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Is Madonna's Guinness record about to be broken?


Fabiolous
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I was just looking at the list of the best selling recording artists of all time on Wikipedia and have just noticed that Rihanna is REALLY CLOSE behind Madonna now. Considering how Rihanna has a much better chance at getting more hits in the coming years than Madonna, is Madonna's record as most successful female recording artist of all time about to be broken by Rihanna? ? 

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Best selling record meant an actual physical record, which one had to go out into town to buy and come home and listen to.

Now every kid has a smartphone and can just listen to digital music whenever they like. Easy and boring.

They are two different things and shouldn't be conflated. 

Madonna will always remain the record breaker, as she sold actual physical records. More effort was required.

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You're right, sorry!

Still, Madonna is selling a lot in the world. Immaculate Collection can be found everywhere in the charts.

I may be wrong, but (hopefully) Rihanna has good chances to be forgotten in a few years. All these female artists never last more than a decade. See what happened to Britney and Christina. 

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1 hour ago, anaglyphx said:

Best selling record meant an actual physical record, which one had to go out into town to buy and come home and listen to.

Now every kid has a smartphone and can just listen to digital music whenever they like. Easy and boring.

They are two different things and shouldn't be conflated. 

Madonna will always remain the record breaker, as she sold actual physical records. More effort was required.

The day they tried to say that Drake overcame Michael Jackson in terms of high selling no. 1 singles they proved how ridiculous this new counting method is!

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I see that Rihanna updated her sales, I wonder if Madonna does the same :Madonna006:

 I'm pretty sure that Madonna sold more than 300M units at this point. :Madonna004:

Anyway, Rihanna still needs at least 50M more to outsell the un-updated Madonna so it will take Rihanna many years and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she starts fading away.

Said that, Wikipedia list is very inaccurate and does not reflect the real commercial success of an artist. You simply cannot define a unit sale that is the same for all format and types of sales. I mean, a digital track sale should be weighted differently from a physical album sale. 

That is why experts have start making more meaningful lists and as far as I know the most reliable list available is the one on chartmasters that uses the CSPC method. If you take a look at it, you'll realize that Rihanna is nowhere near the success of legendary artists:

1. The Beatles  405,737,000 (as of Mar 2017)
2. Michael Jackson  323,741,000 (as of Sep 2017)
3. Elvis Presley  314,044,000 (as of Sep 2018)
4. Madonna  241,134,000 (as of Aug 2017)
5. Queen  238,637,000 (as of Oct 2017)
6. The Rolling Stones  237,135,000 (as of Dec 2016)
7. Pink Floyd  229,426,000 (as of Jun 2017)
8. Led Zeppelin  200,459,000 (as of Aug 2016)
9. Elton John  196,130,000 (as of Feb 2018)
10. U2  194,519,000 (as of Aug 2016)
11. Céline Dion  193,422,000 (as of Sep 2016)
12. AC/DC  191,030,000 (as of Feb 2018)
13. Eagles  171,069,000 (as of Dec 2017)
14. Mariah Carey  167,149,000 (as of Apr 2017)
15. Bruce Springsteen  157,024,000 (as of Jul 2017)
16. Bee Gees  156,874,000 (as of Apr 2017)
17. Metallica  156,752,000 (as of Feb 2019)
18. ABBA  156,623,000 (as of Nov 2016)
19. Eminem  154,954,000 (as of Aug 2016)
20. Barbra Streisand  152,498,000 (as of Mar 2018)
21. Whitney Houston  151,693,000 (as of May 2017)
22. Phil Collins  147,408,000 (as of Apr 2018)
23. Billy Joel  146,695,000 (as of Oct 2016)
24. Fleetwood Mac  144,842,000 (as of Oct 2016)
25. Garth Brooks  144,300,000 (as of Jan 2019)
26. Bon Jovi  144,095,000 (as of Nov 2016)
27. Bob Dylan  142,291,000 (as of Oct 2016)
28. Bob Marley  135,464,000 (as of Nov 2017)
29. Prince  131,917,000 (as of Oct 2018)
30. Aerosmith  130,011,000 (as of Jun 2018)
31. David Bowie  125,785,000 (as of Jan 2017)
32. Simon & Garfunkel  123,913,000 (as of May 2018)
33. Guns N’ Roses  117,930,000 (as of Mar 2018)
34. The Doors  114,778,000 (as of Mar 2019)
35. Paul McCartney  109,909,000 (as of Dec 2018)
36. Dire Straits  108,525,000 (as of Mar 2018)
37. George Michael & Wham!  104,743,000 (as of May 2017)
38. Britney Spears  100,827,000 (as of Feb 2018)
39. Backstreet Boys  94,409,000 (as of Feb 2017)
40. Red Hot Chili Peppers  90,968,000 (as of Mar 2018)
41. Creedence Clearwater Revival  89,669,000 (as of Jan 2019)
42. Nirvana  89,182,000 (as of Jul 2017)
43. Rihanna  86,846,000 (as of Nov 2017)

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I was under the impression that the criteria that has led to Madonna holding the Guinness title of 'Most Successful Female Artist' would consist of more than just sales... but also videos, awards, tour attendance, tour gross, popularity, media presence, airplay, chart presence, chart placement, etc

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I did a similar topic about this before so I'll say what I said then. Rihanna is nowhere near the list as she turned up in 2005 when you could download a song 24 hours a day whereas with Madonna you had to actually go out and buy a physical copy and Rihanna will do a collaboration with absolutely anyone, when was the last time Rihanna released a solo single, Rihanna also benefits from streaming, in my opinion a song that you can listen for free is not comparable to actually buying a song. End of.

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