The Official Chart Company in the U.K. are gearing up for next month’s 60th anniversary of their first published chart with countdowns of some of the biggest artists of the era.
Elvis Presley
On Thursday, they revealed the ten biggest selling male singles artists of the last sixty years and it’s Elvis Presley topping the tally. His total for the period is 21.7 million, just 200,000 more than the man in second, the U.K.’s own Cliff Richard. While Richard scored his biggest hits in the U.S. during the late-70’s and early-80’s, he has been a perennial seller in Britain starting with 1958’s Move It all the way up to his 2008 hit Thank You For a Lifetime which peaked at number 3.
It’s interesting to note that, with three of the artists in the top ten, their biggest hit in the U.K. was hardly noticed in the U.S. Michael Jackson’s biggest U.K. hit was Earth Song which didn’t even chart in the U.S. For Paul McCartney, it was Mull of Kintyre which only made it to 33 in America and, for Rod Stewart, his biggest in Britain was Sailing, which topped out at 58 in the U.S.
The top ten with their sales and biggest U.K. hit:
- Elvis Presley (12.7 million, It’s Now or Never)
- Cliff Richard (12.5 million, The Young Ones)
- Michael Jackson (15.5 million, Earth Song)
- Elton John (15.0 million, Candle in the Wind ’97/There’s Something in the Way You Look Tonight)
- David Bowie (10.7 million, Let’s Dance)
- Paul McCartney (10.3 million, Mull of Kintyre/Girl’s School)
- Rod Stewart (9.9 million, Sailing)
- Stevie Wonder (9.1 million, I Just Called to Say I Love You)
- Eminem (8.9 million, Love the Way You Lie)
- George Michael (7.9 million, Careless Whisper)
