Stacker's Most Successful Musical Artists of All Time
"Stacker has rounded up the 50 most successful musical artists of all time. These folks have been trailblazers and icons. They've sold millions of albums and singles, performed countless live shows, and even invented new genres. In order to come up with this list, Stacker looked at data from both the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Grammy Awards. The RIAA gives out certifications based on the number of albums and singles an artist has sold. Gold albums have sold 500,000 copies; platinum albums have sold 1,000,000 copies; multi-platinum have sold 2,000,000 (with increments of 1,000,000 thereafter), and diamond albums have sold 10,000,000 copies. Stacker then came up with an index to rank each artist that takes into account the total number of RIAA certified units (70%), Grammy wins (20%), and Grammy nominations (10%). Additionally, to be considered for this story, artists must have sold 10 million RIAA certified units." - stacker.com
avg. score: 36 of 50 (73%)
required scores: 1, 28, 37, 43, 47
