IIRC, the top Billboard singles act of the '60s was The Beatles, in the '70s it was The Bee Gees and in the '80s it was Billy Joel. Who was it in the '90s? I’m thinking Janet Jackson and Puff Daddy had to be up there.
The 90s, IMO, belonged to manufactured pop, starting with the Spice Girls, all the way to the Backstreet Boys.
The 80s, according to Billboard Magazine, belonged to Madonna, not Billy Joel.
I’m still trying to find the 90s number one artist for you.
Got it.
Billboard Artist of the Decade for the 1990s was:
Mariah Carey
Unless Billboard’s count is based only on American and not international sales, the #1 artist of the 1970’s would have to be ABBA.
According to my Billboard book of Top 40 hits, the number one artists by decade are:
1950’s: Elvis Presley (followed by Pat Boone and Perry Como!)
1960’s: Beatles (followed by Elvis and the Supremes)
1970’s Elton John (followed by Paul McCartney and the Bee Gees)
1980’s: Michael Jackson (followed by Madonna and Hall & Oates)
1990’s: Mariah Carey (follwoed by Janet Jackson and Madonna)
Huh. Mariah Carey would have been my guess seeing as how she is the only person to have a #1 Hit every year of the decade but it would have been only a guess. I’m surprised I’m right.
Also, can you tell me how Britney, N’Sync, etc are any worse than Menundo, NKOTB, David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, etc, noname? Manufactured pop as a force in music has been around for decades and depending on how you want to define it, you can even say the same thing about Elvis, Sinatra, and a lot of Motown artists as all the names I already mentioned.
And just as a disclaimer, I don’t like the music… I just don’t get why people think that the 90s were any worse about it than the preceding decades.
Elvis, Sinatra, and a lot of Motown artists were manufactured music?? :dubious:
These guys could atleast SING. Thats somethig lacking in the likes of Spice Girls, NKOTB, Backstreet Boys, NSync. I am reserving any judgement for Britney, cos I have heard her as yet…was busy oogilng at her body.
Mariah Carey had a hit every year, but did she grab as much headilne as the Spice Girls, was she in anyway persented as a role model, an inspiration by the media?? The Spice Girls, OTOH, were about girl power, the BB were ubercool dudes who danced in a syhchronized fashion, NSync were again, a bunch of cool dudes. And these guys were written about in places outsite US, which, given the golbalized world that we live in, counts as a big plus. Mariah is a talented singer, and no matter how many hits she gives, it will just be expected of her, no achievement whatsoever. Hence my opinion.
Yes. Elvis and Sinatra were nothing more than glorified cover artists and Motown artists were a dime a dozen to its producers who had the songs they wanted recorded and could oretty much hire anyone they wanted for it. There were exceptions like Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, etc, but for a lot of them, they were just no-names covering a song.
And while Mariah Carey may not have been in the headlines every day, she was still there every day, had everyone know she was, and had a respectable career that has lasted through three decades. The Spice Girls were born and then died within five years, the same for all the other pop bands you named.
Longevity plus success means a lot more than massive popularity in a three to five year window.
You know, I don’t think I can name a single Mariah Carey song.
Congratulations!
Hello? Anyone every heard of U2?
Sure, we’ve heard of U2- but they weren’t among the biggest selling singles acts of the 1990’s.
The OP was asking a factual question about which singer or group sold the most singles in the 1990’s, NOT an opinion question as to which 1990’s act we liked the best.
Here’s the top selling albums from the 90’s:
Just their opinion, not the top selling. I need sleep. 
Mariah Carey.
Jesus weeps.
Of course, It’s not like I was expecting it to be The Magnetic Fields.
as soon as I saw “bee thousand” at #10 I knew something was amiss 
garth brooks is the third highest selling artist of all time having sold 5 times as many records as janet jackson - considering he released 1 record in the 80s, 2 in the 00s and 9 in the 90s, I find it very difficult to believe that Janet Jackson outsold the dance-miked cowboy.
I’m not throwing a BS flag at you, astorian, just saying that book might be out-of-date
astorian is referring to singles charts, not album sales.
The funny thing is that I distinctly remember Casey Kasem counting down the top acts of the decade at the end of '79 and McCartney was #3, John was #2 and The Bee Gees were #1. I wonder if they used a different means of calculating this. Strange.
This is just trivial speculation on my part but the difference might depend on the exact years they started and ended the decade with. I believe Kasem’s countdown (which was from Billboard) covered the years 1970 to 1979 and was based not only on the number of Top 40 hits but also how highly the hits ranked. If you go by that scale, the Bee Gees had an edge over Elton John and Paul McCartney mainly because they still had enough post-Saturday Night Fever momentum to post three #1 singles in 1979 (however, I bet nobody remembers what they were). Elton John, at that time, was going through a bit of career slump that saw the popularity of his albums and singles fall off from their mid-70’s heights. Paul McCartney, I believe, didn’t really start releasing singles on his own (or with his band Wings) until 1971. Also, the album McCartney released in 1979 (Back to the Egg) was a disappointment in terms of sales and lack of hit singles so that probably hurt his final ranking for the years between 1970 and 1979.
Now, in contrast, if you were going by the years 1971 to 1980 (which, to be anal, is the proper way to measure a decade), McCartney would have had more of an advantage since he had a #1 single in 1980 (again, I bet hardly anybody cares or remembers) whereas the Bee Gees didn’t release anything. Also, starting with 1971 doesn’t hurt McCartney’s final tally for the decade because he was still a member of the Beatles in 1970 (for at least for part of the year, anyway).
That being said, the claim of exactly who is the biggest selling single recording artist for a particular decade is an increasingly meaningless distinction. In terms of measuring popularity and record sales, singles hardly matter anymore (although that’s quickly changing due to the rise of MP3’s). Also, and more importantly, the record audience has gotten so fragmented into different niches that there really can’t be any one artist who looms over all others in terms of popularity and influence like Elvis in the 50’s or the Beatles in the 60’s or even Michael Jackson for several years in the 80’s.
A discussion of best act of the 90’s, and no mention of Nirvana?
Now, I’m not a Nirvana fan in any mentionable measure, but I do acknowledge that they are the band credited with popularizing the only recent trend in music that is: a) original, b) dependant on talent for success, and c) actually sold enough CDs to make a sizeable profit. (I’m talking about Grunge, or the Seattle Sound.)
You can mention Rap/HipHop, Techno/electrica, punk, and other genres, but typical examples from each tend to violate at least one of the three above measures of quality.