Who were the most successful artists of each decade?

Any analysis that attempts to compare one year with another has to take into account the different levels of charts for different eras. When examining the greatest song act, greatest songs and greatest album raw scores were adjusted to allow entries from the 1920s to be compared with those from the 1990s. This wide range of source dates meant that we could not combine information from the song and album charts.

When looking at the artists with most chart success in each decade this restriction can be relaxed. In this list we have combined song and album success, but only compared entries across a single decade. The album scores have been given twice the weight of the songs (for the decades where albums were being sold). Here we list the world's top 5 artists of each decade, a more extensive list can be seen on the individual decade pages.

As with all the complex calculations described on the site you can decide to try a different approach, the available CSV File gives you all the data you need. If your analysis shows something interesting tell us about it.

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Previous Comments

13 Apr 2009

Artist of 1990

RIA has stated that Mariah Carey is the most successful artist of the 1990's

We don't know who the "RIA" are. If you mean the "RIAA" (The Record Industry Association of America) then of course they list success in the USA while this page lists worldwide chart success. It is easy to see how Mariah Carey can have been the most successful artist of the 1990s in the USA while Madonna had more chart success throughout the rest of the world, remember that the USA while it is the single largest music market accounts for less than 35% of the world's music revenue.

31 Jul 2009

mariah carey is the most successful artist

i totally agreed with RIA subsmition that m c is the most successful artist of 90's. she has most highest number of sales so she deserve s to be the most successful

There are a number of issues with your assertion. First we still don't know who (or what "RIA" is). Secondly we have no evidence that she has the highest number of worldwide sales in the 1990s, we don't even know where we would find trustworthy numbers for that. Next even if she had the highest number of total sales in the 1990s that wouldn't place her top of the list, this list reflects chart success, not sales.

Finally the fact that you think she "deserves" to be top of the list is unimportant. Your opinion about a particular act has no influence, indeed our opinion about the merits of any act are also irrelevant. The final results are generated directly and automatically from the chart positions, no-one, not even the administrators get to "adjust" them.

5 Sep 2009

Artist of 1980.

Michael Jackson should be the most successful artist of the 1980s having produced the most successful albums of all time. He also holds a record in the Guinness Book of World Records as The Most Successful of All Time.

First of all by any reasonable criteria Michael Jackson certainly didn't produce more than one album in the all time top 10, so the when you say "albums" you should rather use the word "album".

Secondly having the most successful album of an era is just one of the measures that are used here. Michael Jackson had 2 songs in the "1980s 100 songs" list, against Madonna's 5. He had 2 albums in the "1980s 100 albums" list, against Madonna's 3.

Finally even if we agreed that Michael Jackson's position in the "top artists of the 1980s" was too low we couldn't directly do anything about it within the rules of the website. The way that "success" is measured here is clearly defined and strictly follows a mechanical process, no-one gets to "adjust" the values later whatever their opinions. Even if one of the administrators wanted to boost his rating they couldn't, the best they could do would be to change the scoring mechanism. Prince, Madonna and U2 all had more number 1s in more countries than Michael Jackson in the 1980s, that is why they end up higher.

16 Oct 2009

Mariah v Madonna in the 1990s

This site treats all the charts in the world equally... thats why, they comeup with Madonna no.1 and Mariah no.2.. if they would give higher regard to bigger markets like USA... Mariah wud take the top spot easily...

Your first comment is exactly right, all the charts are weighed equally in the standard calculation. If only the North American charts were counted Mariah would be the number 1, but of course that would hardly give us a reasonable view of the world's music.

You are also correct that the number of chart entries does over emphasise the European nations since each one of them contributes more entries than can be justified by their share of the world music market. This is a side effect of the fact that each European country has people who want to publish their particular national chart, while there is less incentive for the inhabitants of, for example, Wyoming to publish their own weekly state chart for the 1990s.

However those two facts don't necessarily mean that Mariah would take the top slot in any properly weighed summary, and certainly not "easily".

Since we have data immediately available for the success of songs in North America and Europe let's try a quick test with that. In North America Mariah Carey's total score for the 1990s was 84.75, Madonna's was 79.97 of course the absolute values are meaningless, but the relative difference gives us a measure of their performance, Madonna has 94% of Mariah's score.

In Europe Mariah Carey's total score for the 1990s was 90.35, Madonna's was 169.88 Mariah has 53% of Madonna's score.

According to the IFPI the biggest 10 music markets in 1999 were: USA $14.25B, Japan $6.43B, UK $2.91B, Germany $2.83B, France $1.98B, Canada $0.88B, Brazil $0.67B, Australia $0.66B, Spain $0.64B, Italy $0.64B Which gives North America $15.14B and Europe $9.01B (we'll ignore the smaller countries that would bring the Europe total to more than $14B).

If we give the top artist 1 and the lower one a proportional score and then scale by the number of billion dollars in each region Mariah gets 1*15.14 + 0.53*9.01 =< 19.93 and Madonna gets 0.94*15.14 + 1*9.01 =< 23.29

So no, sorry even if the scores are adjusted according to the size of the market Mariah doesn't beat Madonna. We've tried a variety of different ways to look at the data and they all result in Madonna being above Mariah. Your intuition was just plain wrong.

Of course this tells us that Madonna was more successful round the world in the 1990s, it does not prove that her music was in any way better.

11 Nov 2009

RE: mariah vs madonna

ok.. so with ur computation.. u actually weighed north america and europe equally... and in fact according to your reply they are not equal and also aside from europe and north america, there are also other large markets like Japan where 7 of mariah's 90s album amassed million/s of sales each... and all other female intl artist that follows sell less than half of Mariah's... mariah's singles are also very successful in Japan...

so i kinda doubt the quoted statement below..

"So no, sorry even if the scores are adjusted according to the size of themarket Mariah doesn't beat Madonna. We've tried a variety of different ways to look at the data and they all result in Madonna being above Mariah. Your intuition was just plain wrong. Of course this tells us that Madonna was more successful round the world in the 1990s, it does not prove that her music was in any way better."

No you're wrong we didn't weigh them equally, Europe got a weight of 9.01 and North America got 15.14 (based on the sales numbers).

So lets look at Japan. In Japan Madonna had 28 hit songs in the 1990s and Mariah had 25. Mariah's hits were slightly higher in the charts so her total score was 22.47 while Madonna's was 21.67. In other words Madonna scored 96% of Mariah's score. Now, in fact the sales of "International" music in Japan is only about 10% of the market, so Japan's factor should be 0.643, but lets be generous to Mariah and pretend that all $6.43B was "International" music.

If we add these results into the mix we get:

Madonna: 0.94*15.14 + 1*9.01 + 0.96*6.43 = 29.41 Mariah: 1*15.14 + 0.53*9.01 + 1*6.43 = 26.34

...and Madonna *still* beats Mariah.

It is possible that Mariah's albums outsold Madonna's in Japan in the 1990s. We have no reliable data that supports that, but it is possible. If the low percentage of "International" music is taken into account then Madonna could have sold absolutly nothing in Japan in the 1990s and her global total would still beat Mariah.

It doesn't matter how much you "doubt the quoted statement", it remains true even with the scores weighed by sales and with Japan included. Mariah was beaten by Madonna in the 1990s. As we said, we tried a variety of ways of looking at the data and Madonna wins every time.

The problem is that you clearly don't appreciate just how much more popular Madonna was in Europe in the 1990s.

Speaking personally (SH) I don't understand *why* she was so popular, her 1990s material doesn't sound good to me. But that's exactly the point, on this site no-one gets to vote the data determines the outcome, personal opinion doesn't have any influence. If the data didn't sometimes tell us something that is against initial expectation then we wouldn't have created the site.

24 Nov 2009

Michael Jackson

Am I seeing something wrong? I count 4 Jackson albums in your top 100. I don't see that many from any other artist, of course I just tabbed thru quickly.

You raise an interesting point. We feel that the "standard" list is too heavily dependant on the input charts that are available. There are about 4 times as many entries for the 1980s as there are for the 1960s, so more recent music is scored too highly.

So when contrasting acts and releases across the years we feel that it is better to compensate for this modern bias. The "real list" of top albums adjusts the scores to give what we feel is a better comparison across the years. In this list Michael Jackson has an entry at number 2, his next album is at number 47.

There are some good reasons for not adopting this approach for the standard lists. The way this adjustment is made works well for acts and releases that are at the top of the list. But it is not clear that it works so well for later, less widely supported, entries. In addition the simplicity of the standard score makes the standard list more transparent. Also it could be argued that the larger number of entries after 1980 reflect the fact that more people are interested in that era, hence music from then should be over emphasised.

In the standard list Michael Jackson does have four albums in the top 100, however The Beatles, Madonna and U2 all have six. If we were to believe that this list was a good measure of success then "REM" (with two entries) would have to rate better than The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Radiohead, Dire Straits and Guns & Roses (who all have just one). We suspect there are few people that would be prepared to argue for that view.

Of course you are free to disagree with our analysis, that is why we make the standard data available in CSV form. If you have a different way to summarise the data that illustrates an alternate view we would be interested to hear from you.

14 Dec 2009

Totally true! Madonna is the most successful artist of the 90`s. I love Celine Dion, REM, and Prince, Who is Mariah Carey?

18 Dec 2009

lol, you dont know mariah carey? words from an idiot are not taken into consideration

You know I think that user comment was maybe not quite serious. Your life would be easier if you moderated your responses a bit.

I'm surprised, most people I have met in Malaysia have a sense of humour.

1 Jan 2010

Mariah vs. Madonna

Up to this point Madonna is still more successful around the world than she isin the U.S., and Mariah is still somewhat more successful in the U.S. than she is around the world.

Madonna continuously keeps making top ten hits even number 1's around Europe, Latin America, Canada, Australia and Asia. It's easy to prove that Madonna has had at least 2 top tens from each one of her albums in the UK, Canada, Australia and many more countries.

She also has scored at least 1 top ten from every of her albums in the U.S. except for her Celebration (2009), You Can Dance (1987), Remixed and Revisited (2004) and GHV2 (2001) albums, all of them are compilation albums and the last three didn't even had new world wide single releases made. Even her three soundtracks were able to spawn at least 1 top 10 each one. Madonna also has the most number ones and top ten's in the United World Chart, 29 top ten's and out of those 15 are number 1's and there is still more number ones and top tens to come, because United World Chart week by week keeps posting past charts.

On the other hand Mariah only has 18 top tens and out of those only 2 are number 1's in the United World Chart. Madonna managed to make her latest single Celebration to peak at No. 6 in the United World Chart where Mariah's not latest single but latest moderate successful single Obsessed peaked at No. 14. This shows how much of an impact charting in the U.S. and in the rest of the world does. This is why I respect and honor the methodologies that they used for these "countdowns".

6 Mar 2010

michael jackson

see the problem is your looking at it from a points stnadard. We all knowMichael Jackson is the biggest artist of the last three decades. In a span of eight years 82-90 the man literaly became the third most popular face on earth after jesus and ronald mcdonald. He literaly holds the guiness record for having the most records! the only reason he doesnt have any more albums in the top 100 is cus he only released 2!. which at the time of 88 were the top two selling albums of all timeeee. prince literaly till this day releases an album every year. He never misses a beat. Yes Prince is a genius i am a hugeeee fan believe me. but when mike walks into a room the cameras rush to him more then prince and madona. Madonas affect in the 80s lasted but not like michael jacksons. madona invented sex in music. michael invented everythign else.

Clearly your opinion of Michael Jackson is not going to be moderated by anything as inconvenient as actual facts.

© 2007-10, Steve Hawtin et al. Generated 13 Mar 2010 09:57 GMT. This data may be freely copied provided that the source is acknowledged, a link to the tsort.info site is prominently incorporated and the version number is attached (this data is version 1.9.0031).