Wiki Worldwide Sales Bracket POLL: GROUP ONE (of eight)

This is how it’ll work.

There are 68 separate artists listed on the Wikipedia page for best-selling worldwide recording artists. I cut three who are, to my ear/eye, slightly too far outside what ILM adheres to: Luciano Pavarotti, Udo Jürgens, and Michiya Mihashi. And I consolidated Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5. I seeded Phil Collins and Genesis separately, but you can argue for Genesis having distinct pre-and-post-Collins-dominant eras; they were successful before his ascent. Anyway, if I’d gone by that logic I’d have to include McCartney solo with the Beatles; sorry, no.

To seed the 64 as democratically as possible I ordered the list by sales. As you see, Top 4 is Beatles-Elvis-MJ-ABBA. When there were ties, they went in alphabetical order by last name/group name. Then I folded up the middle. You’ll notice reverse-order on the right sides: Who-White-Stewart-Spears. It continues this way all the way down to Aznavour (but not down to the 32nd match-up, thankfully). Those are all, per Wiki, 100-million-sellers. There are probably others, but as you have likely figured out, this isn’t remotely scientific.

Rest of the seedings:

GROUP 2
Queen vs. Kenny Rogers
Elton John vs. Lionel Richie
Madonna vs. A.R. Rahman
Bee Gees vs. Pet Shop Boys

GROUP 3
AC/DC vs. Dolly Parton
Celine Dion vs. Olivia Newton-John
Julio Iglesias vs. Paul McCartney
Led Zeppelin vs. George Michael

GROUP 4
Nana Mouskouri vs. Metallica
Pink Floyd vs. Kiss
Rolling Stones vs. Billy Joel
Tina Turner vs. Janet Jackson

GROUP 5
Mariah Carey vs. Johnny Hallyday
Whitney Houston vs. Guns N’ Roses
Aerosmith vs. Four Seasons
Genesis vs. Fleetwood Mac

GROUP 6
Frank Sinatra vs. Depeche Mode
U2 vs. Deep Purple
Stevie Wonder vs. Perry Como
Boney M. vs. Phil Collins

GROUP 7
David Bowie vs. Cher
Barbra Streisand vs. Carpenters
Garth Brooks vs. Roberto Carlos
Chicago vs. Backstreet Boys

GROUP 8
Bon Jovi vs. Charles Aznavour
Dire Straits vs. Neil Diamond
Eagles vs. Status Quo
Modern Talking vs. Bruce Springsteen

Once this set of match-ups is decided, I will do another, random seeding with the 32 remaining artists, and that seeding will remain in place for the rest of the tournament.

Wikipedia page, for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists

I went Beatles-Elvis-MJ-ABBA.

At least the ride to the inevitable, soul-crushing conclusion might be interesting, eh?

The Who, Barry White, MJ, ABBA

beatles, presley, jackson, abba

Since this is at least partly about what an "objective canon" might be, the artists that appear here but wouldn't get within a light year of the "critical canon" (need a better phrase than that) are most interesting in a way. No doubt we could argue a lot about the accuracy of Wikipedia's stats but let's treat them as accurate enough and then ponder which is the more amazing inclusion, Nana Mouskouri or Modern Talking?

Who, Barry, Michael, Britney

I have to admit to loving some of these pairings, however unintentional they were:

ABBA vs. Britney Spears (a.k.a. Tom Ewing's Dilemma)
Elton John vs. Lionel Richie (MOR battle to the death)
Celine Dion vs. Olivia Newton-John (ibid)
Julio Iglesias vs. Paul McCartney (ibid)
Pink Floyd vs. Kiss ('70s arena FITE!)
Genesis vs. Fleetwood Mac (ibid)
Frank Sinatra vs. Depeche Mode
Boney M. vs. Phil Collins
David Bowie vs. Cher ('70s glam FITE!)
Barbra Streisand vs. Carpenters (MOR ibid)

There are some totally brutal ties in this lot for me. Not really this round tho. The Who and Barry White were pretty straightforward - I get more pleasure from them than from their competitors. MJ/Rod was a little bit tough but maybe there are less than half a dozen Rod songs I totally love, even tho I love those songs a lot. ABBA/Britney is like yeah I love you both but ABBA are Olympian gods to Britney's woodland nymph.

Whitney vs G'n'R is an ultimate 80s throwdown btw.

Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, ABBA

AC/DC vs. Dolly Parton

tbh, I'm going to have a VERY DIFFICULT time with this one.

Easy for me to go with the masses on this one and vote Beatles, Elvis, MJ, ABBA.

Even though Britney was popular while I was listening to popular music and ABBA was popular well before I started, and even though I don't own a single ABBA record, I somehow know a bunch of their songs and many of them (e.g. "Take a Chance on Me") never fail to make me stop what I'm doing and admire, and maybe dance a little. Don't find this to be the case with Ms. Spears.

Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, Britney Spears. I'll take a woodland nymph over Olympian gods any day.

Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, Britney Spears.

Rod Stewart is going to get completely crushed, isn't he?

Yeah, I think the popular ones will win all four matchings, but for each of the other three it's easy for me to conjure up imagined people who would vote the other way. I'm not sure who picks Stewart over Jackson.

Who, BW, MJ/J5, ABBA

I imagine the closest race will be ABBA vs. Spears, since they reach similar areas/sensibilities, but yeah, I can't imagine it'll be that close.

I was listening to a documentary about A.R. Rahman on the radio today, he's a cool guy.

Who, BW, MJ + (especially) J5, Abba. Most of those choices were easy but I'm not completely sure I went the right way on BW vs Elvis.

Who, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears

Maybe I'm just dead inside, but jesus cripes, is it ever hard to get excited about any of these folks in 2010.

who/elvis/jacksons/britney

(nb i have never heard the who, i just hate the beatles)

"just hate"

beatelvichealjabba

which is the more amazing inclusion, Nana Mouskouri or Modern Talking?
--Vlad the Inhaler (Noodle Vague)

Roberto Carlos has sold over 120 million albums around the world. He is considered one of the most influential artists in Brazil during the 1960s, being cited as a source of inspiration by many artists and bands up to the 1980s.

I know even less about Brazilian music than I thought, by many orders of magnitude.

Pretty good wingback too.

Ok that was bad scratch that.

Umm Kulthum not represented? Seems weird cuz I thought she still sold millions of records a year...

I wonder if it's partly because of the huge amount of piracy in the Arab world (where I think cheap unlicensed cassette recordings have always been way more common than in the U.S.).

Who, Presley, Jacksons, ABBA

ABBA are gonna smash Brit so badly that a brother might even feel sorry for her.

MM, are you going to do one group at a time? This could take six months.

(nb i have never heard the who, i just hate the beatles)

which Who track will make the lex regret his decision the most?

"mmm-mm-my generation"

The first one he hears, no matter which.

that should really go for anyone though

MM, are you going to do one group at a time? This could take six months.

Yes and now. Short deadlines. Probably more like six weeks.

hahahaha Yes and NO, sorry.

Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, ABBA

This looks like it's gonna be fun. tbh the only question for me was ABBA vs. Britney.

Voting "Who, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, ABBA"

And I will apologize right now for the Who challop; it's obviously stupid and wrong. But I have more albums by them on my shelf than Beatles albums, and I've cared about them more in my life (even though I probably don't care about either band anywhere near as much as I should.) And the Beatles will get way more votes. And the Who probably deserve some.

(Ha, just noticed lots of other people voted for the Who, too. I hadn't even skimmed the thread before. Whole lotta challopsing going on.)

Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, ABBA

I love the Beatles but these threads will be more fun if they lose quickly. But while I like some of their earlier songs, I have never liked the Who as a and and I find [your argument] unpersuasive in the face of Roger Daltrey's voice.

as a *band*

^^^ will probably come back to haunt me when I vote for Led Zeppelin

Yeah I am voting same as elephant rob. The only close call was the Who.

I would vote tons of british invasion bands over the beatles, but cmon, the who? some classic singles, but 50 years later the large majority of their stuff doesn't hold up particularly well. and the kinks were always better, every step of the way.

Voted Beatles, Barry White, Michael Jackson/Jackson 5, ABBA.

Michael Jackson/Jackson 5

Don't understand the logic of combining these two, then saying about Collins and Genesis, "you can argue for Genesis having distinct pre-and-post-Collins-dominant eras; they were successful before his ascent." The same thing applies to MJ/J5!

You're right, there were all those years when Tito was the star of the J5.

xp
Not trying to troll here, honest question: are the people voting for Barry genuinely into him? I never really got Elvis, but as someone said on a different thread once, Barry sounds to me like someone trying way too hard to be sexy he ends up on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Who, Elvis Presley, Rod the mod, ABBA.

^^^figured poor Rod deserved at least one vote. as for the Who: they were my favorite band when i was a 15-year-old "punk." besides, the Beagles will roll over this poll as they've rolled over everything else in creation.

Not trying to troll here, honest question: are the people voting for Barry genuinely into him?

My main criterion is "whose songs would excite me more to be surprised with on the radio?", not who's more important or even who's "better." (I had a very brief disagreement with xhuxk about this a few years ago; surprised and happy to see him willing to make a distinction in this thread that he didn't seem to be willing to make back then.) Anyway, Barry White always makes me go "oh yeah!" and turn the radio up in a way that Elvis doesn't.

actually, I get that. Obv it could be just due to exposure virtually at birth, but hearing an Elvis song has never excited me particularly.

By this criterion, "Hot Fun in the Summertime" and "(Do the) Tighten Up" are the two greatest songs in the universe, because I always turn them up to 11 when they come on the radio.

to see him willing to make a distinction in this thread that he didn't seem to be willing to make back then

Sort of (assume you're talking about the "my favorite" vs. "the best" conundrum here), but I'm not even sure I honestly like the Who more. They've put out a lot of crap over the years, more than the Beatles (who put out plenty, to my ears, toward the end), and more than people give them credit for. I just preferred to give them my vote. Guess lately I've just been more curious about them -- talking about what bands they've directly influenced on the Rolling Hard Rock thread, for instance.

Not sure when the last time was that I was excited to hear either a Who or Beatles song on the radio. But I do remember hearing "Who Are You" once last year, and liking it way more than I'd remembered.

(Actually, if the radio played early Who singles like "I Can't Explain" and "Substitute" more often, I'd probably get excited more -- haven't had a classic rock station punched in as one of my pre-sets in quite a while. But I might be able to say the same about early Beatles singles too, who knows.)

Or better yet, maybe, early album tracks (both bands).

who/elvis/mj-j5/abba

the decision between elvis & barry white was actually tougher than the who & beatles

Do you guys really have souls so dead as to not be moved by "Heartbreak Hotel?" Cheez.

totally dead soul, yep

I don't even have a soul ;_;

I'm not as fond of ABBA as I am for Stewart, but he deserves some points, so I voted Who, Elvis Presley, Rod Stewart, ABBA.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Who, Barry White, Rod Stewart, ABBA. Based wholly on what I prefer RIGHT NOW. I am so loving Rod Stewart.

Would definitely have voted for Rod Stewart if he was up against Barry White (who's still good, even innovative, but I never set out to listen to), fwiw.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I know even less about Brazilian music than I thought, by many orders of magnitude.

Carlos was at the forefront of Brazilian rock and roll and youth culture in general in the mid-60s but then instead of falling in with the Tropicalia folks, he decided to switch to romantic ballads and sentimental boleros and has basically been doing that for the last 40 years. Huge in Latin America (he sings in Spanish as well as Portuguese) but never really did anything to attract attention in the English-language world. Still, people like Caetano Veloso credit him as a major influence.

And I'd never heard of him either before a few weeks ago, when I was assigned to write an article about him.

My tally:

Beatles 57
Who 29

Elvis Presley 59
Barry White 27

Michael Jackson/Jackson 5ive 78
Rod Stewart 9

ABBA 68
Britney Spears 18

Wiki Worldwide Sales Bracket POLL: GROUP TWO (of eight)

I'M A WINNER!