Talk:List of best-selling music artists

This is the talk page for discussing changes to the List of best-selling music artists article.
Please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~~~~ ). Place comments that start a new topic at the bottom of the page and give them == A Descriptive Header ==. If you're new to Wikipedia, please see Welcome to Wikipedia and frequently asked questions.	Talk page guidelines Please respect Etiquette, assume good faith and be nice.

Template:Multidel

• Arcive 1, Dec 04 - Aug 05. Discusses various artists and their sales figures, and legitimacy of article
• Talk archive 2, Aug 05 - Jan 06. Archive refactored into discussion about various artists. Reorganisation of article discussed and carried out
• Talk Archive 3, Feb 06 - Apr 06. Discussion of legitimacy of WMA and RIAA figures, also of Queen's sales
• Talk Archive 4, May 06 - Nov 06. Various artists discussed, also the possibilty and creation of a new subdivision (75 million+ sold
• Talk Archive 5, October 07- December 07. Discussion of various artists as well as page protection suggested.

Typo

I know its not as important as everything else, but theres some typos in the article. Could anyone fix it up, or should I do it???

Genre

Is the genre field really necessary? 220.253.37.80 (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources need cconfirmation on reliability

On checking just a few random entries another editor and myself have found several of the citations are nothing more than links to Wikipedia mirros or blog entries which do not meet up to WP:RS policy. Wikipedia cannot be used as a reference for its own content. Some degree of scrutiny should be undertaken to verify the weblinks used in this article. As for now its standing as a reliable resource for information has been compromised by the Wiki-mirror links. It has been an unstable article for as long as its been around on Wikipedia. If the reliability of the content can't be improved the article may have to go to an AfD to decide its fate. 156.34.221.33 (talk) 19:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I found and removed a few that did not have references. Furthermore, is this article even necessary? 220.253.8.139 (talk) 13:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think so. As long as all artists' sales in it are sourced, it's a fairly good resource. Funeral 13:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Are we to keep artists single-sourced, I see some of the multiple sources have been removed because I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have more than one source if they seem reliable. Also, I don't think we should simply remove artists at least the popular ones the source of which may be outdated or nonfunctional instead we should help the page by locating sources or simply place as I had next to the source of Adriano Celentano which is still there and nonfunctional.--Harout72 (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as too many sources as long as they meet up to WP:RS and support WP:V. Book/Pro publication sources are better than web sources since most web sources are either unreliable, masked Wiki mirrors, or peacock self-refs with ballooned sales figures coming directly from the artists themselves. 156.34.212.152 (talk) 20:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Many of the extra sources were either dead/non-reliable/unneeded. This article receives a lot of sneaky vandalism, so a special thanks to those editors that try keeping it free of vandalism, and in a neutral point view. There are indeed many musicians from around the world missing from this list. Unfortunately, finding reliable sources is not easy. Even for musicians such as Fela Kuti, and Bob Dylan. 220.253.25.106 (talk) 02:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikiality

This whole thing makes me sick. Even sources that meet WP:RS criteria are dated AFTER they were first posted on Wikipedia. Led Zeppelin and AC/DC are just two examples. Those bands' respective Wiki articles claimed 300 million and 150 million albums sold long before more "reputable" sources published those figures as "fact". Now those "reputable sources" are used as citations on Wikipedia to back up figures that were started on Wikipedia in the first place. It's disgusting. Lazy journalists have been using Wikipedia as a source and now we have to swallow these figures because they're subsequently published in "reputable" sources? Please see the Talk Pages of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC to see what I'm dealing with. And it's far from just them. This disease has infected the articles for Pink Floyd, The Who, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Queen, and on and on. What can be done about it? 74.77.222.188 (talk) 03:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

There seems to some trend towards building some artifical league table of record sales so as to prove 'my favourite band is better than yours'. What can be done is for someone with some Wiki authority to declare that there is no one who compiles data on worldwide sales and all this nonsense can be removed. Will this ever happen.........--Egghead06 (talk) 08:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

God, I hope it happens, because this thing is a farce. And people are calling me a vandal for removing this garbage. 74.77.222.188 (talk) 08:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

What about the Michael Jackson claim of 750 million sales worldwide? His main article lists a news article as a reference. http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/06/music/main3461884.shtml??source=RSS&attr=_3461884 Iam (talk) 00:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I have seen this exact thing on many websites, even so called creditable ones. This is why sales data provided by the record companies is most important. Their data is audited for tax purposes. The data by a recording industry association is from the record companies and undergoes another audit for their awards (assuming the record company wants to do that) I personally do not like this website, I have noticed many false statements and biographies for Japanese musicians, an industry that I'm familiar with since it is part of my career. So I have been at war with many other editors over those articles, and finally made some progress to change things. Also it took me a long time, but I found a few reliable sources for Japanese musicians for this article, which dispelled nonsense written in other articles. I think wiki articles for musicians should be basic, and include nothing but official information, and not allow stupid things such as "rolling stone magazine listed him as 5th greatest guitarist of all time" and other such nonsense. 220.253.4.192 (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Ranking

Can someone please explain this? "Note also, that with the exception of the 500 Million level, artists within each category are sorted alphabetically, NOT by rank.". It isn't by sales data, not by alphabetical listing, or any other order that I can make out for the 500m section. Why separate it differently to the rest of the list? Why not just keep it all alphabetical? 60.234.242.196 (talk) 08:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I corrected the alphabetical order within the 500 mil. section. Since artists were neither by rank nor alphabetically, I thought we should have at least one.--Harout72 (talk) 18:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Best Selling Artists

It states as fact that three artists have been nominated in the past as being the worlds best-sellers, yet there is no reference or evidence to suggest this (in the artical). As such it is open to vandalism, as anyone can add lesser known groups as they are as open to the speculation and non validity of those listed. Curiously, if you read the MJ page, it states he was awarded the "Artist of the Millennium" award, but read the reference, and he wasn't. Therefore does such a reference to him being the world's best-seller exist? Also take into account, the award for "Most Successful Artist" has not been stated as being for best-selling. Success can be attributed to many things. If non-referenced, I think it should state that the best-selling artist is unknown - fullstop. 60.234.242.196 (talk) 09:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes I have mentioned that before, and tried to remove it from the article. I also read that his album "thriller" sold more than 100 million copies, which according to the record company is not true, because they mentioned the album sold around 45 million copies (that is a huge difference) this whole article garbage. I quickly received this in a few minutes [1] it is interesting that in Michael Jackons own market, his thriller album is the second best selling album with just over 20 million copies sold. That means it had to sell more than 80 million copies in foreign markets to reach such a statement, and where is the audit from those markets to acknowledge such a claim? 220.253.4.192 (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Page protection

I requested for page protection as the vandalism is at ridiculously high level from anonymous IPs mostly. Semi-protection will expire on the 16th of August, 2008. --Harout72 (talk) 01:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Great now I can't edit the article anymore. Would of been better to request those editors to be banned from editing. Many of the vandals include new accounts as well, which is likely someone being a sock-puppet. 220.253.4.192 (talk) 17:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I know you help out a lot keeping vandals out, but I just felt that it was really going out of control. Frankly, it's quite annoying to put all the time into reverting versions over and over when we could put that time to toss out those artists with unreliable sources or locate better/more reliable sources, because as far as I am concerned it's impossible to fight against every single whelp.--Harout72 (talk) 01:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)