Best Selling Music Artists 1969 - 2020
Timeline history of most popular music artists from 1969 to 2020 (Best Selling Music Artists) ranked by yearly certified record sales. Numbers are worldwide and adjusted to twelve months trailing average.
Recent years data includes digital singles sales as reported by online music retailers and streaming services. This data aggregates multiple sources and can serve as popularity indicator across different medias such as album sales, radio broadcasting, digital copies sales and online streaming frequency.
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Data source: RIAA, IFPI, record companies
00:00 Late 60s
00:04 Early 70s (The Beatles "Let It Be" came out)
01:08 Late 70s (The rise of Eagles)
02:00 Early 80s (MJ to the ROOF)
03:13 Late 80s (Madonna "La Isla Bonita")
03:56 90s (The rise of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey)
05:52 00s (A new age for music)
07:48 10s (Rihanna and Drake)
09:33 Luis Fonsi Despacito (2019)