The Most Successful Recording Artists Of All Time

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We all have our opinions on who were the most successful artists over the last 60-70 years. Some of us are aware of earlier success stories over the last 80 years.
pulsemusic.proboards.com/thread/226830/billboard-charts-1945-successful-artists
But let's be honest. Who really knew the most successful recording artists of the last 100 years?
pulsemusic.proboards.com/thread/227105/billboard-charts-1926-successful-artists

History is fascinating when we take the time to research it.
And we have all wondered at some time or another, who were the most successful recording artists of all time?

The Most Successful Recording Artists Of All Time: 1890 to 2023
sites.google.com/view/alexanderdimadis/music

Podcast discussion of the book:
vimeo.com/1020846322

ONLINE ORDERS AVAILABLE HERE
www.jotform.com/form/243108752684057

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Excerpts & Copyright

This thread will present excerpts from my book The Most Successful Recording Artists Of All Time: 1890 to 2023
sites.google.com/view/alexanderdimadis/music

The most successful artists of each year will be listed, along with the Top 3 of each decade and the Top 30 of all time.
All content presented in this thread remains copyright © 2024 by Alexander Dimadis

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Foreword

The Most Successful Recording Artists Of All Time: 1890 to 2023
Musical artists have found popular success over time, through their live shows, through radio broadcasts, on the TV and at the Movies. Many of them never considered their recordings to be the most accurate representation of their art.
But recordings from the late 19th century until the early 21st, remain an important historical record of what music used to be, what it has become today, and how it evolved for well over 100 years.
The public was intrigued by the novelty of recordings at first, and soon welcomed the technology into their homes. Before long, they fell in love with their favourite artists.
Critics have held different opinions of various recording artists to that of the public. The public would occasionally listen to what the critics had to say, but the public knew what they liked. Over time, as it turns out, the public did consistently gravitate to the better (if not always the best) artists available to them, and those artists that the public preferred, became fabulously successful.
It is difficult to measure the most successful artists of all time. Audited numbers for sales of singles and albums were attempted by the record industry in the second half of the 20th century. Accurate sales numbers of the primitive wax cylinders and the widely sold 78 rpm records, however, are largely lost to time, and the sales of physical product in the 21st century, only account for a minor component of all recorded music consumption today.
Attempts to measure all the available statistics of these industry sales numbers, need to guess the numbers that have been lost and to use creative formulas to compare the sales of wax cylinders and records with modern streaming numbers, on some kind of level playing field.
But a level playing field comparing the success of all recording artists has always existed. The humble Music Chart.
Almost as soon as recorded music appeared, the industry began in 1890 to measure the sales and success of individual recordings using Music Charts, as a service to distributors to guide them on their stock purchases. But it wasn't long before the public took an interest in these charts and started to follow their favourite artists as their recordings waxed and waned in the charts, and sometimes reached that special place of Number One.
The earliest charts first appeared in the U.S.A. and were produced by several publications. They were all collated into the book "Pop Memories 1890 - 1954" by Joel Whitburn in 1986. Charts published by Billboard Magazine first appeared in 1913 and became the industry leading source of information by the late 20th century and will likely remain so into the future.
Recording Artists can be measured with a simple formula which gives the same weight to a Number One Single and a Number One Album for any week, during any year. The first Number 1 song in 1890 is given the same weight as this week's Number 1 album.
All other entries on the Singles and Album Charts are given descending weight depending upon their place on the chart regardless of the year they charted.
All artists and all musical eras for over 130 years are therefore compared on a level playing field. International music however is under-represented. Artists from the U.K. and Canada often appear in the U.S. charts, but every country has produced major artists who had enormous success in their home country but not in the U.S., especially if they didn't sing in English.
This is unfortunate but the U.S. music industry has permeated and influenced almost every culture on Earth, and a list of the most successful recording artists in the U.S., remains an interesting historical record for most of the western world if not necessarily the whole globe.

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The 1890's

This thread will present excerpts from my book The Most Successful Recording Artists Of All Time: 1890 to 2023
sites.google.com/view/alexanderdimadis/music

The most successful artists of each year will be listed, along with the Top 3 of each decade and the Top 30 of all time.
All content presented in this thread remains copyright © 2024 by Alexander Dimadis

[ale2024]

1890 U.S. Marine Band
U.S. Marine Band was known as "the President's band" since 1801. John Philip Sousa was the band's director since 1880, and the composer of almost all the band's Marches.
Recordings of U.S. Marine Band Marches on new wax cylinder technology, were among the first to be marketed to the public. Wax Cylinders were invented in the late 1870's. They were first marketed to the public by the late 1880's.
By 1890, U.S. Marine Band was the most successful recording artist, in the first year that sales numbers were collated and distributed in America.
It is fair to assume the band's Marches were promoted, across the still young country of America, with national pride. This alone would have encouraged the public to give the novel technology more than passing interest.
"Semper Fidelis" was the first wax cylinder to be listed at Number 1, in the first "music chart" in history.


…

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1891 George Washington Johnson
The public was happy to purchase cylinders of Marches by the U.S. Marine Band, but recordings remained a novelty.
Sound quality was primitive, and most people would have found it easier, and cheaper, to attend a local live musical performance, of which there were many, rather than invest in the new technology.
George Washington Johnson was a seasoned entertainer who was one of the first to make recordings as early as 1877.
He was born into slavery but used his natural talents of loud raggy whistling and infectious laughter to become a sought-after entertainer.
Phonograph companies sensed an opportunity and recorded Johnson's unique talents for their coin-operated machines. In 1891, Johnson became the most successful artist of the year, and the first widely known recording artist of all time.
An African American was the first solo recording artist to dominate the charts, but many decades would pass before this would happen again.
"The Laughing Song" is a novelty, which many people would not have had an opportunity to hear, but for the new technology that brought these recordings to their local communities.


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Top 2 Artists - 1890 to 1891
1 U.S. Marine Band
2 George Washington Johnson

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1892 Len Spencer
Len Spencer was the first nationally known recording artist and a significant pioneer in the early era of recorded music.
In 1891, he already had a Number 1 hit with "Little 'Liza Loves You".
With three more Number 1 hits in 1892, Len Spencer had the best year of his short career to date. He was the most successful artist of 1892, and he equalled the level of success achieved by the U.S. Marine Band in 1890.
And by the end of 1892, Len Spencer became the most successful of all recording artists over the period 1890 to 1892.
Spencer specialized in vaudeville sketches and comic songs, but he also sang sentimental ballads that were popular at the time.
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Top 3 Artists - 1890 to 1892
1 Len Spencer
2 George J. Gaskin
3 U.S. Marine Band

George J. Gaskin
George J. Gaskin had also started his career in 1891 with the Number 1 hit "Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill", and by 1892 he was the second most successful artist of this period.
He had two Number 1 hits in his own name and scored a third Number 1 as part of Manhansett Quartette, the first Barbershop Quartet to ever appear on the charts.
"The Picture Turned Toward The Wall", his hit with Manhansett Quartette, was the biggest hit of his career to date.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhansett_Quartet#:~:text=the%20quartet%27s%20most%20commercially%20successful%20recordings%20included%20%22The%20Picture%20Turned%20Towards%20The%20Wall%22
Number One recordings:
1891 - Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill - George J. Gaskin (5 weeks)
1892 - The Picture Turned Toward The Wall - Manhansett Quartette (6 weeks)
1892 - Slide, Kelly, Slide - George J. Gaskin (3 weeks)
1892 - Sally In Our Alley - Manhansett Quartette (3 weeks)

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1893 George J. Gaskin
George J. Gaskin was the most successful artist in 1893 and more successful than any artist had been in a single year, since the start of the recording industry.
In 1893, he also became the most successful artist of the first four years of the recording industry.
Of his three Number 1's during the year, "After The Ball" was the most successful.


It was the most successful song released in 1893, and the biggest hit of George J. Gaskin's career to date.
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Top 3 Artists - 1890 to 1893
1 George J. Gaskin
2 Len Spencer
3 U.S. Marine Band

Len Spencer
Len Spencer had another Number 1 hit in 1893 with "Mamie, Come And Kiss Your Honey Boy".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXhL3CLQVg0
It was another comic song that the public were now eagerly expecting from the 2nd most successful artist of the time.
Number One recordings:
1893 - Mamie, Come And Kiss Your Honey Boy - Len Spencer (3 weeks)