wholesale shipments
A black kid from our country is up there with four guys from Liverpool. BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT... plus he owns their records. 